On November 13, 2024, Dr. Laura Jung delivered a keynote at the event "AI at the Border – Digital Technologies in Migration Contexts", examining AI applications in asylum processes and exploring the ethical and human rights challenges of these technologies. Afterwards, Univ-Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata moderated a panel which included voices from academia, policy, and NGOs. The event is a cooperation between the Artificial Intelligence Ethics Advisory Board of the Austrian Commission for UNESCO, the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Human Security and the European Training and Research Center for Human Rights and Democracy at the University of Graz.
On Monday 4, 2024, project leader Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata presented the results of her long-term research on European Migration Policy and the Mediterranean at the Aula, the university's most majestic room. This took place in the framework of the "Monday's Academy", a lecture series directed to any public, and one of Uni Graz's most representative initiatives for sharing knowledge with the wider local community. This keynote was live-streamed and followed at the headquarters of 5 different cultural and political institutions all around Austria.
On October 22 & 23, 2024, Dr. Chiara Pagano participated in the conference "Migrants’ Mobilities, (Post)Colonial Borders, and State Policies in Morocco and the Mediterranean Region", hosted by Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Fes, Morocco, where she presented the paper "Illegitimate Practices and Ethnic Segregation: How the Italian Hotspot System Excludes North African Citizens from Europe".
On 21 October, 2024, project leader Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata talked about the shifts in EU migration and asylum policies in the broadcast "Verschärfen, Abschotten, Abschieben", or "Tightening up, sealing off, deporting", hosted by the Austrian national public broadcaster ORF. She explored their societal impacts and the "fiction of control" in border practices.
On 17 October, 2024, Dr. Chiara Pagano participated in the workshop “Protecting people or borders?” within the scope of the First Conference on the Law of the Sea and Maritime Solidarity organized by SOS Mediterranee in Montpellier.
On October 10 & 11, 2024, Dr. Laura Jung contributed to the ADiM Doctoral and Postdoctoral Colloquium "Migration & Artificial Intelligence: What Future for Migration and Asylum Policy in the EU?", in Lampedusa. During the second day of the colloquium, she presented her research, which critically examines the implications of artificial intelligence on the future of migration and asylum policy within the European Union.
On Friday, September 27, 2024, Dr. Laura Jung was elected as one of the new spokespersons of the Migration Policy Working Group at the DVPW (German Political Science Association) Conference in Göttingen.
On June 4, 2024, we had the pleasure to host Behrouz Boochani for a student teach-in within the framework of the lecture "Introduction to Post-colonial Studies". Boochani is an award-winning Kurdish writer, journalist, scholar, cultural advocate, and filmmaker. He currently serves as an Associate Professor in Social Sciences at UNSW and is a non-resident Visiting Scholar at the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre (SAPMiC) at the University of Sydney. Boochani is an Honorary Member of PEN International and has received numerous awards, including the Amnesty International Australia 2017 Media Award, the Diaspora Symposium Social Justice Award, and the Anna Politkovskaya Award.
On June 5, 2024, Prof. Dr. Deniz Yükseker examined, through the concept of vernacularization, how migrant integration as a policy concept has been transferred to Turkey through its Europeanization of migration policy, especially in the wake of the EU migration management externalization. Deniz Yükseker is a professor of sociology at the Izmir University of Economics and has published extensively on Syrian refugees, African migrants, forced internal displacement of Kurds, and circular migration of shuttle traders in Turkey.
From May 30 to June 2, 2024, the conference "Camps, Carceral Imaginaries, and Critical Interventions" took place at the University of Graz, hosted by the Center for Inter-American Studies (CIAS), and co-organized by project leader Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata. The Elastic Borders team, together with Alaa Dia, held a panel on the result of their research, while they also chaired several panels.
On 23 & 24 May, 2024, the International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL), in Oñati, Basque Country held the workshop "Interdisciplinary Meeting on Critical Border Studies: Comparative perspectives to deconstruct and answer exceptionality". PhD Candidate Mirco Buoso presented some of the findings of the Elastic Borders research project and engaged in debate with other participants.
Project Leader Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata and Postdoctoral Researchers Dr. Laura Jung and Dr. Chiara Pagano, as members of the Cluster "Migration, Borders, and Mobilities in, around, and across Europe," co-organized a transdisciplinary lecture series featuring a distinguished group of scholars, journalists, and activists working on critical aspects of contemporary dimensions of the European border regime. The lecture series took place between April and June 2023.
Dr. Chiara Pagano traveled to Tunis to present the special issue "Libye(s) en devenir" she co-edited with Dr. Chiara Loschi on May 25, 2023.
The Elastic Borders team organized a panel discussion during the "Law Faculty Day" of the University of Graz, on May 5, 2023, titled "Borders Beyond Law: The EU’s Elastic Borders", where Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata, Dr. Laura Jung, and Dr. Chiara Pagano presented their research.