Presentation: Toronto Metropolitan University, 20&21 MAR 2023
Alastair Clarke has been invited to present at a conference at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) on March 20th and March 21st. TMU invited Mr Clarke based on his expertise in immigration and refugee law. Details from TMU:
Bordering Migration Workshop: Theoretical Debates and Recent Developments in Border Policies and Practice
Date and Time: March 20th, 2023 9AM – 3:30PM EDT and March 21st, 2023 9AM – 3:15PM EDT
Location: In person at CERC Migration Office, Eaton Centre, 220 Yonge Street Suite 204, and Online
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
Border control policies are implemented to facilitate and restrict mobility in the name of governmental mandates for orderly and secure migration channels. Over the past decades, States have adopted “smarter” approaches to border control to limit access to and stay in their territory of unwanted migrants and border crossers. Bordering processes encompass a plurality of ways in which borders are actively expanded and constricted to regulate mobility beyond and within geographical and colonial boundaries of nation-states. From border walls to algorithms, detention centres to classrooms, bordering poses significant challenges for the human rights of people on the move. Border control and cooperation within and among States can prevent people from accessing refugee protection, restrict movement across Indigenous lands, perpetuate insecure immigration status, and subject people to technological and physical modes of border policing and violence. They increase safety risk, as people desperate for alternatives tend to embark on dangerous journeys often subject to smuggling enterprises. People are treated differently at border sites based on grounds of race, gender, and other identities, showing the deeply embedded discriminatory and oppressive nature of bordering.
This workshop aims to advance transformative border studies, human rights scholarship, and policy from diverse critical and interdisciplinary perspectives in Canada and internationally. The first day of the workshop presents three panels which address migration control policies and practices with a focus on their securitizing nature and their implications for migrants’ rights. The second day of the workshop consists of two panels and a roundtable discussion which elaborate on border regimes in the North American context and probe issues surrounding the Canada-US border crossings, the emerging border technologies, and access to protection. The collective aim of these discussions is to explore the implications of bordering processes for the fundamental rights and freedoms of migrants, and the ways in which borders have been rescaled and reconfigured to regulate mobility. The workshop also seeks to surface innovative theoretical and methodological approaches in migration and border studies.
If you are interested in attending Mr Clarke’s presentation, be sure to register for the conference and attend in-person or participate online on March 21st from 11AM to 12:30PM, EDT. Mr Clarke is greatly looking forward to presenting with Ms Loly Rico and the other presenters.
As you may be aware if you read Mr Clarke’s professional background from our website, he used to teach at Seneca College. You can also read more on Mr Clarke’s brief biography which is published on our website. Mr Clarke and Ms Rico were actually both instructors at Seneca College in 2007 and 2008. They taught different sections on a course on immigration and refugee law for students in Toronto.