Borders Talk: Dots, Dashes & the Stories They Tell (trailer)

Hosted by Border Studies academics Zalfa Feghali and Gillian Roberts, this podcast will explore border depictions and encounters in our contemporary world.
 
Zalfa, Gillian, and their guests will discuss borders, their cultural manifestations, and their implications. In their aim to make the academic field of border studies accessible to non-specialist audiences, they will ask questions like: “What do borders look like?”, “How are borders used and mobilised in our everyday lives?”, and “What different borders can be known?”
 
To answer these questions, they will consider current events, personal stories, and specialist academic texts, as well as exploring and reflecting on “classic” texts of Border Studies.

The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations.

Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for use of recording equipment, and to India Downton for her invaluable expertise. Thanks also to the Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK and the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support.

Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com

Transcript

Zalfa Feghali:
Welcome to Borders Talk, dots, dashes, and the stories they tell. We are Zalfa Feghali...

Gillian Roberts:
And Gillian Roberts, two border studies academics in England's East Midlands from different countries with multiple passports.

Gillian Roberts:
Zalfa, what made you interested in border studies?

Zalfa Feghali:
It's probably because border studies is a way to provide a vocabulary for the experiences that I have had over the course of my intellectual and, I guess, actual life. I grew up in places where borders were both architecturally visible, but also socially embedded and invisible. and it became very commonplace to exist within and around and across these borders, but I didn't know that it was not necessarily everybody's lived experience. So border studies has given sense to my personal experiences. Why border studies for you?

Gillian Roberts:
Well, I think similarly to you, a lot of it is really about my life experiences, those very faint dots and dashes on maps. So I was born in Algonquin territory, what is now referred to as Canada, in the city of Ottawa, right on the border with the province of Quebec. And Ottawa is basically a bilingual city. I've always been interested in these differences that invisible lines make.

Zalfa Feghali:
What borders have you known? Tell us your stories.