A joint initiative between the University of Bergen
and CMI – Chr. Michelsen Institute
What can COVID-19 tell us about the bordering practices of nation states? How can the pandemic reveal connections, normally hidden, between border dynamics, dominant political orders and national self-understandings? What other kinds of borders might exist?
Photo: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street In Aotearoa/New Zealand borders closed in March 2020 to protect citizens from COVID-19, a closure which was to remain in effect for over two years. Rather than a disruptor, however, this closure can be interpreted as a node in a much longer process of settler-colonial nation building and its particular global dynamic.
In this talk, Dr Fiona McCormack draws on her long-term ethnographic research with Indigenous Māori as well as a collaborative 18-month project on ‘borders’ to unpack the troubled relationship between state bordering and Indigenous sovereignty, and examine how, in moments when concepts of settler safety are threatened, border violence, far-right rhetoric and white supremacy visibly emerge.
See her paper Settler colonial bordering and post-pandemic futures: disrupting the nation state in Aotearoa/New Zealand
The talk will be followed by comments by Professor Edvard Hviding (UiB).
The event is chaired by Post Doctoral Researcher Hang Zhou (CMI).
Facebook event
Fiona is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Waikato in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Her research is based in marine and economic anthropology and the intersection of this with critical anti-colonial studies.
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Fiona is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Waikato in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Her research is based in marine and economic anthropology and the intersection of this with critical anti-colonial studies.
She studies the impact of ocean enclosures in marine spaces and local and creative resistances to environmental inequalities. Fiona has a particular interest in marine socio ecological relations and their potential to evoke new ways of living in an era of environmental decline. She conducts field research in Aotearoa, Hawaii, Ireland and Iceland.
Bergen Global is a joint initiative between the University of Bergen and Chr. Michelsen Institute that addresses global challenges.
