Viralised borders

L he COVID 19 pandemic hit the globalised world hard in 2020, casting a harsh light on the dysfunctions and fractures of today's societies. In the face of the epidemic, human mobility, at the heart of migratory dynamics in an interconnected system, has become the main target: failing to control an unknown virus, the various governments have had to control its vector, i.e. travel. Containment, curfews and the updating of borders are the cornerstones of the measures put in place to combat the pandemic.

In the current state of health emergency, the question of borders is more pressing than ever. In the first place, the current pandemic is accelerating a process of border closure and national egoism that had already begun in the previous decade. It is also contributing to the updating and even invention of new borders, within national territories that are fragmented by bans on movement from one district to another or by localised administrative and/or health treatment. These restrictive measures mark the return to the forefront of the representation of a border-line, the updating of which should make it possible to erect a barrier in the face of the pandemic. In this respect, they have an impact on the daily lives of border populations, whose mobility habits have contributed over the long term to shaping a thick border with its own local dynamics. Lastly, the current crisis is generating contrasting reactions from within the population itself, ranging from calls for the border to be closed, an increase in discriminatory acts and the denunciation of the danger posed by those 'on the other side', to the re-mobilisation of strategies for circumventing and erasing a border-line perceived as artificial and disconnected from local realities. This round-table discussion continues the reflection begun by the project team on 'lived borders' through the prism of the notion of failure often associated with border regions.

The 'Borders, Circulations, Interculturalities and Human-Milieu Interactions' seminar is organised by Agnès Clerc-Renaud (LEEISA), Soizic Croguennec (MINEA), Damien Davy (LEEISA), Rosuel Lima Pereira (MINEA), Silvia Macedo (MINEA) and Marianne Palisse (LEEISA) as part of the AMERFRONT project (MINEA/UG), coordinated by Soizic Croguennec and Tina Harpin. It is particularly aimed at doctoral students at the UG and students in two masters programmes, the Civilisations, Cultures and Societies 'Societies and Interculturality' master's programme of the LSH DFR (CCS-SI master's programme) and the 'Pratiques et Ingénierie de l'éducation, du Travail et de l'Action Sociale' master's programme of the INSPÉ (PIETAS master's programme).