Participation in "The Seminar on the Border"

From 23 to 26 April 2026, Roberta Gentili participated in The Seminar on the Border: Reinterpretations: Transforming Borderscapes through Infrastructure, Oppression, and Resistance, organised by Badaczki i Badacze na Granicy (Researchers on the Border) in Świnoroje, near the Polish-Belarusian border. Bringing together researchers and activists working on migration and border struggles, the seminar created a space for discussing contemporary borders through the lenses of infrastructure, violence, mobility, and resistance. The event combined academic panels with a series of collective activities designed to confront directly with the surrounding borderscape. The combination of academic presentations and situated activities in the border region itself encouraged reflection on the material and lived dimensions of border regimes.

During the academic panels, Roberta presented a paper entitled “The Game” and the Infrastructures of Mobility in Una-Sana Canton (Bosnia and Herzegovina). The presentation explored how migrant mobility along the Bosnia-Croatia border is shaped through a dense archipelago of infrastructures that simultaneously facilitate and obstruct movement. 

The seminar fostered dialogue between academic research and activist forms of knowledge production, emphasising the importance of collaborative and engaged approaches to border research. Workshops and informal exchanges throughout the event further contributed to creating a collective space for reflecting on the political, ethical, and methodological challenges of studying borders and migration.