As a token of progressing globalization, the volume of international border crossings by people, goods, policies and data have grown steadily for decades. The expanded accessibility due to these global flows has metaphorically shrunk the globe as reaching distant locations has become easier, cheaper and quicker. While this has fostered the image of a unified globe, mobility is not evenly possible to all populations globally. There are also geopolitical and geoeconomic processes that may intervene in the seemingly unfettered distribution of data, policies and goods. Simply put, the idea of a ‘borderless world’, sometimes celebrated as a (utopian) endpoint of human history, is not the reality in a world traversed by borders enforced by powerful regimes to sort out between desired and unwanted forms of mobility.
The image of a globally shared world has recently been put into dramatic relief by the travel restrictions and border closures in response to Covid-19. In air traffic alone the year 2020 witnessed a striking 75.6 % decrease in the number of scheduled international passengers, showing that in the right circumstances international borders can be erected quickly and effectively. These restrictions have not treated mobile populations equally. As a new layer in the broader landscape of highly uneven global mobility, they only exacerbate inequalities for hundreds of millions of people who are eligible to travel documentation that only grants entry at a few international borders, or who lack access to any travel documentation at all.
This unique course will probe into a variety of ways in which mobilities across the globe are unevenly accessible or distributed. Expert lecturers from a variety of disciplinary perspectives will examine how the global mobility regime is structured and how it is shifting; how unevenness is distributed between people, data, policies and goods; and how alternative epistemologies are affected by or can affect access.
Students will have the opportunity to attend exciting lectures by a series of local and visiting faculty probing the “global” from the point of view of uneven mobilities. The 5 ECTS course is organized in collaboration by the three faculties MAB, EDU and SOC and will be offered entirely in English.
Course schedule, speakers and vanues:
20 April 14-16 Pinni A2100 Paavo Koli -Sali Opening seminar Ali Qadir, Jouni Häkli and Nelli Piattoeva with Oshie Nishimura-Sahi
21 April 14-16 Pinni A2100 Paavo Koli -Sali “Inequality and Mobility from a World Society Perspective” by Selina R. Gallo-Cruz
22 April 14-16 Pinni B1097 “Queer migrations and the transnational politics of sexuality and racialization” by Derek Ruez
25 April 14-16 Pinni A2100 Paavo Koli -Sali “International Organizations and the Global Mobility of Climate Policy Ideas” by Tuomas Ylä-Anttila
26 April 14-16 Pinni A2100 Paavo Koli -Sali “Humanitarianism and Global Supply Chains” by Elisa Pascucci
27 April 14-16 Pinni A2100 Paavo Koli -Sali “The Transformation of Education in Times of Global Datafication – Disentangling Mobilities” by Sigrid Hartong
28 April 14-16 Pinni A2100 Paavo Koli -Sali Final seminar
Course instructions and materials will be shared on Moodle platform.
Course registration via SISU.
Contact information
Professor Ali Qadir ali.qadir@tuni.fi
Professor Jouni Häkli jouni.hakli@tuni.fi
Associate Professor Nelli Piattoeva nelli.piattoeva@tuni.fi