One of the pressing questions of our time is how humans can find better ways to co-exist with other species and the environments we share. The border-crossing nature of the ongoing degradation of our climate and biosphere defies the notion that we can organize our societies within neatly parceled sovereign territories. It, thus, fundamentally questions the dominant Westphalian way of thinking and practicing borders. Likewise, the border-crossing nature of challenges also defies a borderless approach failing to differentiate responsibilities, vulnerabilities, and levels of resiliency, be these of humans or of other species. In response, the Green Borders research cluster explores new ways of cross-border collaboration and new border imaginaries capable of accommodating the challenges of the current climate and biosphere crises. This research follows two paths. One explores cross-border collaboration around climate adaptation and mitigation. Borders often constitute a major bottleneck to the roll-out of the green transition leaving largely unrealized the potential benefits of knowledge exchange, stronger economic relations, shared infrastructure, etc. Hence, this path investigates barriers and drivers for improving collaboration across borders. The other path works with more-than-human relations to understand how humans, animals, plants, infrastructures and landscapes all play powerful roles in bordering practices. This path accentuates the need to challenge the Anthropocene by including multiple materialities and species into our imaginaries.
Green Borders
