Now online: "Borders" by Robin Celikates
"A border is never just a border, a gate to be opened or closed at will."
We have just uploaded another essay from our “New Basics” series. You can read it here.
Robin Celikates is a leading German critical theorist. His main interests are political and social philosophy and critical theory, and his research focuses on issues of democracy, migration, citizenship, civil disobedience in democratic systems, the moral philosophy of recognition, and methodologies in political philosophy and social theory. Celikates’ powerful essay considers the international border regime, with a specific focus on the ways in which it has been transformed by the COVID pandemic. As he concludes, the reality of the border regime and its catastrophic impact on the most vulnerable confronts us with a choice: “we can either affirm this regime and continue to naturalize it, thus sliding down the slippery slope towards a struggle of all against all, or we can contribute to the manifold struggles by refugees and migrants alike that aim to denaturalize and politicize the border regime, to expose its violence, to make it less catastrophic, to transform it and, in the end, to abolish it.”