Borders Talk: Dots, Dashes & the Stories They Tell

Borders and Fences

Send us a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2355740/fan_mail/new] For the benefit of Frankie the Flat Coated Retriever and her fans, we’re not saying that she will always come second behind her older Labrador sister, but we’re not not saying that, either. The Guardian article we refer to about the Poland-Belarus border is Jon Henley’s “‘People treated like weapons’: more deaths feared at Poland-Belarus border” [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/31/poland-belarus-border-migrants-deaths] (2021). We quote from Susan Kouguell’s interview with Agnieszka Holland (2024) from the Script website [https://scriptmag.com/interviews-features/interview-with-green-border-filmmaker-agnieszka-holland]. For more on Polish politicians likening Green Border to Nazi propaganda, see Philip Oltermann’s Guardian piece [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/sep/14/refugee-film-green-border-by-agnieszka-holland-attacked-by-polish-government] (2023).  For an image of Mexico-US border at San Diego/Tijuana, see this CNN article [https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/31/us/us-mexico-border-migrant-woman-death] (2021). We’ve talked about this particular site before, in Episode 1.6 on Border Art, when we discussed Javier Tellez’s One Flew over the Void (Bala Perdida) from 2005. You can watch it here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiFFOGja4Yw]. You can find Georgia Cole’s piece “Shabana Mahmood is wrong: refugee status was never ‘permanent from day one’” on the Conversation website [https://theconversation.com/shabana-mahmood-is-wrong-refugee-status-was-never-permanent-from-day-one-277662]. The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations. Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support. Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com [https://www.silvermansound.com] Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com [https://podcastingeditor.com/]

Borders and Cosmopolitanism

Send us a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2355740/fan_mail/new] RIP Moira Rose, also sometimes known as the great Catherine O'Hara [https://tinyurl.com/mry6n9mc]. We refer to April Carter's The Political Theory of Global Citizenship [https://tinyurl.com/4xn7s7yz]; James Clifford's "Traveling Cultures" in Cultural Studies [https://tinyurl.com/yc7yasjw]; Homi Bhabha's The Location of Culture [https://tinyurl.com/3fhkxfv4]; Walter Mignolo's "The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism" [https://tinyurl.com/7699vk3p]; Jacques Derrida's On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203165713/cosmopolitanism-forgiveness-jacques-derrida]; Immanuel Kant's "Perpetual Peace: a Philosophical Sketch" [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50922/50922-h/50922-h.htm]; a speech by former Conservative UK prime minister Theresa May [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/12/theresa-mays-brexit-speech-had-shades-of-hitler]; we love Star Trek [https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/apr/12/make-it-so-star-trek-the-next-generation-remains-radically-hopeful-television]; a speech by former Conservative UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher [https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/no-such-thing-as-society-just-11-support-thatchers-view-on-anniversary-of-famous-interview-study-finds]; cities of sanctuary, especially currently in the US context [https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/30/politics/los-angeles-sanctuary-city-lawsuit]; the Leicester 2021 census [https://data.leicester.gov.uk/pages/census_leicester/]; Conservative-turned-Reform* politician Robert Jenrick's words about Birmingham [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/06/robert-jenrick-complained-of-not-seeing-another-white-face-in-handsworth-birmingham]; Reform-led councils installing UK and England flags [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz68d284dvyo]; a survey [https://tinyurl.com/4j27epbj] about how people in the UK interpret the proliferation of flags; Gogglebox's episode [https://tinyurl.com/5awh2fdn] that includes commentary on the proliferation of flags; Stuart Hall's "Encoding/decoding" [https://tinyurl.com/mt2wnfsu]; Steven Vertovec on superdiversity [https://tinyurl.com/yc4spne2]; Canada's official multicultural policy [https://tinyurl.com/sksj7js4], about which Eva Mackey [https://tinyurl.com/37bknm7n], Smaro Kamboureli [https://tinyurl.com/5emjux8a], and Wayde Compton [https://tinyurl.com/j9jzt93m], among others, have written; Toronto's linguistic diversity [https://tinyurl.com/yw8cwc4u]; an example image of the non-border [https://tinyurl.com/3zc7adks] Zalfa saw; the straight line of much of the Canada-US border [https://tinyurl.com/2ap82kr9]; and Wayde Compton [https://tinyurl.com/4nbetk4p] again. *The UK's Reform party is not to be confused with Canada's Reform party (1987-2000), although they share similar right-wing politics. Canada's Reform party was subsequently absorb The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations. Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support. Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com [https://www.silvermansound.com] Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com [https://podcastingeditor.com/]

Borders and Water

Send us a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2355740/fan_mail/new] Haven’t read Delacroix’s Small Boat yet? You know what to do! Head to your local independent bookshop, or borrow a copy from your library. Lines Drawn upon the Water [https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/L/Lines-Drawn-upon-the-Water2] is the title of a collection edited by Karl S. Hele about First Nations people in the Great Lakes borderlands. Speaking of the Great Lakes, our favourite line of David W. McFadden’s about Lake Huron is (still) from Great Lakes Suite [https://talonbooks.com/books/great-lakes-suite]. Behold the (UK) cover of Yann Martel’s 2001 novel Life of Pi [https://canongate.co.uk/books/318-life-of-pi/].  For more on the UK and France’s “one in, one out” deal, see this piece [https://theconversation.com/how-uk-france-one-in-one-out-migration-deal-will-work-and-what-the-challenges-could-be-260864] by Matilde Rosina. Three-year-old Alan Kurdi [https://genevasolutions.news/peace-humanitarian/ten-years-after-alan-kurdi-s-death-a-record-number-of-children-are-victims-of-war] and his family died in September 2015. For information about Australia’s detention policies, see the Refugee Council of Australia’s website [https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/detention/]. Read Kent and Syla’s piece on small island nations here [https://theconversation.com/what-will-happen-to-the-legal-status-of-sinking-nations-when-their-land-is-gone-263559].  For a starting point to thinking about responsibility, see Robert E. Goodin’s Protecting the Vulnerable [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo5974942.html] (1985) or read the UN’s Global Compact on Refugees [https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/who-we-are/global-compact-refugees]. The charity Care4Calais [https://care4calais.org/] works with refugees in the UK, France, and Belgium. The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations. Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support. Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com [https://www.silvermansound.com] Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com [https://podcastingeditor.com/]

Borders and Citizenship

Send us a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2355740/fan_mail/new] This episode is the first time we’ve asked each other “how are you?” Yes, we’ve checked.  Here are two “rankings” for passports: the Henley Passport Index [https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index/ranking], which describes itself as “the only one of its kind based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA)” and the Global Passport Power Rank [https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php], which at the time of recording, ranked as “equal” passports issued by Canada, the UK, and Cyprus. Eagle-eyed listeners will note this has changed.  Thinking about the nationality/citizenship distinction, here’s an example of that slippage in the British context [https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality]. Gillian refers to C. Lynn Smith’s chapter “Is Citizenship a Gendered Concept?” in Citizenship, Diversity, and Pluralism: Canadian and Comparative Perspectives [https://www.mqup.ca/citizenship--diversity--and-pluralism-products-9780773518933.php](eds Cairns et al.), 1999; and to Chelva Kanaganayakam’s chapter “Cool Dots and a Hybrid Scarborough: Multiculturalism as Canadian Myth” in Is Canada Postcolonial? Unsettling Canadian Literature [https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/I/Is-Canada-Postcolonial2](ed Moss), 2003.  “White civility” is an important analytical tool developed by Daniel Coleman in his book of the same title [https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9780802096425], published in 2006. We discuss “Borders” by Canadian writer Thomas King, published in 1993 in the collection One Good Story, That One and more recently republished as a comic book [https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/thomas-king/borders/9780316593052/] with illustrations by the Métis artist Natasha Donovan. For more on the Haudenosaunee Nationals’ travelling difficulties, please see this CBC article [https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/iroquois-nationals-face-travel-delays-to-world-lacrosse-championship-over-passport-issues-1.4740828] by Ka’nhehsí:io Deer. The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations. Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support. Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com [https://www.silvermansound.com] Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com [https://podcastingeditor.com/]

Borders and Hospitality

Send us a Message [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2355740/fan_mail/new] Special thanks to our guest speakers, whose border stories we gratefully share with their consent: Jenneba Sie-Jallok,  Loraine Masiya Mponela, Ambreen Hai, and Gaura Narayan. Gillian manages to get the name of her hometown wrong in this episode: it's Victoria, not Vancouver (which is not on Vancouver Island!). We recorded this episode at the brilliant “Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes [https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/hostileenvironments-hospitablepraxes/]” conference, organised by Dr Rachel Gregory Fox at the University of Kent, UK, 23-24 June 2025. Thank you, Rachel!  As we started to think about actually doing a podcast, we relied heavily on Stacey Copeland and Hannah McGregor’s A Guide to Academic Podcasting [https://scholars.wlu.ca/books/2/] (2021). Our amazing podcast editor is Steve Woodward, also known as The Podcasting Editor [https://podcastingeditor.com/], without whom Gillian would sound like Moira Rose [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moira_Rose#/media/File:Catherine_O'Hara_as_Moira_Rose_in_Schitt's_Creek,_season_3,_episode_1,_%22Opening_Night%22.png]. Gillian and Zalfa quote from previous episodes [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2355740]. Zalfa and Gillian quote from Jacques Derrida’s Of Hospitality [https://www.sup.org/books/theory-and-philosophy/hospitality] (translated by Rachel Bowlsby, to whom Gillian refers later in the episode).  Zalfa quotes Tiziano Bonini’s essay “Podcasting as a Hybrid Cultural Form Between Old and New Media” and Michelle Hilmes’ essay “But Is It Radio? New Forms and Voices in the Audio Private Sphere”, from The Routledge Companion to Radio and Podcast Studies [https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Radio-and-Podcast-Studies/Lindgren-Loviglio/p/book/9781032251646?srsltid=AfmBOopDCSsM_MTyf0vNl2JNuzPpcZFkfSG6uHPz4aBJ5wpoZp1ynpaW] (2022). Sara Ahmed writes about “the feminist ear.” [https://feministkilljoys.com/2022/06/01/feminist-ears/]  Canadian poet David W. McFadden’s collection Great Lakes Suite (1997) [https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/great-lakes-suite-david-w-mcfadden/3845226] inspired the dots and dashes of our podcast’s name [and Zalfa’s brief foray into Morse Code]. Gillian references his work in this episode, including the line “the dots and dashes [...] glistening in the waves” (p.192). Elizabeth Povinelli’s essay, “The Governance of the Prior” [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369801X.2011.545575] (2011)  Gillian mentions Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50922/50922-h/50922-h.htm] (1795) Mireille Rosello’s book Postcolonial Hospitality: The Immigrant as Guest (2002) [https://www.sup.org/books/literary-studies-and-literature/postcolonial-hospitality] The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations. Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support. Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com [https://www.silvermansound.com] Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com [https://podcastingeditor.com/]