In this Short Symposium Claudio Minca, Alexandra Rijke, Polly Pallister-Wilkins, Martina Tazzioli, Darshan Vigneswaran, Henk van Houtum and Annelies van Uden reflect upon the growing relevance of biopolitical perspectives in camp studies, border studies, refugee studies and specifically in research at the intersection between mobility studies and political geography.

This Symposium is the outcome of a seminar held at Wageningen University in December 2018, similarly titled ‘Rethinking the Biopolitical: Borders, Walls, Camps…’ Through an analysis of several empirical cases – most notably hotspots on the Greek Aegean Island, refugee’s forced hyper mobility in Europe, speech acts connected to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people in Myanmar and the ‘voluntary return’ policies in Europe, and the paper borders created by visa systems – the authors indicate new possible fields of enquiry related to the biopolitical critically inspired by the work of authors such as Giorgio Agamben and Jasbir Puar, while also clearly restating the fundamental importance of Foucault’s original contribution to any biopolitical analytical framework today.

https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/MABSTACDWIE8W4CGQZY6/full