Border conferences ans research programs

Geneva

Various members of the academic staff in Geneva have long been committed to border studies, and have been part of the scientific committees of the last important border conferences:

As well as some important border research programmes such as:

Political geography and border dynamics are taught at bachelor and master levels. Currently, a common course on borders is being built together with the University of Grenoble to allow cross border mobility of advanced students and teachers. It should be open in the fall of 2011.

Staff members are also implied in various planning projects which deal with the border component, amongst which the franco-valdo-genevoise project and prospective regional thinking.
 

Grenoble

Some members of the academic staff in Grenoble are active researchers in the field of border studied: they have either organized or been part of the scientific committee of the last important border conferences held in France, Switzerland and of some Latin American events.

The main event has been the organisation, in 2004, of an international conference in Grenoble:

Participation to the scientific committees of:

Currently, the Grenoble team is working on the association between geopolitical and cultural approaches of borders problematics. It considers the border as an economic and symbolic resource used in stakeholders repositioning and as a governance levy, but also as an identity opportunity. The border is also worked upon through the tracing of its inscription in the mediums which allow its visualization (landscapes, natural objects, descriptive systems such as maps or GIS). A last part of the research program is building on the analysis of cross boundary imaginaries: it aims at understanding the representations of otherness revealed by the border (exotism, transgression, stereotypes, social value of space…). It has been part of a number of research programmes on borders, such as :