Book Talk: Affective Bordering: Race, Deservingness and the Emotional Politics of Migration Control

Join us for a presentation and discussion of Billy Holzberg’s new monograph Affective Bordering: Race, Deservingness and the Emotional Politics of Migration Control. This book examines how affect and emotions work to secure and contest contemporary border regimes.

In times of heightened global displacement and intensified nationalism, the question of borders has moved to the centre of social and political analysis. What often remains unacknowledged in these theorisations, however, is that bordering is not merely a political, economic or symbolic practice; it is also an affective one that operates at the level of emotion and attachment. This book conceptualises the affective dimension of bordering practices by uncovering how emotions like anger, fear and hope work to reproduce and contest racialised distinctions between citizen and migrant in political and media discourse. It examines key events in the wake of the “refugee crisis” in Germany and traces how the initial hope and empathy of the long summer of migration of 2015 gave way to national anger, fear and shamelessness in the years following. The book challenges the assumption that positive emotions like compassion necessarily work as a counter to negative emotions like anger or fear and reveals the racial grammars of deservingness that shape border governance today. Combining queer feminist theories of affect with postcolonial border and migration studies, Affective Bordering offers a thought-provoking perspective on borders in today’s world.

The event will begin with a presentation by the author, Dr Billy Holzberg, introducing the book’s exploration of how affect and emotions work as a site of border making. Following this, a discussion with the panel (TBA) and the audience will reflect on the book’s key themes and their broader implications, offering an opportunity for rich dialogue and debate on the connection between affect, borders and racism.

For more information about the book, visit Manchester University Press.

About the speaker

Dr Billy Holzberg is a Lecturer in Social Justice at the Centre for Public Policy Research at King’s College London. He is an interdisciplinary scholar of social justice with a focus on the intersections of sexuality, race, and migration. Blending transnational queer and feminist theory, affect theory, and critical migration studies, his work explores the affective and sexual dynamics that shape growing nationalisms and intensified border regimes.

All are welcome! We encourage participation from students, staff, and anyone interested in migration, affect, and social justice.