Migration, Ethics and Borders in International Politics

Against the backdrop of the recent migration ‘crisis’ in Europe, the question of how to develop an ethical response to the arrival of migrants and refugees has become extremely significant. The failure of the EU to develop a responsible and successful joint strategy of response has made this question all the more urgent.

A primary difficulty in coming up with an ethical response to the arrival of migrants and refugees has to do with the exclusionary borders of the sovereign state. While these borders are not fixed it is difficult to imagine an ethical response that would simply eradicate the borders between the inside and the outside of the state.

How might it be possible to develop an ethical response to the recent migration ‘crisis’? What are the challenges of thinking ethics in relation to the politics of borders and the exclusionary nature of the modern state? What are the ethics and politics of hospitality, and how can hospitality be understood in terms of issues of power, resistance and critique in international politics?

Dan Bulley is Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Queen’s University Belfast, and author of the recently published book Migration, Ethics and Power: Spaces of Hospitality in International Politics (London: Sage, 2016).

Stefan Borg is Associate Research Fellow, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and Lecturer in International Relations at Stockholm University.

Tom Lundborg is Senior Research Fellow, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University.

Caroline Holmqvist is Researcher, The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Swedish Defence University and currently Research Fellow at Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels.

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