Mirko
Winkel

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Mirko Winkel is the coordinator of the mLAB. The artist and curator teaches at the University of Bern and other places with the aim of synthesizing art with scientific research and socio-political concerns.

Susan
Thieme

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Susan Thieme is professor of Critical Sustainability Studies at the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern. She brought the Global Science Film Festival to Bern and co-developed the Social Learning Video Method. She is co-founder of the mLAB.  MORE

Carolin
Schurr

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Carolin Schurr is professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. As a feminist geographer, she has developed and experimented with affectual and visual methods to grasp the emotional effects of globalization processes on our intimate lives. She is co-founder of the mLAB.  MORE

Alexander
Vorbrugg

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Alexander Vorbrugg is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. His research interests include visual forms of research and science communication. He is part of the coordination group of the mLAB. MORE

Laura
Perler

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Laura Perler is a postdoctoral researcher in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. In her research she investigates inequalities in relation to reproductive technologies and the Swiss asylum system. In her projects she uses audiovisual approaches and collaborates with artists. Together with Mirko Winkel, she is currently organizing a traveling exhibition on egg donation. She is part of the coordination group of the mLAB. MORE

Stefan
Brönnimann

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Stefan Brönnimann is a professor in Climatology at the University of Bern. His research focuses on weather and climate reconstruction, climate models, climate dynamics, effects of volcanic eruptions on climate and climate and society interactions. MORE

Elisabeth
Militz

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Elisabeth Militz is an Assistant Professor for Social and Digital Geographies at the University of Innsbruck. As a feminist political and cultural geographer, her focus lies on global/intimate relations and digital transformations. She experiments with affectual and feminist digital methodologies for human geographies. MORE

Adrien
Mestrot

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Adrien Mestrot is a professor in Soil Science at the University of Bern. Part of his research topics is analyzing the biogeochemistry of soils under global change to improve environmental health and food production.  MORE

Nora
Komposch

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Nora Komposch is a PhD student and assistant in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. Her research interests are geographies of the body, care and reproduction, migration and labor, and politics of the global intimate. MORE

Johanna
Paschen

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Johanna Paschen is a PhD student in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. Her research interests include social and environmental justice, transdisciplinarity and artistic research. In cooperation with the Academy of the Arts Bern, she is involved with the research project EcoArtLab. MORE

Luca
Tschiderer

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Luca Tschiderer is a PhD student in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. His research focuses on alternative practices of work in health- and care related contexts. As part of his PhD project he uses social learning videos as a participatory method towards workers inquiry. MORE

Sarah
Hartmann

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Sarah Hartmann is a Postdoc student in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. Her research looks at issues around work, transnational mobilities and future transformations in healthcare from a critical sustainability perspective. MORE

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Cartography
Carolin Schurr
2023
maps
seminar

La Frontera: (Intimate) Borders in Latin America

During the spring semester of 2023, the Social and Cultural Geography research group led by Prof. Dr. Carolin Schurr held a bachelor’s seminar that shed light on the intimate geographies of borders from the perspective of feminist political geography.

“La Frontera,” the border between the USA and Mexico, stands for the social and economic differences between North and Latin America, migration flows, and the increasing securitization and militarization of the border since Trump took office. Thousands of people cross this border every year – many of them as refugees trying to escape war, violence, and precarity in their home countries. However, the border is also a revolving door for legal and illegal businesses, from maquiladoras and agricultural products to smuggling gangs, drug and arms trafficking, trafficking in women, and prostitution.

While the border between the USA and Mexico is at the center of media and (geo)political attention, political border demarcations, and their border areas also play a central role in people’s everyday lives at many other colonially drawn borders in Latin America.

In this seminar, we approached the geographies of the border in Latin America in four steps:

  1. What is a border? Introduction to the border as an object of research in (feminist) political geography
  2. How did borders develop in Latin America? Elaboration of the history and geographies of different borders in Latin America
  3. How do borders manifest themselves in the everyday and intimate lives of people in Latin America? Development of case studies according to students’ interests
  4. How can we c/artographically represent borders and critically reflect on the challenges of mapping them? Conception and development of a story map

 

On a methodological level, the course worked with story maps in which students researched quantitative and/or qualitative data for their own chosen case study and processed these together with the researched literature cartographically and visually. The students created either digital or analog story maps that show the multiscalar entanglements of borders with international politics, national legislation, and intimate experiences. In the following we present some selected storymaps.

 

 

 

 

The journey on “La Bestia” – An emotional cartography based on the Film “Which Way Home.”

Andri Buchli, Johanna Bühler, Nikolaj Endrich & Anatol Ledergerber

If the map fails to load correctly, please visit here.

Download the complete document (in German)

 

 

 

 

Entanglements of intimacy and (im)mobility at the Haitian-Dominican Border – Traced through the case of Marie.

Elisa Probst, Sophia Schatz & Mia Slappnig

If the map fails to load correctly, please visit here.

 

 

 

 

Making the complexity of border structures tangible through border art and geographical concepts

Anja von Matt, Sofia Kevic & Seraina Lerf

If the map fails to load correctly, please visit here.