Contesting violent border regimes - Final conference of the Asylum Commission

The Asylum Commission´s closing conference in August 2022 will focus on practical solidarity work contesting border controls.

We have invited actors from several European countries and will focus on knowledge dissemination, exchange of experience and a collaborative toolkit or written manifesto for solidarity work with people seeking protection.

Solidarity work in this context refers to the safe crossing of nation states’ borders, counteracting border controls, and pointing to violence at borders or violent border controls in general.The background is the Asylum Commission at Linköping University that was launched in 2019 as a transdisciplinary initiative involving 65 people with expertise in the Swedish asylum process; scholars, civil society, people who themselves have sought asylum in Sweden and professionals in welfare institutions (the same person can be part of these groups).

The Asylum Commission has, in a Swedish context, identified and analyzed legal shifts in a restrictive direction in relation to migration politics after 2015.

It has been central for the commission to perform this review from the starting point of asylum seekers´ own experiences (see https://liu.se/en/research/asylum-commission).During the final conference, the commission´s results will be disseminated to a broader public, and space will be provided for the exchange of experience of new forms of no-border work in solidarity with refugees in different European countries.

The conference will revolve around two queries: What is the border control policy situation in different European countries?How do the invited actors work to counteract the effects of violent border politics and how do they strive to enable a future where people can move freely and safely?The conference is important for the sharing of knowledge about new forms of resistance and solidarity work in the context of asylum politics in Europe.

Short films will be produced to publicly disseminate the results of the conference.