This paper will discuss barriers and possibilities for imagining a borderless world, that is, a world with significantly more freedom of movement for everyone with needs and desires to cross borders. Drawing on long-term fieldwork with refugee advocates in Europe, I reflect on failures to normalise migration and address historical and contemporary connections and complicities. However, I also consider efforts to challenge welfare chauvinism and think anew about borders and mobility justice. In conclusion, I shift the gaze from refugee advocates to anthropology and discuss how we might contribute to reframing dominant narratives and perspectives on migration and displacement.

Heidi Mogstad

Post Doctoral Researcher

Recent CMI publications: