Borderlands and “Borderman.” Towards a New Cosmopolis – Michel Agier

The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility hosts a lecture by Michel Agier entitled Bordelands and “Borderman” – Towards a New Cosmopolis.

Through the study of contemporary migrants’ experiences in Africa, Middle-East and Europe, this talk addresses the rising social importance of the “borderman,” that is, men and women in the move in precarious condition. Prof. Agier describes them as “wanderers,” “métèques” and “pariahs,” relating their trajectories to their social positions and the places they occupy (encampments, squats, camps). Prof Agier discusses cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitcs, and shows how these contemporary migrants develop at the global scale a new and banal cosmopolitanism.

Michel Agier is Professor of Anthropology at l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Director of Research at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement. Prof. Agier is also Visiting Scholar at the New School for Social Research (2015).

The event is co-sponsored by Politics and part of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility 2014-15 Lecture Series “Rethinking Refugee Spaces: Architecture, Design, and Politics.”

Tuesday April 21th 2015 at 6pm

Lecture Hall (UL 105)

63 Fifth avenue, New York NY