Overview

Despite decades of globalisation, borders and walls are everywhere and growing in response to mass migration, conflict, war, pandemics and efforts to secure the state. Borders reflect, reinforce, create and sometimes disrupt existing dynamics of power, equality and difference. Border studies brings together a range of different disciplines such as geopolitics, international relations and security studies, to understand how borders both divide and unite humans and space within and across societies.

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
04-August-2025
02-November-2025
Last self-enrolment date
17-August-2025
Census date
31-August-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
19-September-2025
Results released date
09-December-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Critically analyse key debates and interdisciplinary approaches to border studies
  • Analyse the different modalities of power and resistance operating through different types of bordering practices
  • Examine the different functions of borders through comparative empirical cases.
  • Engage with and assess the political, economic, social and cultural implications of bordering practices and borderwork

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
On-campus
Lecture		1.00 12 weeks 12
On-campus
Class		2.00 12 weeks 24
Specified Activities
Various		5.00 12 weeks 60
Unspecified Activities
Independent Learning		4.50 12 weeks 54
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
Case Study ReportIndividual 30% 1,2,3,4 
Major EssayIndividual 50% 1,2 
WorkshopIndividual 20% 3 

Content

  • The border in historical context: Mapping space and seeing borders
  • Critical border studies and approaches
  • Border-making and borderscapes: lived experiences of borders
  • The walled world: the return of border walls
  • Bordering pratices: Digital and virtual borders
  • The sites of bordering: air, space, sea
  • Gender and borders
  • Labour, economics and outsourcing borders
  • Mobility, immobility, people and borders
  • Violence and borders: borders and wars/conflicts
  • Colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial borders/bordermaking
  • The cosmopolitan border and border failures

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.