About BRIT
The Border Regions in Transition (BRIT) conference series has brought together international border scholars since 1994. Over successive editions held in different parts of the world, BRIT has developed into an interdisciplinary forum for research and debate on borders, borderlands and cross-border processes.
BRIT conferences bring together perspectives from geography, political science, sociology, anthropology, history, international relations, planning and other fields. A defining feature of the conference series is its interest in borders not simply as lines separating territories, but as dynamic social, political and cultural spaces shaped by interaction, mobility, conflict, cooperation and change.
Previous BRIT Conferences
- I – Berlin–Szczecin (Germany–Poland)
- II – Joensuu, Finland
- III – San Diego, USA
- IV – Chandigarh, India
- V – Tartu, Estonia
- VI – Pécs, Hungary
- VII – Jerusalem, Israel
- VIII – Lublin–Lviv (Poland–Ukraine)
- IX – Victoria–Bellingham (Canada–USA)
- X – Arica–Tacna (Chile–Peru)
- XI – Geneva–Grenoble (Switzerland–France)
- XII – Fukuoka–Busan (Japan–Korea)
- XIV – Arras–Lille–Mons (France–Belgium)
- XV – Hamburg–Sønderborg (Germany–Denmark)
- XVI – Abidjan–Cotonou (Nigeria–Benin)
- XVII – Pyla, Cyprus
BRIT XVIII
Rethinking Borderlands in an Era of Polycrisis
BRIT XVIII takes place at a time when multiple and interconnected transformations are reshaping societies and territories across the world. Geopolitical tensions, environmental change, migration, demographic shifts, economic uncertainty and changing security environments are simultaneously producing new processes of bordering, debordering and rebordering.
The conference approaches borderlands as dynamic interfaces where different political, cultural and social realities meet. They may function as spaces of separation and contestation, but also as environments of interaction, hybridisation, cooperation and community-building.
Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina offer a particularly meaningful geographical context for these discussions. The country’s political-territorial complexity, internal and international boundaries, position in Southeast Europe and relations with wider European integration processes provide an especially relevant setting for contemporary border studies.
BRIT XVIII aims to provide an open international forum for theoretical, empirical and practice-oriented contributions from different geographical contexts.