Philosophies of the South: (De)Bordering the Human

The Philosophies of the South series creates a platform for scholars, thinkers, activists, and practitioners engaging with intellectual traditions and critical frameworks that challenge the dominance of Western philosophical paradigms. Bringing together work inspired by decolonial thought, Indigenous epistemologies, and other critical traditions, the series explores how philosophy can be reimagined through perspectives that emerge from histories of colonialism, resistance, and alternative ways of knowing. Through conversations across disciplines and practices, the series alms to foster intellectual exchange, expand philosophical inquiry, and contribute to ongoing struggles for epistemic justice.

(De)Bordering the Human:

Borders are often framed as neutral tools for organising political life. Yet modern border regimes are deeply entangled with the histories of empire, colonial expansion, and racial hierarchy that shaped the modern world. In this online conversation, Nandita Sharma and rémy-paulin twahirwa examine how borders regulate movement, produce categories of belonging and exclusion, and define the boundaries of the human. They bring together critiques of nationalism, migration governance, and coloniality to reflect on how struggles over mobility continue to reshape our political and philosophical understandings of the world and what a borderless human might look like.

About the Speaker:

Nandita Sharma is Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and an activist-scholar. Her research addresses human migration, migrant labor, nation-state power, ideologies of racism, sexism, and nationalism, processes of identification and self-understanding, and social movements for justice. She is the author of Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of ‘Migrant Workers’ in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2006) and Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants (Duke University Press, 2020).

The Moderator:

Rémy-Paulin Twahirwa is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Aston University (ESRC-funded project: Peripheralisation of Asylum Accommodation), community organiser and writer based in London, specialising in immigration detention, borders, and the racialised governance of mobility. Their research examines confinement, legal personhood, and the expansion of the carceral state, with particular attention to the afterlives of empire and coloniality in contemporary border regimes. They are currently completing their first manuscript, On Ghostly Lives and serve as Managing Editor of The Philosopher.

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This is an online conversation and audience Q&A presented by the UK-based journal The Philosopher. It is open to the public and held on Zoom. The event is free to attend but the Zoom registration page has, by default, an optional donation amount that you can change to $0 (or whatever you wish). Donations go to The Philosopher magazine to cover our costs and expand the scope of our series.

Please send feedback or comments about our events directly to thephilosopher1923@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!

About The Philosopher (https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/):

The Philosopher is the longest-running public philosophy journal in the UK (founded in 1923). It is published by the The Philosophical Society of England (http://www.philsoceng.uk/), a registered charity founded ten years earlier than the journal in 1913, and still running regular groups, workshops, and conferences around the UK. As of 2018, The Philosopher is edited by Newcastle-based philosopher Anthony Morgan and is published quarterly, both in print and digitally.

The journal aims to represent contemporary philosophy in all its many and constantly evolving forms, both within academia and beyond. Contributors over the years have ranged from John Dewey and G.K. Chesterton to contemporary thinkers like Christine Korsgaard, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elizabeth Anderson, Martin Hägglund, Cary Wolfe, Avital Ronell, and Adam Kotsko.