On 3 October 2017 Professor Jarosław Jańczak (a 2017 Foreign Visitors Fellow at the SRC) organized a special lecture on Border Studies at his home institution. Akihiro Iwashita attended and gave a lecture with the title ‘Transformed Border in the Borderless World: The Case of Asia’. Over 50 graduate students and faculty were in the audience meaning there was close to a full house. The main message of his lecture was that humans can’t live without borders. Rather than dream of borderless society they should learn how to manage life with borders. In response, a student from Catalonia questioned this view and a lively discussion ensued. Europe’s continuing problems with borders mean that the importance of comparative work with Asia is going to increase in the future. UBRJ looks forward to continuing to work with Professor Jańczak and Adam Mickiewicz University.
(Akihiro Iwashita)
Eurasia Unit for Border Research (Japan)
