Léa Lemaire, Lucas Oesch and Lorenzo Vianelli organised a 3 panels’ session at RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2019 in London on 28 August 2019. Their panel was entitled: Emerging notions in the analysis of forced migration and borders: From ambiguity to improvisation, and more.     

The panel focused on emerging notions such as ambiguity, uncertainty, volatility, discretion, in/visibilisation, inconsistency, improvisation. These notions are increasingly used to analyse the governance of the im/mobility of refugees, as well as the issue of borders. They are used in geography and other disciplines to study topics such as camps, walls, deportation, resettlement, refugee status determination, asylum seekers’ reception, irregular migration, and so on. This is true for both studies in the Global South and North. These notions fall within an attempt to explain and conceptualise the complexity of forced migration and borders, and the way they are governed. Indeed, they highlight contradictory dynamics and paradoxical processes. However, there has been hitherto little attempt to think across these notions and to reflect on them as analytical and conceptual tools in the study of forced migration and borders. The panel aimed at bringing together contributions referring to these emerging notions in order to explore their commonalities and diversity.