Borderline

"Ukraine has provided us with, I think, the most striking, the most rapid, the most swift and complete legal offensive or lawfare strategy that has ever been implemented." In this episode 🇺🇦 Ukraine's aggressive lawfare strategy ⚖️ International justice finally comes for the West 🤐 Why former great powers can't cope with their colonial crimes 🇫🇷 Reckoning with the Algerian War 🇨🇩 The DR Congo schools us on prosecuting environmental destruction 🇨🇴 Transitional justice lessons from Colombia, New Zealand, Scandinavia and more 🕊 Restitutions, reparations and truth commissions – justice beyond the courts Show notes [00:00:16] Intro [00:01:42] "There is a before Ukraine and an after Ukraine" [00:07:18] "Justice has become the third weapon of Ukraine's strategy" [00:11:46] Is lawfare a communication tool?`` [00:15:39] The slow wheels of the ICC [00:18:43] Justice gets much more pragmatic at the local level: the example of environmental crimes in the DRC [00:25:52] A renewed interest in justice for indigenous people [00:28:58] Colombia, a case study for all-encompassing transitional justice [00:30:14] Why are some countries better than other at looking into their colonial past? [00:32:26] The restitution of pillaged objects [00:34:28] A generational reckoning with colonial crimes: the French Algerian war [00:40:13] Statues, history vs memory and the new frontline of transitional justice [00:42:53] Outro 🌍 justiceinfo.net 📚 The Master of Confessions, by Thierry Cruvellier. Ecco Press. 2015. Find it here. 🧬 Check out The Guardian's Science Weekly podcast, where I'm executive producer for the next few weeks. ★ Support this podcast ★

A decade ago, journalist and "American without papers" Jose Antonio Vargas outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in a national magazine. Today he works with Hollywood and TV studios to humanise the immigrant story through pop culture. In this episode 📺 Trafficking in empathy and the power of story to change minds 😢 Why he regrets his mom sending him away to the US 🇺🇸 Reaching America's "moveable middle" 💸 How the economic argument for immigration backfired 😰 Why progressives abandoned the fight 📖 Stories as the last place for nuance and complexity Show notes [00:00:16] Intro [00:02:27] "Home is where I can do my work" [00:04:05] "Being a journalist is the identity I figured out before all others" [00:05:22] "All definitions are suspect" [00:07:28] "Why is it that only a certain portion of the population gets to be an activist?" [00:09:52] "Legalizing pot is a higher priority than legalizing people" [00:10:33] "Imprisoned by the language we use on immigrants" [00:14:09] "We can call immigrants essential labor, but we don't think of them as essential people" [00:16:16] "Storytelling is trafficking in empathy" [00:18:09] "The only time many white Americans meet a person of color or an immigrant is through the media they consume" [00:24:51] "We work on shows that reach the movable middle" [00:28:23] "We have yet to find some sort of language that talks about how borderless business and money is and how people are still very much, you know, locked up by these borders" [00:32:55] "If I had a say in the matter as a 12 year old, I would have told my mom, don't do that" [00:35:39] "That's the power of story" [00:37:51] "Narrative is not a slice of the pie. It's actually the pan." [00:39:39] "Storytelling is the only place where nuance can happen" [00:42:38] "White is not a country" [00:49:05] "I traded a life of being in the closet as undocumented in limbo to being a public undocumented person whose life is still in limbo" [00:52:46] Outro Jose Antonio Vargas's works 🇺🇸 Define American, a culture change organization that uses the power of narrative to humanize conversations about immigrants. 📚 Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen (2018, Harper Collins). Upcoming: White is Not a Country (2023, Pantheon Books) 🎬 Documented: A film by an undocumented American (2014, CNN) 🎭 What the Constitution Means to Me, a play by Heidi Schreck (producer) Works referenced 📚 Beloved, Toni Morrison 📺 Superstore (NBC) 📺 Roswell, New Mexico (CW) 🎬 The Lost Daughter (Netflix) 🎬 Drive my Car ★ Support this podcast ★

It starts with unauthorised migrants and doesn't end there. Filmmaker Sonita Gale follows professionals, students and British citizens whose lives were upended by the UK's immigration system. Sonita Gale is the director and executive producer of Hostile, a documentary film about the UK hostile environment, now in cinemas. Show notes [00:00:09] Intro [00:03:54] "The home of my parents is the home of the migrant story." [00:07:29] "A film about the migrant struggle" [00:13:08] "Different experiences, all interlinked by the hostile environment" [00:16:27] "People will start having more empathy, love and understanding" [00:21:04] "Where have you been the last 20 years?" [00:28:30] “I started to question whether that hostile environment is going to turn on me” [00:32:10] Where to see the film [00:33:21] Outro 🌍 www.hostiledocumentary.com 🐦 Follow @hostiledoc on Twitter 📷 Follow @hostiledoc on Instagram ★ Support this podcast ★

An emergency podcast with immigration lawyer and founder of freemovement.org Colin Yeo on the British government's bare minimum help to Ukrainian refugees, the gap between pronouncements and practice, and how Europe's own programme is putting Britain to shame. Plus: - the Nationality and Borders bill under scrutiny, - non-white refugees discriminated at the border, - lessons from last summer's Afghanistan promises, and - can we trust the EU long-term on this? Show notes [00:00:10] Intro [00:00:42] "Half a million people have fled" [00:03:10] "The UK has done almost nothing" [00:11:01] "The government's been very consistent in being anti-refugee" [00:12:59] "The asylum system is in a really sorry state" [00:15:08] The Nationality and Borders bill [00:18:21] Europe's response is a sharp contrast [00:20:52] International students and other non-white refugees stopped at borders [00:24:53] How you can help [00:26:47] Outro Colin Yeo is an immigration lawyer, the founder of freemovement.org and author of Welcome to Britain. Follow him on Twitter at @ColinYeo1. Evacuees from Ukraine seeking free immigration advice or lawyers who want to help can find information and contacts at https://advice-ukraine.co.uk. ★ Support this podcast ★

Show notes [00:00:20] Intro [00:03:22] "A large number of first-generation people" [00:04:54] "Fufu is a far superior lunch" [00:09:09] "It's three identities I'm juggling" [00:11:43] “The tension between the collectivist culture of most of the world and this very individualistic American culture” [00:13:54] "People raised in that context approach the world with a different eye" [00:16:23] "If I was not (multicultural) and I was saying the same things, it would be received much differently" [00:18:27] "You can't be an expert of your own experience" [00:22:05] "The people in charge are worried about everyone else's biases when the core problem is their own" [00:26:04] "The Great Resignation? I was way ahead of that curve" [00:31:08] "This value of humility that I was raised with is outdated" [00:39:42] Outro Follow Michael Rain on Instagram and on Twitter Watch Michael's TED talk Photo by Pamela Chen ★ Support this podcast ★

Sure, burnout is not *just* about overwork. But it *is* about overwork.

Read the essay and find all links at www.isabelleroughol.com. When New York Times media columnist Ben Smith and Bloomberg CEO Justin Smith quit to start “a new kind of global news media company,” many of us sniggered at the thought that two middle-aged white American men with literally the same last name could be the ones to bring together all of the world’s news consumers. The Smiths may not be the ones to do it. But can anyone create a truly global news source? And most vitally, would there be an audience for it? I’ve spent my whole career expanding news brands across borders and trying to address audiences as more than just inhabitants of a single nation-state. And I’ve come to this conclusion: We don’t need a global media, we need a globally literate one. ★ Support this podcast ★

In 2012, then Home Secretary Theresa May announced the plan: "The aim is to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants." The idea, borrowed from counterterrorism, was to make life so difficult for unwanted visitors that they would give up and go home. Instead, the hostile environment became a policy of systemic discrimination against all immigrants, authorised or not, their British families and any person that could be mistaken for an immigrant. And rather than leaving, many were pushed into illegality by changing rules, long waits and exorbitant fees. Colin Yeo, immigration lawyer, author of Welcome to Britain and founder of freemovement.org, explains how the policy came about and what it's meant for Britons, wannabe Britons and the country's own future. ★ Support this podcast ★

A conversation with anthropologist and National Geographic explorer Wade Davis about the unraveling of America. The full-length and unedited interview from September 2020. ★ Support this podcast ★

Susan J Cohen is an American immigration lawyer who has seen the last few decades of US immigration policy. She talks about the situation Joe Biden has inherited, after Donald Trump changed more than 400 immigration laws, rules and processes; why a record number of arrests has been made at the US Southern border; what is happening in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala or Haiti that is making people move north; and what the impact of the Trump presidency has been on immigrants, lawyers and activists. Cohen is the founding partner of the immigration law practice at Boston firm Mintz, an author and a songwriter. In 2017 she was part of a small band of legal minds who fought the so-called "Muslim ban" in court and won a short-lived victory. 📚 Journeys from There to Here: Stories of Immigrant Trials, Triumphs and Contributions. Susan J Cohen, with Steven Taylor. River Grove Books, 2021. Buy it here. (This affiliate link supports Borderline.) 🎶 Beyond the Borders and Looking for the Angels, written by Susan Cohen and performed by students and alumni of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachussetts. Show notes [00:00:16] Intro [00:01:32] The immigration situation Joe Biden inherited [00:05:21] Title 42 and Remain in Mexico: How the US keeps lawful asylum-seekers at bay [00:08:49] What it's like to wait at the US Southern border [00:12:43] A historical record for arrests at the Southern border [00:15:13] What's happening in Central America and Haiti to push people north [00:18:42] The massive problems we'd need to solve to stem migration flows [00:22:27] Patterns of discrimination and aggression at the border [00:26:58] How the American public feels about immigration [00:29:46] Changing the perception of immigrants ★ Support this podcast ★

Crossing the Channel without preauthorisation is legal, the vast majority of people crossing are rightful asylum seekers and there is no such thing as the "first safe country" rule. Also, there is no queue to wait in or to jump, most people aren't trafficked or smuggled, and only a trickle of the world's refugees arrive in rich countries. Refugee rights consultant Daniel Sohege breaks down the false arguments about asylum seekers making the rounds in media and on Twitter. Show notes [00:00:22] Intro [00:03:05] Is this a migrant crisis? [00:06:01] Channel crossings are for many the only option. Still, very few take it. [00:07:25] There just isn't a queue to jump to apply for asylum [00:09:43] "First safe country" is a myth [00:11:55] Arriving by boat without pre-authorisation is not illegal [00:12:46] Most border crossings are not arranged by smugglers [00:16:14] Hard border controls can feed smuggling and trafficking businesses [00:19:47] Airlines and other carriers can be fined for unknowingly helping people carry out their legal right to seek asylum [00:21:35] 98% of those people who cross the Channel seek asylum [00:26:22] How French police harasses asylum seekers [00:27:57] What do we prioritise: the border or human life? [00:31:10] There are better ways to spend our countries' money than on draconian border controls [00:33:08] What a better refugee system could look like [00:36:11] Rich nations are not taking their fair share [00:41:43] Outro 🐦 Follow Daniel Sohege at @stand_for_all ★ Support this podcast ★

Immigration isn't a one-way ticket. For many, the homeland calls back. From the Basque region to Israel, Jamaica to Taiwan, Kamal al-Solaylee talks to those who've chosen to make their way home as he plans his own return. Will reality match the fantasy? Why is the call of home so powerful? And what if you're still a foreigner there? Show notes [00:00:30] Intro [00:01:29] Migration isn't just a one-way ticket [00:05:27] Ghana's Year of Return [00:07:25] Return is big business, politics and emotion all mixed up [00:09:08] Can reality match the fantasy? [00:13:44] Return is not a failure of the immigration journey [00:16:54] The irrational call of the homeland [00:18:48] The pain of feeling like a foreigner at home [00:23:00] The exploitation of nostalgia [00:25:07] Return can feed or soften the edges of nationalism [00:29:14] Whose return is actually wanted? [00:31:12] Deportees, the unwanted returnees [00:35:02] Kamal's own return plans 📚 Return: Why we go back to where we come from. Harper Collins Canada, 2021. Find it here. ★ Support this podcast ★

Climate change and economic inequality are pushing people of the Global South to move north. Countries in the North are depopulating, losing their workforce and their tax base. It shouldn't be that hard to put two and two together and create migration policies that benefit all of humanity. So why won't we? 📚 "Move: The Forces Uprooting Us." Parag Khanna. 2021. Scribner. Buy it here. Show notes 00:00 Intro 02:41 We are a migratory species 04:57 Domestic migrants are migrants too 07:55 Lockdown was actually a massive migration 09:35 Reverse migration is also migration 11:08 Britain's immigration policy has killed people 17:21 A tragic lack of imagination 19:22 Three doom scenarios, one hopeful scenario 22:35 Not moving is not really an option for billions 26:13 There will never be a global migration policy 28:59 Could allegiance to the city replace the nation state? 31:17 London vs. Britain 34:04 Doing away with the outdated passport 37:38 We'll do everything wrong before we do it right 41:31 Failed nativist policies ★ Support this podcast ★

How World War II is a British psychosis. Why we don't talk about empire. French universalism vs. British multiculturalism. How the nation state was made up. And a geopolitical utopia out of Star Trek. A freewheeling conversation with author and journalist Jonn Elledge. 📚 The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything, by Jonn Elledge. Headline, 2021. Buy it here and support Borderline. 📬 Sign up for the Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. 🎙 Listen to the Podcast of (Not Quite) Everything. Show notes 00:00 Intro 02:52 How one of the world's largest countries dumps its migrants on one of the world's smallest 05:25 Insular news and why you may never have heard of Nauru 07:12 A worldwide obsession with US news 08:34 It's appalling how little we knew or know about the EU 10:17 How Brexit gave rise to a pro-EU movement 13:00 We're finding geopolitical solutions in Star Trek 15:12 The nation-state is such a recent mythology 19:46 Countries that think too highly of themselves 26:02 How WWII mythology shapes current politics 31:31 Poppy season is upon us 33:32 Newsletter ad 35:02 Could we create a global nation state? 37:00 French identity, multiculturalism and things I pretend to be an expert in 44:20 Britain stopped showing its best features ★ Support this podcast ★

Who are you when no nation claims you? Millions of stateless people navigate daily life and personal identity unrecognised by any country. They are the literal citizens of nowhere. Show notes [00:00:00] Intro [00:01:42] What is statelessness? [00:04:51] Born in Germany but not German [00:09:48] Turned around at the airport [00:13:31] Creating a source of truth for stateless people [00:15:24] How one falls through the nationality cracks... [00:22:07] Ad [00:23:00] ... and other ways of becoming stateless [00:26:06] Belonging and self-worth without a national identity [00:32:04] Is citizenship owed or earned? [00:35:34] How "passported" people can help [00:41:14] Outro 🌍 statefree.world Related episodes 36 Dina Nayeri on the immigrant's gratitude 23 Selda Shamloo on passport privilege 41 Qian Julie Wang on growing up undocumented ★ Support this podcast ★

Will Buckingham gave me my new favourite word. He's a philosopher so it's only right the word should be Greek. Philoxenia is the word. Love of the foreign. It's that sense of curiosity, desire to connect and good will that make us seek out those we don't know and invite them to share our hearth. It's the cat that runs up to a house guest to smell his hand and rub against new legs. But we fear the stranger too as much as we wish for him. The cat hisses, scratches and hides under the sofa. You know that word – xenophobia. Will Buckingham explores what the stranger means to us and why philoxenia is worth cultivating. In this episode: 🤝 home is a social network 💪 stranger danger is male danger 🏡 safety at home, danger abroad is a false story 👀 how busy-buddy neighbours keep us safe 👥 sorry introverts: you'll never be rid of strangers Also backpacking in Pakistan, slow Ubers in Bangalore, Manggarai villages in Indonesia, a vicarage in Norfolk, a foggy morning in Prague, a Lithuanian philosopher called Emmanuel Levinas and paper-thin walls in Paris. Show notes [00:02:38] "You can think about home as a set of social network of belongings" [00:08:48] "I'll never again be lost in a foreign city" [00:11:49] "A split between the safety of the home and the risk of the outside"[ 00:15:15] Philoxenia vs xenophobia [00:18:31] "That notion of the inviolable home is quite culturally specific" [00:22:25] "Somebody would end up putting me up" [00:24:35] "There's always going to be somebody rocking up to break up your solitude" [00:28:39] Become a Borderline member [00:29:57] "Concentric circles of how we imagine belonging" [00:31:41] "The stranger brings me more than I can contain" [00:32:57] "An inconvenience worth having" [00:34:57] "Fear in the face of strangers is not wholly unreasonable" [00:39:50] Outro 📚 Hello, Stranger: How We Find Connection in a Disconnected World, by Will Buckingham. Granta. 2021. Buy it here. 📬 Sign up for Will's monthly newsletter 🐦 Follow Will on Twitter @willbuckingham ★ Support this podcast ★

When she was 7, Qian Julie Wang – just Qian Wang then – landed at JFK airport in New York City. Her airsick mother leaned on her for support. Her father, whom she hadn't seen in two years, had skimped on food to afford the cab driving them from the airport. Thus started her life as an undocumented child in America. Show notes 00:00 Intro 02:32 "A privilege, power and responsibility to share my secret" 06:13 "What it means to be a writer" 07:56 "At bottom we're all not really that different" 09:49 "The before and after of my childhood and my life" 13:10 "We had to be everything for each other" 15:22 "It was my job to keep us from being noticed" 17:44 "Salvation and refuge in books" 18:39 "Split between the two worlds" 20:48 Membership ad 22:19 "Public school in Chinatown" 27:49 "I went to school hungry every day" 31:18 "Everything I thought was wrong with me was simply a part of being human" 34:10 "There's nothing we are afraid of now" 39:01 Outro 📚 Beautiful country, by Qian Julie Wang. 2021. Penguin Random House. Buy it here. ★ Support this podcast ★

Ariane Bernard founded Helio in 2020. Her startup has never known a world where you could network in person, meet clients and investors easily or work from a common space with your employees. How do you lead a team you've never seen? And in a multinational startup, how do you work past cultural barriers and incomprehensions when you can't look your coworkers in the eye? She had to find out the hard way. Highlights - "A lot of good team culture is safety, ultimately. You want a culture whose first achievement is the ability to say the words "I don't understand. I don't agree. I propose that we do X. Has anyone thought about Y?" If all team members, whether they are the most junior all the way to your executive team, equally feel like they have access to these words without risking something, then you have the making of solving for many other problems." - "Everything that helps you understand whether people are connecting with a particular goal, everything that helps you understand whether people understand, everything counts because the distance does not help us." - "The uncertainty is, what am I not getting and what is this company not getting if we are not as fully present and as fully engaged as we could be?" - "The complexity of the distributed team is compounded by our cultural differences." - "I don't have a problem going to an American and being like, "turn on your camera, what the hell!" Because the worst thing that happens is that they'll be like, "no, and here's why." But when you're working with folks who come from cultures that you only know in a much more superficial way, those are exactly the things that become like, what am I actually asking them? It feels like I'm just asking them to turn on the camera. It can't be that much. But I don't actually know this. I don't know what this stands for." Show notes [00:00:00] Intro [00:03:14] Making the jump from intrapreneur to entrepreneur [00:06:57] Anchoring a new company culture without an office [00:10:12] Zoom cameras on, please [00:14:07] Take every opportunity to reduce uncertainty [00:15:52] When physical and culture distance combine [00:19:43] Do we still need culture? [00:25:54] "Do as I say" vs just one man's opinion [00:27:51] The Culture Map by Erin Meyer [00:29:31] Good culture is psychological safety [00:36:03] Resting bitch face and the curse of the screen [00:37:39] The benefits of hiring worldwide [00:41:29] If you had a choice... centralised or distributed? [00:44:32] Outro 📺 Watch the full interview on Youtube 🔆 Learn about Helio and apply to become an alpha user here ★ Support this podcast ★

Travelers from 33 countries – nearly half the planet – were long barred from entry into the United States for pandemic reasons. They’ll be allowed in again from early November as long as they can prove they are fully vaccinated and provide a negative Covid-19 test. People who do not have access to the vaccine, however, can add one more item to the list of reasons why they may never set foot in the world’s richest country. Journalist Anna Lekas Miller discusses how the United States’ pandemic travel restrictions fit into the larger historical and political picture of American borders, from white supremacy to Biden's policies. Show notes 00:00 Intro 01:47 How US travel restrictions are changing 05:53 Vaccination status will increasingly condition travel 11:22 Has the pandemic opened privileged immigrants' eyes? 16:47 White supremacy was enshrined in immigration law 21:01 Immigration enforcement targets racialized people 23:13 Membership ad 25:08 Has the Biden administration fundamentally changed the tone? 29:49 Kamala Harris's message to Latin America 32:44 Looking ahead 34:59 Outro 📬 Sign up for Anna’s newsletter, Love & Borders 🐦 Follow Anna on Twitter @agoodcuppa Listen, read, support at borderlinepod.com. Chat with me on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. ★ Support this podcast ★

It’s got the Big Brother and Newspeak of 1984, the predictive policing of Minority Report, the monitoring and neighbourly delation of the Stasi and the cultural erasure of the Khmer Rouge. And concentration camps. In Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party may well have created the perfect police state. Journalist Geoffrey Cain investigates the Uyghur genocide and reveals what happens in the real world when you combine totalitarian ideology with artificial intelligence. Show notes 00:17 Intro 02:26 A day in the life of a Uyghur woman 07:28 Every totalitarian dystopia wrapped into one 10:16 A 21st-century genocide 12:32 The technology doesn't even need to be that good 15:48 Why China went after the Uyghurs 18:06 Membership ad 19:47 How the return of the Taliban might impact the Uyghurs 21:45 Dystopia in the dark 24:34 How China exports its surveillance 27:51 How Western corporations and economies got trapped 30:44 The New Cold War 32:46 The death of techno utopianism 35:23 First let's fix the financial system 38:35 Outro 📚The Perfect Police State, by Geoffrey Cain. Public Affairs. 2021. Buy it here. Samsung Rising, by Geoffrey Cain. Penguin Random House. 2020. Buy it here. 🐦 @geoffrey_cain and @iroughol Stories referenced 🇦🇺 Facebook’s battle with Australia 🇺🇸 Amazon and the NSA 🇨🇳 Xinjiang’s cotton and Western brands 💻 Apple’s terminated supplier Listen, read, support at borderlinepod.com. Chat with me on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. ★ Support this podcast ★