How does money form borders? And how do borders form money?
It has become common to say that, in an age of globalization, the movement of money is freed from the confines of borders, while the movements of human beings is more restrained than ever – especially for those human beings with little access to money. But what might this explanation leave out? What are the nuances and particularities of how money moves and what happens when it encounters a border? How does money transform borders, and how do borders transform money? And with what consequences for human beings in an age of compulsory and voluntary migration and movement?
We assemble together at the moment of two intertwined global crises that all too often are imagined as separate.
On the one hand, the so-called „migrant crisis“ has tested the limits of the idea of the Western nation-state and the ideals of human rights, forcing us to ask difficult questions about who should be allowed to move and who should control the movement of people. On the other hand, revelations like those contained in the Panama Papers also show us that there is a crisis in traditional techniques for managing or controlling the flows of money. How can we think of these two crises together at the same time? Do they have common roots? Do they have common solutions? How are they related to technological and political changes? And, most importantly for us, how can we tell better, clearer and more compelling stories about them?
In this workshop, we have gathered a range of experts and activists, journalists and coders, to take a closer look at the relationships between money, movement and borders. We are aiming, over two days, to develop an Atlas of Encounters: a catalogue of examples, stories and methodologies that enable us to better understand these relationships in the present moment. We do not yet know what the final atlas will look like; that is for us to discover together in our two days in Berlin.
Such an collective investigation is important for a number of reasons.
Today, not only are borders being fortified to contain and to exclude certain populations, they are also multiplying and spreading into a wide range of social spaces and institutions. The border as a „technology“ is expanding and intensifying throughout the social fabric, with grave consequences for humans compelled to move because of economic, social, political or cultural violence. Meanwhile, money has become more liquid than ever, overflowing national borders and regulations. From the complex technologies of high finance (derivatives, high frequency trading) to the clandestine activities of organized crime and the global elite (offshore accounts, tax havens, money laundering), money seems to flow uncontrolled.
- Can we say that money’s movement gets easier as people’s movements become harder?
- Is the increasingly free movement of money in some way at the root of the forms of displacement and violence that causes people to flee to the border or over borders?
- How are today’s technologically-augemented borders (biometrics, drones, big-data surveillance) enabled or facilitated by the global movement of money?
- On the other hand, how does the global circulation of money depend on the movement of people (for instance, when migrants become an exploitable labour force)?