Debordering the city: Struggles Against Urban Bordering in Brussels
Three public events, in English, October through December, all free to attend.
Join us & bring your colleagues and friends ! Sign-up links are open below Borders do not only exist at the edges of nation-states. In Brussels and other cities, bordering permeates everyday life, shaping who can move, remain, participate, and belong. But the city is also a site of resistance. People on the move and their allies challenge deportations and policing, resist detention, reclaim spaces, and experiment with new ways of living together. This series brings together activists, researchers, artists, and people with lived experience to explore how borders are made and contested in the city. Through collective mapping, film, and conversation, we will trace how bordering takes shape in Brussels, explore the practices that challenge it, and imagine what it might mean to deborder our city.
Session 1: Mapping and Resisting Urban Border Zones - Talk & collective counter-mapping workshop
Time: Tuesday, 20 October, 2026 - 18h
Location: USquare Campus (Generaal Jacqueslaan 210, 1050, Elsene, space AC.0.01) VUB
Abstract: What does it mean when the border is no longer an external margin or line, but space of exception shaping everyday life? This session explores how bordering takes shape, is enforced, and can be resisted in the city, focusing on the Midi neighbourhood. We will begin with a presentation of the Borderland Brussels project, followed by a dialogue with grassroots border abolitionist activists in Brussels and a collective (counter-)mapping exercise to trace together how borders are produced, experienced, and contested in Brussels’ urban space.
Guests: Dr. Fabio Vanin, Aliki Tzouvara, Brussels Borderless Zone Collective. Sign up below to participate in the mapping workshop !
Session 2: Taking Spaces/Making Places - Round table discussion
Time: Thursday, 19 November 2026 - 19h
Location: MONA (Jetselaan 225, Jette, 1090, ), 19.00
Abstract: For undocumented and otherwise precarious people on the move, access to housing, shelter, and other basic needs is a key terrain on which exclusion is organised and enforced. In response, diverse practices of placemaking emerge, both within, beyond and in tension with institutional and state frameworks. This session explores these practices through a screening of two short films on occupations, followed by a roundtable discussion with architect and researcher Dr. Tasneem Nagi, housing and undocumented peoples' rights activist Leticia Assemien, and representatives from Toestand, a collective reactivating abandoned urban spaces.
Guests: Dr. Tasneem Nagi, Leticia Assemien, Toestand. Sign up below to attend the round table !
Session 3: Detention, Deportation and Resistance - Film screening of « From Afar » and discussion
Time: 18h Thursday, 10 December 2026
Location: Cinemaximiliaan (Manchesterstraat 36, Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, 1080)
Abstract: For decades, detention and deportation have been central to the enforcement of European border policies. In this session, we will screen From Afar, a short film exploring Belgium’s deportation centres, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker and guests bringing academic expertise and lived experience of Europe’s border and detention regimes. Together, we will examine the expansion of detention and the externalisation of borders and explore how these practices are challenged and resisted. This event will close with a social reception with our hosts at Cinemaximiliaan.
Guests: Gilles Vandaele, Diane Volpe, Anas Hmam. Sign up below to watch and discuss the film !
