Studying the Borderlands

Inside Higher Ed recently wrote about Crossing Borders: Migration and Membership in the 21st Century, co-taught by professors David Cook-Martín and Xavier Escandel. Some highlights include:

First-year students travel to Germany, Greece, Mexico, Spain and the U.S. Southwest for comparative class on migration, borders and refugees.  A group of 15 first-year students from Grinnell College took the Immigration/Refugees class to study why people leave home and risk long and dangerous journeys and why we build walls and intercept migrants on land and sea.  The two professors co-teaching the class, David Cook-Martín and Xavier Escandell, planned it before President Trump’s election.

“Students are extremely engaged,” said Cook-Martín, a professor of sociology and assistant vice president for global education at Grinnell, a liberal arts college in Iowa. “They come to the class asking, ‘What does this executive order mean? How will this play out on the ground?’

The professors have been trying to get them to think of this in a broader context. "If you try to develop a broader understanding of migration that is just focused on this moment, you would end up with a very skewed view of migration policy and politics," Cook-Martin.

Read more about Studying the Borderlands at Inside Higher Ed.