Call for Entries: 2025 Eur-Asian Border Lab Essay Contest in Estonia
The Eur-Asian Border Lab invites you to participate in an innovative essay contest exploring the concept of volumetric borders and bordering – conceptually, empirically, or metaphorically.
Bordering today occurs in increasingly complex and multidimensional spaces.
Technological advancements have enabled humans to access, occupy, claim and operate in and across seas, airspace, and high-altitude environments, but also in virtual spaces, while climate change has opened previously inaccessible regions, such as the Arctic, to exploitation.
Dependence on satellite-linked services and virtual domains continues to grow, and geopolitical competition now extends into outer space.
Yet, our political organization remains rooted in a Cartesian view of static space, mutually exclusive territorial units, delineated by linear borders.
The essay contest invites scholars and practitioners engaged in border studies to explore the disconnect between territory-based conceptions of world politics and the evolving dynamics of volumetric, vertical, topological, and virtual spaces.
Address the following Questions in the Essay:
We invite submissions to address the following questions:
- What is or will be the role of borders in ordering spaces?
- What could be alternative technical and discursive landscapes of control and power?
2025 Eur-Asian Border Lab Essay Contest Summary
- Type: Contest
- Location: Tallinn University, Estonia
- Duration: 4 Days
- Eligible Countries: All
- Benefits: Round Airfare Tickets, Accommodation
- Deadline: 20th May, 2025
Objectives
- Explore this idea of “volumetric borders.” This means looking at how bordering happens not just on land, but also in these other dimensions.
- Think about how these new kinds of borders affect how we organize the world and how power works.
- Imagine new ways of understanding and controlling these spaces, beyond just drawing lines on a map.
Essentially, they want to understand how borders are evolving beyond the traditional idea of territorial lines because of new technologies, climate change, and other global changes.
Requirements for the 2025 Eur-Asian Border Lab Essay Contest
- The Contest is open to all the Nationals.
- Essay Type: Submit an analytical essay.
- Structure: The essay must be structured around a central argument and grounded in theory.
- You can also include:
- Ethnographic vignettes
- Poems
- Photographs
- Drawings
- Cartoons
- Other innovative textual/visual formats
- Goal: Make the content more accessible than a traditional academic article to engage a wider audience in discussions about borders.
- Word Count: The essay should be between 1,200 and 1,500 words (excluding references).
- Originality: All textual and visual materials must be your original, unpublished work.
- Copyright: You must hold the copyright for the use of all submitted materials.
The Program Covers:
- Round Airfare Tickets
- Accommodation
Submission Requirements for the 2025 Eur-Asian Border Lab Essay Contest
- Create a PDF document containing your essay, any relevant visuals or links (especially for large or multimedia files).
- The filename of the PDF should be the title of your essay, with a maximum of 15 words.
- Do not include your name in the PDF filename, the essay itself, or within any image/visual captions.
- Prepare a separate PDF cover letter that includes:
- Your name.
- Your affiliation.
- The title of your essay.
- A list detailing all submitted materials, such as images, multimedia, or external links.
Deadline: 20th May, 2025
