CRG African Borderlands Research Network

The African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) is an interdisciplinary network of researchers, but also policymakers, interested in all aspects of international borders and trans-boundary phenomena in Africa. The emphasis falls largely on borderlands as physical spaces, but the network is also concerned with regional flows of people and goods as well as economic and social processes that may be located at some distance from a geographical border. ABORNE was founded in 2007. From 2009 to 2014 ABORNE received network funding from the European Science Foundation. In 2014, the network became an AEGIS-CRG.

The ABORNE-CRG aims to:

• Ceate a forum for academic researchers aiming for a better understanding of African borderlands,
• Engage in a productive exchange with practitioners and institution concerned with African borderlands.
• Provide a lively platform for debate, the sharing of knowledge and the coordination of research activity through a cycle of annual conferences, workshops and publications (including blogs).
• Integrate insights derived from different subfields of knowledge – including history, anthropology, sociology, political science, geography, development studies, migration studies and refugee studies – that have tended to produce a fractured body of knowledge about African borderlands. ABORNE seeks to contribute to the advancement of borderland studies as a sub-field in its own right, whilst remaining embedded within African Studies.

The ABORNE website has an extensive bibliography. 

A list of past ABORNE workshops and conferences can be viewed here.