Professor Leti Volpp (Berkeley Law)

Date : November 21, 2019, 10:00 – 12:00

Venue: Department of Sociology of Law – Lund University Hus M, Room M 331

“Along the Southern portion of the I-5 freeway in California appears a yellow sign depicting the silhouette of a man, woman, and female child in flight, captioned with text in black stating “Caution.” In the United States, the sign’s clear reference is to “illegal migration,” and serves as a meme for longstanding debates about immigration to the United States. But the sign has a different association in Europe, where the identical image of running man, woman and child has been popularly paired with the text “Welcome Refugees.” The sign’s history, and its afterlife as a symbol of bodies moving across nation-state borders reveals unpredictable resignification, and starkly diverging understandings of human flight.”

Leti Volpp is Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice at Berkeley Law, University of California. She researches immigration and citizenship law with a particular focus on how law is shaped by ideas about culture and identity. Her latest book (co-edited with Marianne Constable and Bryan Wagner), Looking for Law in all the Wrong Places: Justice Beyond and Between, Fordham University Press (2019) is available here: https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823283712/looking-for-law-in-all-the-wrong-places/

*** This is a public event /// No registration is required ***

This event is organized in collaboration with Critical Border Studies: http://www.criticalborderstudies.com/