The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination will convene a workshop, "Frontiers and Empires through Air and Cyberspace," April 7-8, 2016, in 012 Bendheim Hall. This workshop is the third of three workshops in the series, "Enduring Frontiers: Geographical, Political, Cultural?" The workshops are directed by LISD research associate, Michael Barry, assisted by LISD student associate and Princeton University Ph.D. candidate, Benjamin Sacks. To attend, RSVP to Angella Matheney (link sends e-mail).

Frontiers projected upon maps define limits supposedly dictated by unchanging geographical layout such as rivers and mountains, but often appear founded on imperial strategies or cultural and sectarian divides with sometimes disastrous consequences today: from African and Middle Eastern upheavals to the Yugoslav breakup and tensions around Russian and Chinese territorial waters, to current populist-fueled anxieties over migrant inflow across European and US borders. Participants in three successive round tables with projected maps address the logic, past and future, of world frontiers: 1) on land, 2) on water, and 3) through the air, including in cyberspace.

"Frontiers and Empires through Air and Cyberspace" will consider whether lines of influence once marked upon land or through water retain full pertinence since superseded by aircraft or overridden in an age of instant telecommunication – as in the corrosive rôle of Radio Free Europe and the BBC in the former Soviet Empire, or worldwide propaganda online even by non-state actors like ISIS to survive loss of a shrinking home territory. The stark reality of environmental degradation however pulls strategic issues back to land and water while also yet further transcending traditional frontiers – like Chernobyl’s cloud passing through Western European air, or rising seas respecting no shore in either hemisphere. How far can national sovereignty extend to cyberspace, or outer space?

See LISD website for further information: http://lisd.princeton.edu/