Bio

Dr. Julia Morris is Assistant Professor of International Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford, where she was a research student at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at The New School's Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility in New York City, and most recently held a writing fellowship at the Max Planck Institut für ethnologische Forschung. Her research focuses on the political economy of migration and outsourced border enforcement regimes, from ethnographic fieldwork in Nauru, Australia, and Geneva to research projects in Jordan and Guatemala. She has published widely and her book, ‘From Phosphate to Refugees: The Offshore Refugee Industry in the Republic of Nauru,’ is forthcoming with Cornell University Press. She also facilitates creative participatory practices focused on rethinking human mobility.

Project

During my time at Faberllull, I will be working on my participatory arts project, ‘Commoning Mobilities,’ which brings together communities in wild garden spaces to consider how ecological thinking can cultivate new understandings about migration and the challenges of hostile environments. The design is informed by the mobility justice paradigm of a ‘mobility commons,’ whereby mobility is understood as foundational for livable futures. The project encourages participants to think what would be needed to create hospitable spaces. It culminates in the maintenance of a community garden space, where surrounding publics collaborate, meet and mingle, to mindfully think through the practice of living together.