In the first episode of Season Three, hosts Dr Sara Black and Liam Cini O’Dwyer speak with Dr Billy Holzberg about his award-winning book Affective Bordering: Race, Deservingness and the Emotional Politics of Migration Control.
Drawing on his research in Gender Studies, Billy explores how emotions are not simply private feelings but powerful forces that shape political life. Introducing the concept of affective bordering, he shows how empathy, fear, anger and hope work together to construct boundaries between those seen as deserving of care and those positioned as threats.
Affective Bordering: Race, Deservingness and the Emotional Politics of Migration Control received the 2025 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize.