The POLARIS Seminar, “Between Borders, Bodies, and Institutions: Gender and Politics in Dispute”, took place on July 17 at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences, University of Campinas. Organized by Professors Nara Salles and Raissa Wihby Ventura, the event brought together undergraduate and graduate students working on gender, political representation, migration, reproductive justice, care, intimacy, and anti-gender politics.
The first panel, “Migration, Borders, and Reproductive Justice”, was directly connected to the training activities of the Crossing Boundaries project. It examined how migration, legal status, reproductive mobility, care work, and access to abortion in Latin America raise central normative questions about borders, unequal vulnerabilities, and gendered exclusion.
The session featured presentations by Nathalia Cordeiro, “Beyond Legal Status: Social Undocumentedness and Belonging in the Theory of Migration Justice”; Beatriz Helena Toledo Pastre, “International Political Economy of Migration: Latin American Women in the Neoliberal Crisis of Care and New Forms of Capital Accumulation”; Juliana Aguilera-Lobo, “From Reproductive Justice to Global Justice: Borders, (Im)mobilities, and Abortion Itineraries in Latin America”; and Isabella Fernandes Moreira Fontaniello and Juliana Aguilera-Lobo, “Reproductive (Im)mobility in Latin America: Intra-Regional Abortion Itineraries, Access Policies, and Inequalities.” Comments were offered by Nina Rosa Soares and Maria Eduarda Tencati.
By bringing together migration justice, reproductive justice, gendered labor, and Latin American border regimes, the session contributed to the project’s broader effort to develop a situated agenda in global political theory grounded in Brazilian and Latin American experiences. It also strengthened the project’s formative dimension by creating a space for students to present and discuss research at the intersection of feminist political theory and critical approaches to migration.