A new book will challenge how we think about borders and their role in shaping societies

By Division of Humanities, University of Otago | Posted: Monday Nov 09, 2026

Dr Neil Vallelly has received an Otago Prestigious Writing Grant for this work, which will be of interest to readers intrigued and concerned by the direction of border politics today.

“While borders often have devastatingly real consequences for many migrants, they are, first and foremost, imaginary ways of ordering space, territory, and populations. The aim of this book is to think of ways of re-imagining borders so that their real consequences are much less violent and exclusionary,” Neil says.

Neil, with the Sociology, Gender Studies, and Criminology programme, was born in Northern Ireland in the final decade of ‘The Troubles’. He says his personal experiences shaped his understanding of borders - demonstrating both their significance and their fluidity.

Read more about this upcoming work: New book to explore borders real and imagined | University of Otago