College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Speaker Series “Feminism and the Open Borders Debate: Can Borders be Feminist?”

Amy Reed-Sandoval, PhD, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas, believes many of the world’s borders are imperialist institutions that oppress
marginalized groups. She’ll discuss how transnational feminists and others committed to
principles of liberation need to take a firm stand against the oppression, even if the borders
belong distant political communities. However, borders operate differently in different
contexts. Feminists, Reed-Sandoval believes, need to recognize that borders can both harm and
protect, and thus question whether some kind of borders could ever, in fact, be feminist.