24. Landscapes of Elsewhere: On Borders, Practices and Approaches

Abstract

This video documents the AESOP Lecture Landscapes of Elsewhere: On Borders, Practices and Approaches, held on 20 November 2025 at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano. The lecture brought together scholars working on territorial transformations in contested border regions and explored how landscapes—through their material, ecological, and temporal dimensions—actively participate in shaping borders and the institutions that govern them.

The session challenged dominant understandings of borders as purely political constructs imposed on passive territories, instead emphasising reciprocal dynamics between landscapes and bordering practices. Through three situated research contributions focusing on Iran–Afghanistan, South Caucasus, and Georgian–Russian border regions, the lecture examined non-human agencies, environmental traces of conflict, and methodological approaches to researching restricted and sensitive territories.

Due to the sensitivity of some materials, selected parts of the presentations have been removed from the publicly available video version.