Undoing Borders is a collective writing project that comes out of the Migrant Justice Work Group.  We first started organizing together in 2007 when a group of us formed a contingent to the US/Mexico No Borders Camp in Calexico/Mexicali.  That summer, at an event to raise money for our trip south, we were asked for the first time a question we would hear again and again for years:  What does being queer have to do with borders?

Undoing Borders is our attempt to add to an ongoing conversation that seeks to answer that question.  We hosted community gatherings, panels, conversations, and day-long brainstorming sessions to try to tease out the many ways queerness and a no-borders politic intersect.  We spent over two years writing and re-writing, trying to figure out how twenty or so pens can share one piece of paper.  What we have today is Draft #1.  We expect every version of this document to be a draft, always changing as we engage with it and share it, as the context around us changes, as we learn and see differently.  As different people add their thoughts and experiences.

Click on the images below to download a copy of Undoing Borders, Draft #1

This document was born out of action and conversation, and our hope is that it will continue to live there.  Send us feedback (to HAVOQers [at] gmail).  Invite us to come share it with you.  Host a community conversation with us.  Invite us to your town!

In the Fall of 2011, three members of our collective took the document on tour around the US and Canada.  Click on the map below for more information about the Undoing Borders Tour.

Map Made by Melo King