Crossing Borders - Talking Culture Symposium

Presented by Auckland Festival of Photography and Lowepro. Talking Culture Symposium's theme for the 2012 Festival is 'Crossing Borders', an exploration through photography of the insidious underside of globalisation. While the internationalisation of production and 'free trade' of goods, money, people and technology across borders has undoubtedly brought many benefits, the unequal economic power relations between countries means globalisation has also relied upon the exploitation of resources and people in developing nations for the benefit of the developed world.

The duplicitous nature of globalisation is such that wealthy nations embrace internationalisation by welcoming inexpensively produced goods for consumption and cheap labour for jobs that can't be filled, while on the other hand renouncing and making clear the boundaries and limits to internationalism through tough immigration laws for refugees and economic migrants seeking escape from conflict, oppression and poverty.

In addition, globalisation's official crossing of borders of people and production is mirrored in and, according to Gargi Bhattachryya, dependent upon illicit networks of trafficked people, money, drugs and arms in a multi-million-dollar illegal economy. The 'free trade' ideal has become an "illogical and ideological obsession where market overrides any concern for human welfare or social impact".