KU News Release

LAWRENCE — “Migration, Shadow Economies and Security Problems on the World’s Borders” will be the featured topic of the spring 2011 Security Conference, to be held at 8 a.m. Friday, April 1, at the Malott Room in the Kansas Union.

The conference is sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Center for East Asian Studies, the Center for Global and International Studies, the Center of Latin American Studies and the Kansas African Studies Center, all at the University of Kansas, and the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth.

Martha Brill Olcott, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, will give the keynote address at the conference luncheon. Her talk is titled “State and Security in Central Asia.” Other speakers will discuss their research as part of three panels held throughout the day.

8:30 to 10 a.m. —Panel I: Migration and Border Economies in Historical Perspective

Moderator: Megan Greene, KU

Margarita Karnysheva, KU, “The Buriats across the Borders: Smuggling and Insurgency in Transbaikalia (1921-1929)”

Carlos Gomez Florentin, SUNY-Stony Brook, “Contested Borders: The Transnationalization of the “Triple Frontera” 1940-1984”

Roger Kangas, Near-East South-Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, “Historical Perspectives on Borders in Central Asia”

10:30 a.m. to noon — Panel II: Migration, Borders and State Responses

Moderator: Tanya Golash-Boza, KU

Jeffrey Boss, CGIS-FMSO research fellow, Fort Leavenworth, “The Future of the Frontier Crimes Regulation and Implications for Security at the Afghan-Pakistan Border”

Kornely Kakachia, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, “Cross-Border Conflict Dynamics and Security Challenges in Georgia”

Shannon O’Lear, KU, “Borders in the South Caucasus: Meaning and Power”

1:30 to 3 p.m. — Panel III: Migration and Shadow Economies

Moderator: Mariya Omelicheva, KU

Ray Finch, FMSO, Fort Leavenworth, “Viktor Bout and Illegal Weapons Sales”

Ebenezer Obadare, KU, “Paper Truths and Ersatz Lives: Authenticity and Fakery in the West African Shadow Economy”

Nadia Shapkina, Kansas State University, “Survival and Gendered Risks of Migration in Central Asia: Shifting Sex Trafficking Flows in the Asian Heartland”

3 to 4:30 p.m. — Conclusions, Discussion and Further Plans

Roger Kangas, Near-East South-Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University

The conference is free and open to the public. It is made possible by Title VI Department of Education National Resource Center grants and a KU-Fort Leavenworth Army Research Labs Grant.

To register for the conference, go to the Security Conference website and click the RSVP link.