A migrants and refugees in increasing numbers are subjected to extreme violence in their attempts at crossing borders to reach a more liveable place, a fundamental reflection is needed to update the concepts which frame mankind's treatment of its own mobility. This includes a critical return on the question of the "law of population" of capitalism, but also a jurisdicial elaboration of the rights of circulation and hospitality which articulate territory, citizenship, and community. At stake, ultimately, is a political transformation of the world into a place where everyone can live a decent life.

Etienne Balibar is Emeritus Professor at Paris X Nanterre and Anniversary Chair of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London. He is an internationally recognised political philosopher and critical thinker, a leading voice in the Marxist tradition, and the author of Spinoza and Politics, The Philosophy of Marx and co-author of Race, Nation and Class and Reading Capital. In these, any many other seminal works, he has addressed fundamental questions such as racism, the notion of the border, whether a European citizenship is possible or desirable, violence, identity and emancipation.