Kristina Anna Wejstål
About Kristina Anna Wejstål
In March 2024, I defended my doctoral thesis in international law. The thesis, ‘At the border – EU Law, Asylum and the Spatialities of Fundamental Rights’, critically examines and demonstrates how the ‘spatio-legal interaction’ of the EU border regime affects the conditions under which individual rights can be enforced at the EU’s external borders. Moreover, it explores how the EU’s external border can be understood, given the embeddedness of law in space and the asymmetry between where border control takes place and where the obligation to protect fundamental rights applies. The thesis addresses the Belgian embassy in Beirut and the border crossing point at Beni-Enzar between Morocco and the Spanish enclave Melilla through their spatial and legal construction – as ‘scenes of spatio-legal interaction’.
I also work with performing arts and have acted, directed, and written for the stage in a variety of projects. I have developed most of my artistic experience by working with ‘devising techniques’. Devising is an artistic method for the collective examination of a theme, and for the creation of a play without a pre-existing script. Through this method I have addressed e.g. the performative construction of masculinity (Do it like a dude, 2012), and the increase of far-right nationalist parties in Europe (Teater Smuts startar punkband – motståndsstrategier i ett fascistiskt Europa, 2014). All devising projects I have directed have been based on group interviews, workshops, and surveys. As an example, in ‘Det demokratiska projektet’ (2018) more than 200 persons of different ages and life-experiences participated in group interviews and workshops. The material collected through this process formed the basis for the creation of the play. The result was set on stage as an interactive play and exhibited at an art salon ‘Fosterlandet’ at Not Quite in Fengersfors, Sweden.
Research areas
- International law
- EU migration and border control law
Teaching areas
- EU law
- International, EU and Swedish Migration Law
- Swedish public law