International Relations Professors holds lecture on boarder migration
Written by Giavana Escobedo on February 25, 2025
Image Courtesy of Illinois State University
NORMAL, Ill. – International Relations and Geography Professor Marie Price, gave her lecture on border migration this past Friday. Professor John Kostelnick gave more insight as to what the lecture was about, its main points, and why they believe that border migration and geography are important topics that affect everyone.
“She looks at migration, people moving from one country to another country, and trying to understand, you know, reasons why people are moving, and impacts of that migration,” Kostelnick said. “We thought it would be good to bring [her] to talk about that and how, specifically, you know, migration across the U.S. and Mexico border and to share her research there.”
The annual Douglas Clay Ridgley lecture started about 100 years ago, after one of Douglass’s students created a lecture that would bring in a geographer to talk about their research. With Kostelnick’s turn to organize the event this year, he thought that Professor Marie Price would be a great fit as her research is relevant to today’s events.
Kostelnick also goes into Price’s main takeaways and points of her lecture, as much of it revolves around seeing migration from a different perspective, physical geography, and how it can be hard to build borders around physical aspects like mountains, and expenses for building borders, with direct correlation to the economy. She also talks about her own personal travel experience and seeing border migration firsthand.
“…She went down to South Texas, and she did interviews with… I think it was 151 different migrants,” Kostelnick said. “It was really, really powerful to hear about the journeys that some of these people had taken, you know, to finally make it across.”
Another driving force behind the lecture was instilling a sense of personal relevance to the topic.
“And so that’s partly the reason why we have this lecture, is we want people to understand the importance and the relevance of geography and really what geography is about,” Kostelnick said. “It’s about understanding our world, and it’s understanding how, you know, peoples and places are connected through globalization today, including migration.”
Price’s lecture saw an audience of roughly 70 people, ranging from students, staff and faculty.
