Some of my earliest memories revolve around borders: Buying cheap petrol, chocolate and bananas, visiting the nearest cinema, being stopped for ID checks, picking large amounts of mushrooms and smuggling them back across the border. Growing up less than 10 km from the Italian-Austrian border, borders have always been part of my daily life and landscape as well as my identity. I continued to live at, and cross, borders as I moved around Europe, to India, the United States, and back home, a privileged migrant lucky to be born white and with an EU passport: two must-haves for anyone wishing to cross borders. In my research today, I look at borders and how they include and exclude but also at how they are challenged and contested, both by those who easily cross borders and those who cannot. In B-Shapes, I am excited to explore new dimensions of European borderlands, particularly those linked to minorities living in – and across – them.