‘To be alive, or to survive, is more and more co-terminus with the capacity to move’, Achille Mbembe argues. Therefore, he believes Europe is left with a choice. It can either close itself off from the rest of the world – which would entail implementing even more deadly policies – or ‘imagin[e] together different ways of reorganising the world and redistributing the planet among all of its inhabitants.’ In this paper, I will discuss barriers and possibilities for imagining a borderless world, that is, a world with significantly more freedom of movement for everyone with needs and desires to cross borders. The first part of the paper addresses barriers and limitations. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with Norwegian volunteers and refugee advocates, I describe how their cosmopolitan beliefs in an interdependent world and radical human equality are challenged by their narrow or ‘post-utopian’ political demands and imaginations. I specifically point to their failure to normalise migration and identify what Sara Ahmed describes as “sticky attachments” to national and humanitarian frames and hierarchies. I also reflect on failures in public debates on displacement and refugee activism to address historical and contemporary connections and complicities. The second part of the paper will highlight some cracks and openings. I specifically reflect on the transformative potential of affective encounters with people on the move on the European borderland. I also discuss efforts to challenge welfare chauvinism and think anew about borders and mobility justice. In conclusion, I shift the gaze from refugee advocates to anthropology and discuss how we might contribute to reframing dominant narratives and perspectives on migration and displacement.