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Papers and book chapters by Lorenzo Pezzani
Toward a Politics of Freedom of Movement, 2019
In Reece Jones (ed.), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgi... more In Reece Jones (ed.), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2019).
We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the conflictual reality of the Mediterranean border regime. We then discuss different approaches to freedom of movement--those of open versus no borders--as a way to specify our own approach, which emphasizes the perspective of migrants and articulates practices in the present with a future-oriented political horizon. Finally, we outline a series of antinomies--apparently unresolvable contradictions between terms--we believe a politics of freedom of movement must address to sharpen both its long-term horizon and daily practices.
In: Reece Jones (ed), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press), 2019
Chapter Outline: We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the co... more Chapter Outline: We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the conflictual reality of the Mediterranean border regime. We then discuss different approaches to freedom of movement--those of open versus no borders--as a way to specify our own approach, which emphasizes the perspective of migrants and articulates practices in the present with a future-oriented political horizon. Finally, we outline a series of antinomies--apparently unresolvable contradictions between terms--we believe a politics of freedom of movement must address to sharpen both its long-term horizon and daily practices.
In 2011, the researcher and filmmaker Charles Heller and the architect Lorenzo Pezzani founded th... more In 2011, the researcher and filmmaker Charles Heller and the architect Lorenzo Pezzani founded the Forensic Oceanography project to investigate the lethal effects of the militarized border regime and the politics of migration in the Mediterranean Sea. In collaboration with a wide network of non governmental organisations (NGOs), activist groups, researchers and journalists, they have produced various human rights reports as well as articles, maps, and videos that document and challenge the violence perpetrated against migrants at the EU's maritime borders. In 2012, they contributed to found the online mapping and monitoring platform WatchTheMed, and in 2014, the Alarmphone, a hotline for migrants in distress at sea. Pezzani and Heller are affiliated with the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Sophie Hinger, research fellow at the IMIS (Osnabrück) and member of the Alarmphone, communicated with them via skype and e-mail between July 2017 and February 2018. Their exchange was concerning transformations of the Euro-Mediterranean border regime with a focus on the Central Mediterranean and the role of activist-researchers in this contested arena. of movement, genealogies of mobility and control Sophie Hinger: We are currently at a critical juncture of the ongoing struggles over freedom of movement and more generally human rights in the European and Mediter-ranean border regime – with the criminalization of those who try to save lives and support people on the move, on the one hand, and renewed cooperation between Eu-ropean and neighbouring states to prevent people from crossing the Mediterranean Sea on the other. In order to be able to intervene critically in this contested arena, it is important to understand the broader trajectories of change and trace the genealogy of migration control.
EUROPE at a CROSSROADS : Managed Inhospitality
This article reflects critically on how forms of militant research that produce knowledge about t... more This article reflects critically on how forms of militant research that produce knowledge about the border can produce effects in the politics of migration themselves. It does so by looking at Forensic Oceanography, a collaborative research project that we have been conducting since the summer of 2011. We first locate this research among a broader ‘ecology of knowledges’ that are generated at the border and that directly affect way the border regime actually operates, underlining their ‘aesthetic’ dimension. Secondly, we problematise more specifically the knowledge produced by activists who fight against the border regime and attempt to think how these need to position themselves strategically in relation to existing knowledge practices so as to avoid complicity with the same power structures they are seeking to challenge. Finally, since our knowledge production has amongst others been geared towards the legal sphere, we sketch out a critical reflection on the reliance on legal strategy to forward progressive changes within the politics of migration.
“New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a ne... more “New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a nexus of terms and concepts that fill-out the contemporary problematic of migration. It moves beyond traditional and critical migration studies by building on cultural studies and post-colonial analyses, and by drawing on a diverse set of longstanding author engagements with migrant movements. The paper is organized in four parts (i) Introduction, (ii) Migration, Knowledge, Politics, (iii) Bordering, and (iv) Migrant Space/Times. The keywords on which we focus are: Migration/Migration Studies; Militant Investigation; Counter-mapping; Border Spectacle; Border Regime; Politics of Protection; Externalization; Migrant Labour; Differential inclusion/exclusion; Migrant struggles; and Subjectivity.
Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence
In : San Rocco 02. Islands http://www.sanrocco.info/issues/2
Papers by Lorenzo Pezzani
ACME: an International E-journal for Critical Geographies , 2017
The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacit... more The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacity to order particular social and spatial relations. By focusing on the role that maps and mapping practices play within the politics of migration -the contentious field of actions and relations which determines who can move and in what condition -, we show how cartography is in fact used both as a practice for the control and government of mobility as well as a tool for advocating, facilitating and even embodying, border crossing. We make this point by engaging two stories related to the mapping EU's external borders in which we have been directly involved as researchers and activists: the first one concerning the mapping of migrants' routes, the second looking instead at the surveillance of maritime borders. In both cases, we point to an on-going "clash of cartographies" in the current flurry of charting borders and flows, showing how cartography works on the ground for both the world of migration management and the struggles for free movement.
ACME: an International E-journal for Critical Geographies , 2017
The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacit... more The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacity to order particular social and spatial relations. By focusing on the role that maps and mapping practices play within the politics of migration -the contentious field of actions and relations which determines who can move and in what condition -, we show how cartography is in fact used both as a practice for the control and government of mobility as well as a tool for advocating, facilitating and even embodying, border crossing. We make this point by engaging two stories related to the mapping EU's external borders in which we have been directly involved as researchers and activists: the first one concerning the mapping of migrants' routes, the second looking instead at the surveillance of maritime borders. In both cases, we point to an on-going "clash of cartographies" in the current flurry of charting borders and flows, showing how cartography works on the ground for both the world of migration management and the struggles for free movement.
Communications , 2019
Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé ... more Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé sur la liberté de se mouvoir des migrants, cet horizon politique rencontre de nombreuses difficultés. Pour tenter de répondre à celles-ci, nous partons des multiples frontières étatiques et sociales dont les migrants font l’expérience à travers leurs trajectoires et indiquons autant de dimensions de luttes nécessaires à une politique de la liberté de mouvement.
Revue européenne des migrations internationales, 2014
Toward a Politics of Freedom of Movement, 2019
In Reece Jones (ed.), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgi... more In Reece Jones (ed.), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2019).
We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the conflictual reality of the Mediterranean border regime. We then discuss different approaches to freedom of movement--those of open versus no borders--as a way to specify our own approach, which emphasizes the perspective of migrants and articulates practices in the present with a future-oriented political horizon. Finally, we outline a series of antinomies--apparently unresolvable contradictions between terms--we believe a politics of freedom of movement must address to sharpen both its long-term horizon and daily practices.
In: Reece Jones (ed), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press), 2019
Chapter Outline: We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the co... more Chapter Outline: We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the conflictual reality of the Mediterranean border regime. We then discuss different approaches to freedom of movement--those of open versus no borders--as a way to specify our own approach, which emphasizes the perspective of migrants and articulates practices in the present with a future-oriented political horizon. Finally, we outline a series of antinomies--apparently unresolvable contradictions between terms--we believe a politics of freedom of movement must address to sharpen both its long-term horizon and daily practices.
In 2011, the researcher and filmmaker Charles Heller and the architect Lorenzo Pezzani founded th... more In 2011, the researcher and filmmaker Charles Heller and the architect Lorenzo Pezzani founded the Forensic Oceanography project to investigate the lethal effects of the militarized border regime and the politics of migration in the Mediterranean Sea. In collaboration with a wide network of non governmental organisations (NGOs), activist groups, researchers and journalists, they have produced various human rights reports as well as articles, maps, and videos that document and challenge the violence perpetrated against migrants at the EU's maritime borders. In 2012, they contributed to found the online mapping and monitoring platform WatchTheMed, and in 2014, the Alarmphone, a hotline for migrants in distress at sea. Pezzani and Heller are affiliated with the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Sophie Hinger, research fellow at the IMIS (Osnabrück) and member of the Alarmphone, communicated with them via skype and e-mail between July 2017 and February 2018. Their exchange was concerning transformations of the Euro-Mediterranean border regime with a focus on the Central Mediterranean and the role of activist-researchers in this contested arena. of movement, genealogies of mobility and control Sophie Hinger: We are currently at a critical juncture of the ongoing struggles over freedom of movement and more generally human rights in the European and Mediter-ranean border regime – with the criminalization of those who try to save lives and support people on the move, on the one hand, and renewed cooperation between Eu-ropean and neighbouring states to prevent people from crossing the Mediterranean Sea on the other. In order to be able to intervene critically in this contested arena, it is important to understand the broader trajectories of change and trace the genealogy of migration control.
EUROPE at a CROSSROADS : Managed Inhospitality
This article reflects critically on how forms of militant research that produce knowledge about t... more This article reflects critically on how forms of militant research that produce knowledge about the border can produce effects in the politics of migration themselves. It does so by looking at Forensic Oceanography, a collaborative research project that we have been conducting since the summer of 2011. We first locate this research among a broader ‘ecology of knowledges’ that are generated at the border and that directly affect way the border regime actually operates, underlining their ‘aesthetic’ dimension. Secondly, we problematise more specifically the knowledge produced by activists who fight against the border regime and attempt to think how these need to position themselves strategically in relation to existing knowledge practices so as to avoid complicity with the same power structures they are seeking to challenge. Finally, since our knowledge production has amongst others been geared towards the legal sphere, we sketch out a critical reflection on the reliance on legal strategy to forward progressive changes within the politics of migration.
“New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a ne... more “New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a nexus of terms and concepts that fill-out the contemporary problematic of migration. It moves beyond traditional and critical migration studies by building on cultural studies and post-colonial analyses, and by drawing on a diverse set of longstanding author engagements with migrant movements. The paper is organized in four parts (i) Introduction, (ii) Migration, Knowledge, Politics, (iii) Bordering, and (iv) Migrant Space/Times. The keywords on which we focus are: Migration/Migration Studies; Militant Investigation; Counter-mapping; Border Spectacle; Border Regime; Politics of Protection; Externalization; Migrant Labour; Differential inclusion/exclusion; Migrant struggles; and Subjectivity.
Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence
In : San Rocco 02. Islands http://www.sanrocco.info/issues/2
ACME: an International E-journal for Critical Geographies , 2017
The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacit... more The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacity to order particular social and spatial relations. By focusing on the role that maps and mapping practices play within the politics of migration -the contentious field of actions and relations which determines who can move and in what condition -, we show how cartography is in fact used both as a practice for the control and government of mobility as well as a tool for advocating, facilitating and even embodying, border crossing. We make this point by engaging two stories related to the mapping EU's external borders in which we have been directly involved as researchers and activists: the first one concerning the mapping of migrants' routes, the second looking instead at the surveillance of maritime borders. In both cases, we point to an on-going "clash of cartographies" in the current flurry of charting borders and flows, showing how cartography works on the ground for both the world of migration management and the struggles for free movement.
ACME: an International E-journal for Critical Geographies , 2017
The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacit... more The generative power of mapping speaks to the material effects produced by maps and their capacity to order particular social and spatial relations. By focusing on the role that maps and mapping practices play within the politics of migration -the contentious field of actions and relations which determines who can move and in what condition -, we show how cartography is in fact used both as a practice for the control and government of mobility as well as a tool for advocating, facilitating and even embodying, border crossing. We make this point by engaging two stories related to the mapping EU's external borders in which we have been directly involved as researchers and activists: the first one concerning the mapping of migrants' routes, the second looking instead at the surveillance of maritime borders. In both cases, we point to an on-going "clash of cartographies" in the current flurry of charting borders and flows, showing how cartography works on the ground for both the world of migration management and the struggles for free movement.
Communications , 2019
Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé ... more Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé sur la liberté de se mouvoir des migrants, cet horizon politique rencontre de nombreuses difficultés. Pour tenter de répondre à celles-ci, nous partons des multiples frontières étatiques et sociales dont les migrants font l’expérience à travers leurs trajectoires et indiquons autant de dimensions de luttes nécessaires à une politique de la liberté de mouvement.
Revue européenne des migrations internationales, 2014
Philosophy of Photography, 2014
“New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a ne... more “New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a nexus of terms and concepts that fill-out the contemporary problematic of migration.