Democratic Dissent and the Politics of Rescue During the Twenty-First Century’s “Inhospitable” EU Migration “Crisis” (original) (raw)
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European Journal of Migration and Law, 2010
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NARRATING EUROPE'S MIGRATION AND REFUGEE 'CRISIS'
It is very clear – as many journalists covering the unfolding migration and refugee crisis have pointed out – that geography lies at the heart of the events taking place in Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a story of borders and routes, of distance and proximity, and of location and accessibility. The role of (re-) bordering has been fundamental in states' attempts to 'manage' and 'control' the refugee and migrant flows and, in this respect, we observe a return to the more traditional practices of bordering – physical barriers and personnel-heavy security controls – rather than the previous processes of 'externalizing' and 'internal-izing' border management. In the Eastern Mediter-ranean and the Balkans the external border of the European 'fortress' has been prised open, whilst the free-movement ethos of the Schengen area has been compromized by EU states' reactions to the large-scale movement of migrants and refugees and recent acts of terrorism. In this introductory paper we bring a critical geopolitical lens into play in order to understand the European, regional and global power geometries at work, and we critically examine the political and media rhetoric around the various discursive constructions of the migrant/refugee 'crisis', including both the negative and the Islamophobic utterances of some European leaders and the game-changing iconicity of certain media images.
This article analyses the European anti-smuggling agenda as an anti-policy that derives legitimacy from fighting ‘bad things’, in terms that mask political disagreement. By juxtaposing the agenda to the experiences and understandings of those whom such measures affect most directly – people migrating without authorisation to the EU – it uncovers the productivity of anti-smuggling and the political contestations surrounding it. Based on a qualitative analysis of 257 interviews carried out with 271 people who travelled – or sought to travel – across the Mediterranean Sea by boat using smuggling networks, the article highlights the complicity of governing authorities and officials with smuggling networks and practices, as well as the diversity and ambivalences of relationships between smugglers and the smuggled. Going further, the article points to the specific ways in which anti-smuggling is contested by those on the move, which expose a central political disagreement over the legitimacy of mobility across borders.
2016
I am particularly pleased to be here today at the 'initiation' of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Migrants' Rights in the Mediterranean, and I would like to express my thanks to Professor Giuseppe Cataldi and to Dr Anna Liguori for the invitation and for what is a most timely initiative in a most appropriate location. Above all, however, I would like to express my thanks to Italy, to the people of Italy, for all that they have done over the past eighteen months and more to bring safety and protection to those putting their lives, their future, at risk on the sea. It is a noble record. Italy has acted as the conscience of Europe, putting into daily practice the values which so many of us, speaking as a European, count dear. But it has done so without the degree of support-material, moral and practical-which it is entitled to expect from its partners in the community. Europe, or at least, the European Union, claims the right to manage the movement of people across the Mediterranean, but it is too ready to decline the responsibilities and to dispute the obligations that go with that claim. Many of us hope that this will change, and this afternoon, I want to follow up my thanks with what I hope will be some insights into the nature of those duties, and some suggestions about what needs to be done next. Let me begin, however, with some views from outside, from across the Atlantic. Writing in The New Yorker on 4 May, Philip Gourevitch put it clearly and succinctly: "... every year, people drown in the waters between Africa and Europe. And this year almost two thousand have died, including, last week, nearly eight hundred on one ship, which capsized and sank en route to Italy. Before that horrifying incident, this year's death rate for Mediterranean boat people was ten times higher than it was for the same period a year ago. Now it's thirty times higher, and that increase is attributable to Europe's dereliction of duty..."