Solidarity and Resistance at the Borders of EUrope: Civil Fleet Search and Rescue Operations in the Mediterranean Borderscape

Abstract

The project examines the construction of state space and the contestation of the EUropean borderscape through the work of non-state actors in the Mediterranean Sea. In response to the precarity of irregularized migrant journeys, there has been a rise in Search and Rescue (SAR) NGOs committed to assisting people on the move through upholding the basic human rights and dignity of migrants. Increasingly, NGOs are criminalized for providing basic necessities like food, water and shelter to migrants passing through the peripheral spaces of the state. Not only does irregular migration through the borderlands of the Global North directly confront state efforts to exclude through violent bordering practices, but NGO acts of solidarity also transform the harsh environment of the sea into contested spaces of political action. The lifesaving actions of NGOs operating in the Mediterranean directly challenge state authority and governance at sea while laying bare the violence inherent in state bordering practices. Conversely, the disruptive politics of these NGOs serve as a form of resistance to these same bordering practices and operate as a means of contesting state exclusion. Situating NGO SAR operations within the wider context of the securitization of borders, the repression and criminalization of solidarity in the Mediterranean highlights state efforts to reassert sovereign authority over the sea. This ongoing research contextualises the spatial politics of the Mediterranean borderscape at the intersections of migration governance and acts of solidarity by European NGOs. The research conducted for my doctoral project was driven by an ethnographic methodology that included six months working with SAR NGOs active in the Central Mediterranean while gathering over 50 interviews with activists working in the region. More directly, this also involved three months living and working alongside the German SAR organization, Sea-Watch, in France and Italy during periods of legal and administrative detention. My work bridges the opportunity to write about these movements and resistance efforts, with direct involvement in these struggles for rights, recognition, and freedom of movement, in solidarity with people on the move.