Mediterranean Crossroad

For the first time, a boat with some social scientists aboard travels through the migration routes of central Mediterranean. An unprecedented logbook that offers us a radically new look at the necropolitical violence of borders and the diehard drive for mobility.

Rubber dinghies, landings, patrol boats, NGOs, boatmen... the spectacularisation of borders that we have experienced in our daily lives for years only tells part of the story. The dominant political-media narratives represent the Mediterranean as a 'natural' barrier dividing distant areas both geographically and socially. The Mediterranean, however, historically is a space of encounter and contamination, as this "field" work conducted on board of the Tanimar by a group of social scientists testifies, giving voice and legitimacy to all those who cross the sea: migrants, fishermen, sailors, coastguards, islanders, officials of European agencies. By applying sociological methodologies as public practice, this research proposes to rethink the Mediterranean's "water frontier". In doing so, the sea is no longer a border arbitrarily traced on a map, but rather becomes, once again, a common space inhabited by a plurality of social actors. It is them who constantly call it into question and are already prefiguring post-national futures capable of going beyond state control of mobility.

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