Archaeology of Contemporary Migrant Journeys in Western Sicily

Abstract

The Sicilian Channel between Sicily and North Africa receives global attention as a major migratory routefor undocumented people entering Europe clandestinely, a tragic nexus of transnational displacement anddesperation. While the plight of massively overloaded and unseaworthy boats of people justifiably receivesthe bulk of media attention, there is a less-observed movement that occurs and has occurred for thousandsof years: small boats expertly transporting handfuls of people back and forth across the Channel betweenTunisia and western Sicily. This study explores the material vestiges of cross-channel migrations throughassemblages identified during fieldwork by the Arizona Sicily Project along the southwest coast of Sicily inthe summers of 2018 and 2019. While the exigencies of maritime crossing require distinct technologies ofmobility, certain elements of migrant material culture are analogous to that found elsewhere, e.g. along theUS-Mexico border zone of Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Such elements include migrants' strategic triangulationof speed, invisibility and survival in deciding what to bring and the tactical triage of gear en route.Moreover, the political and economic injustices that are catalysts for the movements are comparable, as is thecriminalization of the migrants, which has done more to endanger than dissuade them. This article shedsnew light on migrant choices and challenges and contributes to the archaeology of contemporary migration.

Materiality in transit: An ethnographic-archaeological approach to objects carried, lost, and gained during contemporary migration journeys

“…In many cases, phones have proven to be literal lifelines for migrants in the Mediterranean (Alencar et al, 2019; Gillespie et al, 2016; Gough and Gough, 2019; WTM, n.d.). As such, they are important objects that are rarely lost, discarded, or left behind during journeys—an observation corroborated by the very small number of cell phones and electronic items recovered by the UMP and ASP (Blake and Schon, 2019; Gokee and De León, 2014).…”

“…Two Mediterranean-focused studies have followed De León in documenting material culture specifically related to migrants en route. Blake and Schon (2019) conducted a field survey of beaches in southwestern Sicily and recorded material remains which illuminated practices of people arriving clandestinely on small vessels in recent years. Greene et al (2022) completed archaeological recordings of impounded vessels and their contents in Pozzallo, Sicily as an activist effort to record migrant materials as heritage and to document experiences that are frequently erased when migrant boats are destroyed by Italian authorities.…”

“…Data obtained through ethnographic interviews about objects during transit are (1) contextualized within recent anthropological debates on the materiality of contemporary migration and (2) read through an archaeological lens and compared to data from archaeological projects focused on materiality en route . This work is therefore situated at the intersection of ethnography and archaeology of contemporary migration and offers a complementary and comparative perspective to the growing literature on migrant materiality in transit (Blake and Schon, 2019; De León, 2015; Gokee and De León, 2014; Greene et al, 2022; Höpfner, 2022).…”

“…Attending to theories of materiality which emphasize the co-constitutive nature of humanobject relationships, a combined ethnographic-archaeological lens is used to examine the significance of both present and absent objects for people on the move. This approach also highlights multiple ways in which migration restructures relationships between people and objects (Blake and Schon, 2019). Contemporary militarized border regimes and reception policies attempt to reduce migrants to a "bare life" (Agamben, 1998;De León et al, 2015;Lauser et al, 2022) and deprive individuals of the ability to reconstitute their material and social selves in spaces of transit and resettlement.…”

“…Artifact class proportions compared to data from the Arizona Sicily Project (Blake andSchon, 2019) and the Undocumented Migration Project(Gokee and De León, 2014).…”