Hidden geographies of the ‘Mediterranean migration crisis’

Abstract

This article explores the hidden geographies of what has been widely referred to as the ‘Mediterranean migration crisis’ of 2015 and 2016. Specifically, it draws on a large-scale analysis of migratory testimonies from across the central and eastern Mediterranean routes, in order to explore the claims or demands posed to European policy-makers by people on the move. Reflecting on the idea that migration forms a subversive political act that disrupts spatialised inequalities and longer histories of power and violence, the article sets out the argument advanced by scholars of the autonomy of migration approach that migration forms a ‘social movement’ involving subjective acts of escape. It makes the case for a move beyond an abstract account of migration as a social movement, to emphasise the importance of an analysis that unpacks the concrete ways in which multiple ‘nonmovements’ expose the hidden geographies of the so-called ‘crisis’. In so doing, it draws attention to two specific ways in which migration forms a political act. First, the article highlights anti-colonial acts that contest the spatialised inequalities of global migration along with longer-standing historical dynamics of exploitation and dispossession that these implicate. Second, it highlights anti-war acts that reject securitised responses to cross-border migration along with longer-standing spatial and historical dynamics of masculinist violence. While imperceptibility remains a critical dimension of many migratory acts, the article concludes that paying attention to the perceptible claims to justice that subversive political acts of migration involve is crucial in understanding the distinct transformations put into motion by people on the move.

Unruly migrations, abolitionist alternatives

“…Notably, each expresses their escape from the army in terms of a refusal to kill: "I don't kill anyone" (quote 1); "I didn't want to carry the blood in my name" (quote 2); "I don't want to kill anybody" (quote 3). Indeed, several others with whom we spoke describe similar situations and sentiments, including a significant number of men and their family members fleeing Syria, as well as some fleeing situations marked by conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa (Squire 2020).…”

“…The quotes suggest a principled form of desertion, whereby the process of fleeing enforced conscription involves a refusal to kill "innocent people" (quote 2). On this basis, I suggest that we might interpret these acts of migration as resembling an anti-militarist or anti-war movement, which rejects recurring dynamics of racial and masculinist violence (see Squire 2020). Beyond an expression of respect or care for others, withdrawal from the conflict is also expressed as a means of respecting one's own life.…”

“…[2] The counter-archive forms part of a larger collaborative project, which was designed to amplify the voices of those most directly impacted by the European Commission's 2015 migration policy agenda (see Squire et al 2017;. I have engaged with these testimonies in sustained terms, to focus not only on the lived experiences that they document but also the claims to which these experiences give rise (Squire 2020;cf. 'Gabriel' with Squire 2017).…”

Circular movements: Migratory citizenships in anticolonial Athens

“…Yet I want to suggest that circular movements do slightly different work, and can open other ways of understanding citizenships that reflect the geographical multiplicities of the spatialities that people are building in the city. On one level, much research on migrant resistance, drawing on the Autonomy of Migration approach, tends to focus on "nonmovements" -the multiple, dispersed, autonomous actions of people on the move, not bound together in any obvious way, which gives migration its transformative potential (Bayat, 2010;Squire, 2022). Whereas this approach tends to posit transborder solidarity as something fleeting and momentary (e.g.…”

Makeshift camp geographies and informal migration corridors

“…They may come and go over the course of years, months or even days – through evictions and raids or changes in routes – relocating, shifting, disappearing, reappearing or being razed and built over, sometimes leaving no visible trace of their existence. Yet, despite their diversity and ephemerality, makeshift camps nonetheless share key characteristics and have come to constitute a ‘hidden geography’ of Europe (Squire, 2020), crucial to the overland mobilities of thousands of migrants each year and essential to understanding contemporary informal mobilities and migration corridors.…”