Médecins Avec Frontières and the making of a humanitarian borderscape

Pallister‐Wilkins, Polly

doi:10.1177/0263775817740588

Cited by 63 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The growing body of work on the “humanitarian border” (Walters, 2011), analysing how logics of care and control coexist and support each other in the management of migration (Agier, 2010; Fassin, 2005; Franko Aas & Gundhus, 2015; Hyndman, 2000; İşleyen , 2018a; Little & Vaughan‐Williams, 2017; Pallister‐Wilkins, 2015; Perkowski, 2018; Ticktin, 2006; Williams, 2015), has prompted some authors to also pay specific attention to the role of NGOs/CSOs (Cuttitta, 2018a; Gerard & Weber, 2019; Lopez‐Sala & Godenau, 2019; Pallister‐Wilkins, 2017; Prokkola, 2018; Vandevoordt, 2017). However, most of the studies on NGOs/CSOs at the humanitarian border look at the territories of destination countries of the Global North, and—even in the few looking at countries of origin and transit (Sunata & Tosun, 2019)—the relationship between NGOs/CSOs, humanitarian migration management, and externalisation remains largely under‐researched.…”

Section: Externalisation Through Ngos/csos?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Non‐governmental/civil society organisations and the European Union‐externalisation of migration management in Tunisia and Egypt

Cuttitta

2020

Population Space and Place

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This paper sheds light on the role of non-governmental/civil society organisations, as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in the externalisation of migration management in Tunisia and Egypt. These organisations are involved in migration-related activities, which, from the externalisation perspective, should prevent people from attempting the sea-crossing to Europe, thus immobilising them in North Africa. The paper is an ethnographic border regime analysis drawing on extensive fieldwork. It shows that European Union-externalisation is not a univocal and smooth process. Instead, externalisation is entangled in a complex network of actors and dynamics. Measures meant to support externalisation may produce effects contrary to those envisaged, whereas practices accomplishing externalisation goals may be in fact the result of internalisation. By analysing the various actors in their diverse practices and in their-sometimes conflictual-relationships, the paper also tries to minimise state-centrism and Euro-centrism in the study of externalisation.

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Section: Externalisation Through Ngos/csos?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Non‐governmental/civil society organisations and the European Union‐externalisation of migration management in Tunisia and Egypt

Cuttitta

2020

Population Space and Place

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“…Furthermore, the work of border control, in which the hotspot approach claims to be a part, is concerned with maintaining this distinction between self and other, between citizens and those excluded from the full-rights of citizenship. And in recent years, there has been a growth of humanitarianism in border control practices (see Pallister-Wilkins, 2015a, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c whereby humanitarianism enacts what Laleh Khalili and Lisa Hajjar describe as an ethical commitment towards others who are not quite regarded as equal (2013).…”

Section: Saving Distant Strangers Keeping Strangers Distantmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Meanwhile women in Moria are reported to be wearing adult nappies overnight rather than use the unsafe and unsanitary toilet facilities. 4 This catalogue of suffering seems to stand in stark contrast to the growth of the 'humanitarian border' (Walters, 2011) where practices of border control and border policing elide with or use humanitarian concerns for life in the policing of mobility (Pallister-Wilkins, 2015a, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c. Academic work focusing on the growth of the humanitarian border has shown how humanitarian concerns for saving lives and providing basic relief for life seekers as they encounter violent borders (Jones, 2016) works to expand borders and borderwork (Jones et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hotspots and the geographies of humanitarianism

Pallister‐Wilkins

2018

Environ Plan D

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140

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This article focuses on the humanitarian geographies of the hotspots. It argues that hotspots are humanitarian in both idea and practice by raising two fundamental questions that form the basis for the article: what is humanitarianism, and who is it for? The article understands humanitarianism as a logic of government that is more expansive than the mainstream ideal that emerged in the 20th-century. Instead humanitarianism is understood as concerning logics developed to both effectively manage disaster and to secure (in both senses of the word) imminently mobile populations for the maintenance of liberal order alongside and through the securing of life. The article takes an expansive view of humanitarian government to consider genealogies of caring and population security logics in the establishment of modern, western and liberal states. The article unsettles some of the traditional geographical understandings of humanitarianism as care for distant strangers and considers the ways compassion is rationalised by the hotspot approach. This critical reading of humanitarianism and the hotspots offers empirical weight to what has been called 'humanitarianism as liberal diagnostic', through which humanitarianism is deployed to secure both life and a liberal political order across multiple scales. KeywordsHotspots, humanitarianism, mobility, care, control, disasterOn 25 November 2016, in Moria 'hotspot' camp on Lesbos, a woman and child were killed in a fire after a gas canister attached to a hot plate exploded inside their small nylon tent. They were using the hot plate to try and keep warm. As a result of the accident, two people died and many more were injured. . . Later that month, three young men died in Moria camp and a fourth was taken to hospital in a critical condition. Survivors and friends reported that the deceased had no pre-existing medical conditions. To keep warm, the men had been burning cardboard, plastic and scraps of wood in the tents they shared. (MSF, 2017: 12)

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“…In the same Foucauldian discourse analysis, “the birth of the humanitarian border” theorized by Walters (2011) in the European context highlighted the interaction between state and nonstate actors in the governamentality of borderscapes. Researching the humanitarian border, scholars have examined its complexity, heterogeneity, polymorphism, and ambiguity, focusing on the state government of solidarity and the confluence between security and humanitarian concerns in the Euro-Mediterranean (Pallister-Wilkins, 2016, 2018) and in the U.S.–Mexico border (Squire, 2015).…”

Section: Humanitarianism At the Borders And Its Political Character: mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rescuing Migrants in the Central Mediterranean: The Emergence of a New Civil Humanitarianism at the Maritime Border

Esperti

2019

American Behavioral Scientist

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The Central Mediterranean is the most deadly body of water in the Mediterranean Sea with at least 15,062 fatalities recorded by International Organization of Migration between 2014 and 2018. This article aims at highlighting the rise of a variety of new civil society actors engaged in the rescue of people undertaking dangerous journeys across the sea in the attempt of reaching the southern European shores. The peculiarity of the humanitarian space at sea and its political relevance are pointed out to illustrate the unfolding of the maritime border management on the Central Mediterranean route and its relation with the activity of the civil society rescue vessels. The theoretical aspiration of the article is to question the role of a proactive civil humanitarianism at sea, discussing the emergence of different political and social meanings around humanitarianism at the EU’s southern maritime border. In recent years, the increasing presence of new citizens-based organizations at sea challenges the nexus between humanitarian and emergency approaches adopted to implement security-oriented policies. This essay draws on the findings of a broader comparative work on a variety of civil society actors engaged in the search and rescue operations on the maritime route between Libya and Europe, focusing in particular on Italy as country of first arrival. The fieldwork covers a period of time going between 2016 and 2018. The research methodology is built on a multisited ethnography, the conduct of semidirective and informal interviews with both state and nonstate actors, and the analysis of various reports unraveling the social and political tensions around rescue at sea on the Central Mediterranean route.

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Médecins Avec Frontières and the making of a humanitarian borderscape

Cited by 63 publications

References 32 publications

Non‐governmental/civil society organisations and the European Union‐externalisation of migration management in Tunisia and Egypt

Non‐governmental/civil society organisations and the European Union‐externalisation of migration management in Tunisia and Egypt

Hotspots and the geographies of humanitarianism

Rescuing Migrants in the Central Mediterranean: The Emergence of a New Civil Humanitarianism at the Maritime Border

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