New scales of migration governance in the Mediterranean: Regional cities in the spotlight

Abstract

Within the framework of Mediterranean migration studies and as a contribution to the emerging debate on the ‘local turn’, and on multiscalar approaches of region-making from different disciplines, the main objective of this article is to analyse an empirical trend that theoretically reinforces the view that cities can shape new regional domains. This city-region interface delimits the article’s two-sided argument. On one hand, the article argues that because of the increase of trans-Mediterranean relations, cities are contributing to regional-making; and, on the other hand, that this occurs through a critical process of State disengagement from the way in which the Mediterranean is configured today. After arguing for a Braudelian view of the Mediterranean as région de villes, the article conceptualizes the category of ‘regional cities’ within current geographical and international relations literature. Drawing on three examples of external city practices (city-to-city networks, city involvement in international non-governmental organization and city bilateral diplomacy with other cities), the article empirically illustrates, as a third step, the relevant different functionalities of the city that shape region-making. Finally, the article sets this empirical and theoretical focus within current European Union and State-based geo-migration politics as a top-down region-making failure. The purpose is to highlight the dissonance between the top-down region-making blockage and the historical bottom-up construct of the Mediterranean as a region of interconnected cities. This invites us to visualize regional cities as the basic component for a paradigm shift in Mediterranean migration governance.

Resilient urban turnaround in migration governance studies

“…For instance, this is the main “raison d'être” of the French network, the Association Nationale des Villes et Territoires Accueillants (ANVITA, “National Association of Welcoming Cities and Territories”), 1 aiming at making their views on migration governance visible against state control of the public narrative on migration. Another example is the debate on how cities are shaping new regional spaces or penetrating in some regional spaces that were previously under the dominion of states (Zapata‐Barrero, 2022). The actions of most Mediterranean port cities (such as Barcelona, Naples, Palermo and Marseille) opening their harbours to Open arms and SOS Mediterranean are also clear examples.…”