Introduction: Mediterranean Movements and the Reconfiguration of the Military-Humanitarian Border in 2015

Abstract

Four years after the outbreak of the Arab Uprisings, in the midst of economic crisis, and with increasing wari and violence in the region, the Mediterranean Sea is both a site of intensified crossing and rising death rates for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe. This situation is often described as the migration crisis in the Mediterranean. This is the introduction to a symposium in which we try to push the analysis forward: by looking at the spatial politics that produces this migratory situation, we conceive of the Mediterranean as a borderzone of intertwining crises, i.e. the crisis of displaced populations, the crisis of the policies that govern mobility across European borders, and the Eurozone crisis with its effects on migration.