Les périls de la migration médiations conflictuelles du risque aux frontières maritimes de l’Union européenne

• Published in: Critique internationale (Paris. 1998) no. 83; pp. 101 - 124
• Main Authors: Heller, Charles, Pezzani, Lorenzo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: French
• Published: Presses de Sciences Po 01-06-2019; 01-04-2019
• Subjects: thema: Corps migrants aux frontières méditerranéennes de l’Europe
• ISSN: 1290-7839; 1777-554X

In this article, we present the successive strategies developed by the Forensic Oceanography project to document and denounce the death of migrants at sea. We first present the “aesthetic” dimension within which – and against which – the project sought to position itself. We then turn to consider the manner in which the project shifted from documenting the specific practices of at-sea actors that resulted in death (such as the “Left-to-Die Boat”) to reconstructing the lethal effects of state policies (such as the cessation of the Mare Nostrum operation). Finally, we show how the project contributed to the creation of Watch the Med Alarm Phone, a 24/7 non-governmental telephone hotline allowing assistance to be directly provided to migrants in distress. While European agencies such as Frontex conduct state-centered “risk analyses” to neutralize the “threat” represented by illegal migrants, Forensic Oceanography has forged a migrant-centered “counter-risk analysis” to contest the violence of borders and diminish the risks to which public policy exposes migrants. Contradictory knowledge and mediations of the border, we argue, also drive the conflict over mobility in the Mediterranean.