IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v39y2021i5p1030-1048.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Criminalizing solidarity: Search and rescue in a neo-colonial sea

Author

Listed:
  • ÄŠetta Mainwaring

    (University of Glasgow, UK)

  • Daniela DeBono

Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rescued over 110,000 people in the Central Mediterranean Sea between 2015 and 2017. From 2017, EU member states and agencies increasingly criminalized these organizations, accusing them of ‘colluding with smugglers’ and acting as a pull factor. In this climate, as Italy, Malta and the EU increased cooperation with Libya to stop people from taking to the seas, many suspended their operations. This article explores the search and rescue efforts of NGOs in the Central Mediterranean Sea between 2014 and 2018. We examine the criminalization of this NGO activity and argue that it is made possible through an oscillating neo-colonial imagination of the sea as mare nostrum and mare nullius , our sea and nobody’s sea, respectively. We build on the work of other scholars who have pointed to the activation of the Mediterranean as ‘empty’ in response to migration flows, erasing the historical connections of colonialism, empire, trade, and exchange in the Mediterranean as well as the contemporary legal geographies that govern the space. Here, we go further to develop the idea of a neo-colonial sea, which is alternately imagined as empty and ‘European’. We explore how NGOs disrupt these depictions, as well as the disappearing figures of the migrant and refugee amidst the contestations between NGOs and states.

Suggested Citation

  • ÄŠetta Mainwaring & Daniela DeBono, 2021. "Criminalizing solidarity: Search and rescue in a neo-colonial sea," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(5), pages 1030-1048, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:39:y:2021:i:5:p:1030-1048
    DOI: 10.1177/2399654420979314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2399654420979314
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2399654420979314?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christiane Fröhlich & Polly Pallister-Wilkins, 2017. "Humanitarian Rescue/Sovereign Capture and the Policing of Possible Responses to Violent Borders," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8, pages 19-24, February.
    2. repec:bla:glopol:v:8:y:2017:i:s1:p:19-24 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Violeta Moreno†Lax, 2018. "The EU Humanitarian Border and the Securitization of Human Rights: The ‘Rescue†Through†Interdiction/Rescue†Without†Protection’ Paradigm," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 119-140, January.
    4. Ida Danewid, 2017. "White innocence in the Black Mediterranean: hospitality and the erasure of history," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(7), pages 1674-1689, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giacomo Manetti & Carmela Nitti & Marco Bellucci, 2022. "The accountability of Search and Rescue NGOs," Working Papers - Business wp2022_02.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bartek Pytlas, 2021. "Hijacking Europe: Counter‐European Strategies and Radical Right Mainstreaming during the Humanitarian Crisis Debate 2015–16," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 335-353, March.
    2. Caterina Molinari, 2022. "The Borders of the Law: Legal Fictions, Elusive Borders, Migrants’ Rights," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(2), pages 239-245.
    3. Natalie Welfens & Saskia Bonjour, 2023. "Seeking Legitimacy Through Knowledge Production: The Politics of Monitoring and Evaluation of the EU Trust Fund for Africa," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 951-969, July.
    4. Schöfberger, Irene, 2019. "Migration: solid nations and liquid transnationalism? The EU's struggle to find a shared course on African migration 1999-2019," IDOS Discussion Papers 1/2019, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    5. Covadonga Bachiller López, 2023. "Border policing at sea: Tactics, routines, and the law in a Frontex patrol boat," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 63(1), pages 1-17.
    6. Stephan Keukeleire & Sharon Lecocq & Frédéric Volpi, 2021. "Decentring Norms in EU Relations with the Southern Neighbourhood," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 891-908, July.
    7. Rachel Humphris, 2022. "Legacies of British Imperialism in the Contemporary UK Asylum–Welfare Nexus," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-13, September.
    8. Nathan Lauwers & Jan Orbie & Sarah Delputte, 2021. "The Politicization of the Migration–Development Nexus: Parliamentary Discourse on the European Union Trust Fund on Migration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 72-90, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:39:y:2021:i:5:p:1030-1048. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.