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Chapter 5 - Sea-Watch

Dignity in Danger and a Politics of Witness

from Part II - The Production of Solidarity and Hope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2020

Vicki Squire
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

This chapter turns to a second pro-migration activist intervention, the Sea-Watch initiative, which is a German-based association operating search and rescue in the central Mediterranean between Libya and Italy/Malta. By situating the intervention in relation to existing mechanisms of rescue charted in Part I of the book, the chapter shows how Sea-Watch is important in challenging biopolitical, thanatopolitical and zoopolitical dynamics of governing migration through death and vulnerability, in which rescue itself serves as a condition of ultra-precarity. Drawing on research carried out in Lampedusa and Malta, it highlights how Sea-Watch invokes dignity in the midst of danger by undertaking rescue operations at sea in terms that both respect the unruly forces of the sea, while also engaging people on the move as guests who are worthy of respect. Yet it also shows how the intervention is characterised by various ambiguities, which reflect both contestations over conceptions of the sea and a seafaring tradition, as well as the difficulties of escaping transactions with businesses that benefit from the production of death and vulnerability. Despite this, the chapter argues that Sea-Watch remains critical in its enactment of a politics of witness in a context marked by a failure to protect life at sea. Playing an important role in raising awareness of the situation in the central Mediterranean as well as in coordinating sea rescues and monitoring rights violations directly, Sea-Watch’s efforts to operate in solidarity with people on the move enacts a response to the so-called crisis that is orientated towards more hopeful political horizons. It is precisely because of this, the chapter concludes, that organisations such as Sea-Watch have faced increasing difficulties over time in undertaking search and rescue operations.

Type
Chapter
Information
Europe's Migration Crisis
Border Deaths and Human Dignity
, pp. 134 - 162
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Sea-Watch
  • Vicki Squire, University of Warwick
  • Book: Europe's Migration Crisis
  • Online publication: 16 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883696.008
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  • Sea-Watch
  • Vicki Squire, University of Warwick
  • Book: Europe's Migration Crisis
  • Online publication: 16 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883696.008
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Sea-Watch
  • Vicki Squire, University of Warwick
  • Book: Europe's Migration Crisis
  • Online publication: 16 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883696.008
Available formats
×