Course description
Separating but at the same time connecting the shores of the Mediterranean, the sea has served as a major resource for conquerors, traders, travelers, labor migrants and refugees from the antiquity until today. Mediterranean history shows that globalization, as a process of increasing entanglement and interdependence of regions often far away from each other is not a new phenomenon - on the contrary, mobility and connectivity were the elements that constituted the Mediterranean space.
However, the alarming scenarios in the Mediterranean Sea showing people from Sub-Sahara regions, or the Middle East trying to reach Europe in rubber boats and vessels reveal that mobility in the Mediterranean is not an innocent affair. The so-called “refugee crisis”, which peaked in 2015 and continues to play out at the gates of Europe today, calls for a deeper analysis especially as mobility and migration from Africa to Europe seems to be a highly hierarchized and politicized issue where race, gender, nationality, class, religion and different forms of capital play a part.

The inequality of the globalization process becomes clear when we consider that tourists, students and business people, goods, technology and financial flows can cross borders in a few hours, while at the same time it may take years for migrants from the African continent, requires all their financial resources and has become a question of life and death.
In this course, we will try to find out whether and in which form recent EU border policies interact with or contradict the ethical and legal foundations which are at the heart of the European Union and which were formulated after the end of the Second World War as Human Rights (1949) stressing the equality of all human beings before the law and the right to seek asylum from persecution in other countries according to the refugee convention of Geneva (1951).
Departing from a historical approach to mobility in the Mediterranean, we will highlight different kinds of migration typical for that area: postcolonial migration due to wars or independent movements at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as lifestyle migration of artists, thinkers and pensioners in search of utopias and better ways of life.
After this introduction we will get into a closer examination of the actual scenarios and the actors involved in the production of illegality, clandestine migration and risk. The ethical, social and political dimension of the border and the modus operandi of the European border regimes executed through Frontex and other gatekeepers will concern us here. Thereby a special focus will be set on gender aspects of illegal migration as women are more vulnerable to harassment connected to their physical integrity and usually opt for different strategies as their male fellow travelers.

In addition to the theoretical input, the course participants will get engaged in a joint research project on migration in Venice.

Course requirements
- the course is a seminar. Each session is organized around readings that must be completed before class. Students have to be prepared to discuss the texts and physically bring them to class (either on paper or on screen) so that we can re-read certain passages. Short statements are to be written on the texts.
- prepare one presentation (alone or in group) accompanied by PowerPoint, based on the readings
- participate in the joint fieldwork project
- write one final essay. The essay must include bibliographical references and notes. The topic can be chosen in agreement with the professor and may range from one of the topics of the seminar to reflections on own research experiences.

Syllabus
- Historical approach to connectivity and mobility in the Mediterranean
- Anthropological Approach to Mobility and Migration
- Postcolonial migration in the Mediterranean
- In search of Utopias in the sunny South: travelers, tourists, retirement- and lifestyle- migration
- Anthropology of the Border
- Ethical consideration of border regimes and the production of illegality
- Clandestine migration
- Woman crossing borders – the female experience
- Training in fieldwork methods and interview techniques
- Migration in mobility in Venice: joint research and fieldwork

Evaluation
30% attendance and participation in class
30% oral presentation in class
40% written final essay

Bibliography

Connectivity and Mobility – a Historical Approach
Mobility and Travel in the Mediterranean from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Kongressbericht Paderborn. Münster 2004: Lit Verlag

Peregrine Horden & Nicholas Purcel. 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford, Malden (Massachusetts): Blackwell

Anthropological Approach to Mobility and Migration
Noel. B. Salazar. 2016. Keywords in Mobility. A critical Introduction p. 1-12 In: Keywords in Mobility. A Critical Engagements. Noel B. Salazar & Kiran Jayaram (eds.) NY, Oxford: Berghahn
Arjun Appadurai. 1996.Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy p.27-47. In: Arjun Appadurai. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. London, Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press

Postcolonial Migration in the Mediterranean
Sayak Abdelmalek. 2000. El Ghorba. From Original Sin to Collective Lie p. 147-170. In: Ethnography 2000.1; 147.London, NY: Sage Publications

In Search of Utopias

Noel B. Salazar & Nelson H.H.Graburn. 2014 Tourism Imaginaries. Anthropological Approaches. NY: Berghan

Anthropology of the Border
Sharam Khosravi. 2011. Illegal Traveller. An Auto-Ethnography of Borders. Introduction. London: Pallgrave McMillan
Chris Rumford.2006. Theorizing Borders In: European Journal of Social Theory 9(2): 155-169

Ethical consideration of border regimes and the production of illegality
Blanca Garcés-Mascarenas. 2015. Why Dublin doesn’t work. IN: Notes Internationals CIDOB 135. Nov. 2015.
Handbook on Human Security, Borders and Migration. 2021. Eds: Natalia Ribas Mateos, Timothy J. Dunn. Cheltenham. Uk. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Paolo Gaibazzi, Alice Bellagamba, Stephan Dünnwald (eds.) 2017. EurAfrican Borders and Migration Management: Political Cultures, Contested Spaces and Ordinary Lives. NY: Pallgrave McMillan

Nick-Vaugham Williams. 2011. Off-Shore Biopolitical Border Security: The EU’s Global Response to Migration, Piracy and “Risky Subjects” In: Luiza Bialasiewicz (eds.) Europe in the World. EU Politics and the making of European Space. Franham Burlington
Anderson, Ruben. 2014. Hunter and Prey: Patrolling Clandestine Migration in the Euro-African Borderlands. In: Anthropological Quarterly 87(1): 119-150.

Itty Abrahams & Willem van Schendel.2005. The Making of Illicitness In: Willem van Schendel & Itty Abrahams (eds.): Illicit Flows and Criminal Things. State Borders and the Other Side of Globalization. Indiana: Indiana Univ.Press

Clandestine migration
Alessandro Triulzi & Robert L. McKenzie (eds.) 2103. Long Journeys. African Migrants on the Road. Leiden: Brill
Andersson, Ruben. 2014. Time and the Migrant Other: European Border Controls and the Temporal Economics of Illegality. In: American Anthropologist 116(4):795-809

Gebrewold Bealchew & Tendayi Bloom: 2016. Understanding Migrant Decisions: From Sub-Sahara Africa to the Mediterranean Region. London, NY: Routledge

Woman crossing borders – the female experience
Kristin Kastner. 2013. Nigerian Border Crossers: Woman Travelling to Europe by Land In: Long Journeys. African Migrants on the Road. Alessandro Triulzi and Robert L. McKenzie (Eds.) Leiden: Brill

Sine Plambech.2016. Sex. Deportation and Rescue: Economics of Nigerian Sex Workers IN: Feminist Economics. London: Routledge

Last updated: February 29, 2024