Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Defining Borders on Land and Sea: Italy, the European Union and Mediterranean Refugees, 2011–2015

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space

Abstract

Sredanovic analyzes the case of refugees who crossed the Channel of Sicily to reach Italy between 2011 and 2015, first from Tunisia and Libya and then from other African and Middle Eastern countries. He shows the ways in which the borders of Italy and the European Union (EU) were redefined in answer to these arrivals. He shows how sea borders are disciplinary areas on which states both exercise control and hold the responsibility for rescue operations and how the activities of border management can be concentrated in limited areas or extended to a larger portion of sea and land. The period considered further saw a Europeanization of the Channel of Sicily, with direct interventions of the EU in border management and asylum operations, but also repeated crises of the Schengen Agreement limiting border controls within Europe. The symbolic importance given to arrivals by sea in Italy in the last 25 years contributed to a rapid politicization of the asylum issue in the country. While refugees had almost no public image in Italy before 2011, their identification with the figure of the irregular migrant arriving by sea brought a rapid emergence of xenophobia directed specifically at refugees.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter focuses on the Channel of Sicily route, although a second route, the Aegean-Balkan one, has become important in Europe in the last few years. In the case of the Aegean-Balkan route, refugees enter the Schengen area crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the Greek islands, exit Schengen moving through Macedonia and Serbia and re-enter it in Hungary or Croatia.

  2. 2.

    A clear-cut differentiation between economic migrants and refugees is problematic, because economic migrants are also often pushed by hardship and refugees can have economic motivations, and because the two groups often travel side by side—see Kumin (2014), Casas-Cortés et al. (Chap. 11, in this volume). However, international law entails specific obligations of the state towards refugees and as the current large influx in Europe is overwhelmingly made up of people with a legally sound claim to asylum, in this text I treat refugees as a relatively identifiable group.

  3. 3.

    See Pugh, “Drowning not Waving: Boat People and Humanitarianism at Sea,” 50–69, on international law norms.

  4. 4.

    In this text ‘norms’ always refers to legal norms, which can derive from a specific national law, from international law and applied within national legislation, or exist in the legislation of different states through legislative imitation rather than because of its inscription in international law.

  5. 5.

    Bruno, “L’ennesimo sbarco di clandestini,” 95–107; “Tracciare i confini esterni. Arrivi, sbarchi, clandestini e l’eterna ‘invasione’,” 162–83.

  6. 6.

    Pastore, “Schengen’s Soft Underbelly? Irregular Migration and Human Smuggling across Land and Sea Borders to Italy,” 95–118; Cvajner and Sciortino, “Dal Mediterraneo al Baltico? Il cambiamento nei sistemi migratori italiani,” 23–52; “Away from the Mediterranean. Italy’s Changing Migration Systems,” 15–23.

  7. 7.

    Ministero dell’Interno, Rapporto sulla criminalità in Italia 2006- Analisi, prevenzione, contrasto, report, http://www.interno.gov.it/mininterno/export/sites/default/it/assets/files/14/0900_rapporto_criminalita.pdf.

  8. 8.

    Cvajner and Sciortino “Dal Mediterraneo al Baltico? Il cambiamento nei sistemi migratori italiani,” 23–52; “Away from the Mediterranean. Italy’s Changing Migration Systems,” 15–23.

  9. 9.

    Barbiano di Belgiojoso and Ortensi, “Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Case of Italy,” 31–38.; Della Puppa, Uomini in movimento. Il lavoro della maschilità tra Bangladesh e Italia.

  10. 10.

    Favell and Hansen, “Markets against politics: Migration, EU enlargement and the idea of Europe,” 561–601.; Cvajner and Sciortino, “Theorizing Irregular Migration: The Control of Spatial Mobility in Differentiated Societies,” 389–404.; Finotelli and Sciortino, “Through the Gates of the Fortress: European Visa Policies and the Limits of Immigration Control,” 80–101.

  11. 11.

    Bernardie-Tahir and Schmoll, “Islands And Undesirables: Introduction To The Special Issue On Irregular Migration In Southern European Islands,” 87–102.

  12. 12.

    Tazzioli, “The Desultory Politics of Mobility and the Humanitarian-Military Border in the Mediterranean. Mare Nostrum Beyond the Sea,” 61–82.

  13. 13.

    See, among others, Albuquerque Abell, “Safe Country Provisions in Canada and in the European Union: A Critical Assessment,” 561–590.

  14. 14.

    This norm has been strongly challenged, but never entirely cancelled, by the development of the Aegean-Balkan route and by the exceptions in which most governments decided to allow for the recent influx of refugees.

  15. 15.

    Albuquerque Abell, “Safe Country Provisions in Canada and in the European Union: A Critical Assessment,” 569–90.

  16. 16.

    Salter, “The Global Visa Regime and the Political Technologies of the International Self: Borders, Bodies, Biopolitics,” 167–89.

  17. 17.

    Rodenhäuser, “Another Brick in the Wall: Carrier Sanctions and the Privatization of Immigration Control,” 223–47.

  18. 18.

    Marchetti, “Rifugiati e migranti forzati in Italia. Il pendolo tra ‘emergenza’ e ‘sistema,’” 53–70.

  19. 19.

    King and Mai, Out of Albania. From crisis migration to social inclusion in Italy.

  20. 20.

    Petrović, Rifugiati, profughi, sfollati. Breve storia del diritto d’asilo in Italia dalla Costituzione ad oggi, 42–43.

  21. 21.

    Kushner, “Meaning nothing but good: ethics, history and asylum-seeker phobia in Britain,” 257–76.

  22. 22.

    Willems, “Development, patterns and causes of violence against foreigners in Germany: Social and biographical characteristics of perpetrators and the process of escalation,” 162–81.

  23. 23.

    Cuttitta, “La «frontiérisation» de Lampedusa, comment se construit une frontière.”

  24. 24.

    Cuttitta, “La «frontiérisation» de Lampedusa, comment se construit une frontière.”; Dines et al. (2015); Lendaro (2015).

  25. 25.

    Bernardie-Tahir and Schmoll, “Islands And Undesirables: Introduction To The Special Issue On Irregular Migration In Southern European Islands,” 87–102.

  26. 26.

    Bernardie-Tahir and Schmoll, “Islands And Undesirables: Introduction To The Special Issue On Irregular Migration In Southern European Islands,” 87–102; Cuttitta, “La «frontiérisation» de Lampedusa, comment se construit une frontière.”

  27. 27.

    Marchetti, “Expanded Borders: Policies and Practices of Preventive Refoulement in Italy,” 160–183.

  28. 28.

    Colombo, Fuori controllo?: miti e realtà dellimmigrazione in Italia.

  29. 29.

    Marchetti, “Rifugiati e migranti forzati in Italia. Il pendolo tra ‘emergenza’ e ‘sistema,’” 53–70.

  30. 30.

    See Nascimbene and Di Pascale, “The ‘Arab Spring’ and the Extraordinary Influx of People who Arrived in Italy from North Africa,” 341–60, for further details on the legal context.

  31. 31.

    Marchetti, “Rifugiati e migranti forzati in Italia. Il pendolo tra ‘emergenza’ e ‘sistema,’” 53–70.; Sredanovic and Lelleri “The ‘Emergency North Africa’ in the Bologna area: visions and tensions of hospitality in operators’ discourses,” 203–220.

  32. 32.

    Giuffré, “Watered-down Rights on the High Seas: Hirsi Jamaa and Others V Italy,” 728–50.; Kumin “Policy adrift. The challenge of mixed migrations by sea,” 306–24.

  33. 33.

    See Wihtol de Wenden, “La frontière dans les relations internationales: les révolutions arabes et le contentieux franco-italien à propos de Schengen,” 277–284.

  34. 34.

    Media analyses (e.g., Bruno 2004, 2016) have shown how the media focused on arrivals by sea for a long time. My own analyses on the newspapers’ front pages in 2013 (Sredanovic and Zenuni 2014), and even in 2012 (Sredanovic 2013), found a preponderance of news on such arrivals.

  35. 35.

    Ministero dell’Interno, Rapporto sulla criminalità in Italia 2006- Analisi, prevenzione, contrasto, report, http://www.interno.gov.it/mininterno/export/sites/default/it/assets/files/14/0900_rapporto_criminalita.pdf.

  36. 36.

    See Finotelli and Sciortino, “Through the Gates of the Fortress: European Visa Policies and the Limits of Immigration Control,” 80–101.

  37. 37.

    Sredanovic and Lelleri, “The ‘Emergency North Africa’ in the Bologna area: visions and tensions of hospitality in operators’ discourses,” 203–220.

  38. 38.

    One hypothesis that emerged during the focus groups was that the daily sum was set at a higher level to convince otherwise unwilling Italian public, third sector or commercial entities to accept refugees. In other words, xenophobes, institutional or otherwise, contributed to raise the cost of hospitality.

  39. 39.

    Belluati, “Lampedusa, 3 Ottobre 2013. Cronaca di una tragedia,” 63–78; Bruno, “Frame e discorsi televisivi nel racconto del dolore. Il naufragio di Lampedusa nei talk italiani,” 80–98.

  40. 40.

    De Vittor, “Il diritto di traversare il Mediterraneo… o quantomeno di provarci,” 63–81.

  41. 41.

    Marchetti, “Rifugiati e migranti forzati in Italia. Il pendolo tra ‘emergenza’ e ‘sistema,’” 53–70.

  42. 42.

    Tazzioli, “The Desultory Politics of Mobility and the Humanitarian-Military Border in the Mediterranean. Mare Nostrum Beyond the Sea,” 61–82.

  43. 43.

    Lendaro, “«No finger print!» Les mobilisations des migrants à Lampedusa, ou quand l’espace compte.”; Marchetti “Rifugiati e migranti forzati in Italia. Il pendolo tra ‘emergenza’ e ‘sistema,’” 53–70.

  44. 44.

    Willems, “Development, patterns and causes of violence against foreigners in Germany: Social and biographical characteristics of perpetrators and the process of escalation,” 162–81.

  45. 45.

    See Casas-Cortés et al. (Chap. 11, in this volume).

  46. 46.

    Tazzioli, “The Desultory Politics of Mobility and the Humanitarian-Military Border in the Mediterranean. Mare Nostrum Beyond the Sea,” 61–82.

  47. 47.

    Bernardie-Tahir and Schmoll, “Islands And Undesirables: Introduction To The Special Issue On Irregular Migration In Southern European Islands,” 87–102.

  48. 48.

    Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780; Anderson, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism.

  49. 49.

    Torpey, The Invention of the Passport. Surveillance, Citizenship and the State.

  50. 50.

    Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: postcolonial thought and historical difference.

  51. 51.

    Hobsbawm and Ranger, The invention of tradition.

  52. 52.

    Anderson, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism.

  53. 53.

    Lendaro “«No finger print!» Les mobilisations des migrants à Lampedusa, ou quand l’espace compte”; Marchetti, “Rifugiati e migranti forzati in Italia. Il pendolo tra ‘emergenza’ e ‘sistema,’” 53–70.

  54. 54.

    Belloni, “Refugees as Gamblers: Eritreans Seeking to Migrate Through Italy,” 104–19.

Works Cited

  • Albuquerque Abell, Nazaré. 1997. Safe Country Provisions in Canada and in the European Union: A Critical Assessment. International Migration Review 31 (3): 569–590.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Associazione Carta di Roma. 2014. Notizie alla deriva: Secondo rapporto annuale. Roma: Edizioni Ponte Sisto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Elisa, and Livia Elisa Ortensi. 2013. Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Case of Italy. Rivista Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica 67 (3–4): 31–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Belloni, Milena. 2016. Refugees as Gamblers: Eritreans Seeking to Migrate Through Italy. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 14 (1): 104–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belluati, Marinella. 2014. Lampedusa, 3 Ottobre 2013. Cronaca di una tragedia. In Associazione Carta di Roma, Notizie alla deriva: Secondo rapporto annuale, 63–78. Roma: Edizioni Ponte Sisto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernardie-Tahir, Nathalie, and Camille Schmoll. 2014. Islands and Undesirables: Introduction to the Special Issue on Irregular Migration in Southern European Islands. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 12 (2): 87–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruno, Marco. 2004. L’ennesimo sbarco di clandestini. In FuoriLuogo. L’immigrazione ed i media italiani, ed. Marco Bruno, Marco Binotto, and Valentina Martino, 95–107. Cosenza: Rai-Eri.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Frame e discorsi televisivi nel racconto del dolore. Il naufragio di Lampedusa nei talk italiani. In Associazione Carta di Roma, Notizie alla deriva: Secondo rapporto annuale, 80–98. Roma: Ponte Sisto.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016. Tracciare i confini esterni. Arrivi, sbarchi, clandestini e l’eterna “invasione”. In Tracciare confini. L’immigrazione nei media Italiani, ed. Marco Binotto, Marco Bruno, and Valeria Lai, 162–183. Milano: Franco Angeli.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Colombo, Asher. 2012. Fuori controllo?: miti e realtà dell’immigrazione in Italia. Bologna: Il Mulino.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cuttitta, Paolo. 2015. La «frontiérisation» de Lampedusa, comment se construit une frontière. L’espace politique 25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cvajner, Martina, and Giuseppe Sciortino. 2009. Dal Mediterraneo al Baltico? Il cambiamento nei sistemi migratori italiani. In La fatica di cambiare. Rapporto sulla società italiana, ed. Roberto Catanzaro and Giuseppe Sciortino, 23–53. Bologna: Il Mulino.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010a. Away from the Mediterranean. Italy’s Changing Migration Systems. Italian Politics & Society 69: 15–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010b. Theorising Irregular Migration: The Control of Spatial Mobility in Differentiated Societies. European Journal of Social Theory 13 (3): 389–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Vittor, Francesca. 2014. Il diritto di traversare il Mediterraneo… o quantomeno di provarci. Diritti Umani e Diritto Internazionale 8 (1): 63–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Della Puppa, Francesco. 2014. Uomini in movimento. Il lavoro della maschilità tra Bangladesh e Italia. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dines, Nick, et al. 2015. Thinking Lampedusa: Border Construction, the Spectacle of Bare Life and the Productivity of Migrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (3): 430–445.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Favell, Adrian, and Randall Hansen. 2002. Markets Against Politics: Migration, EU Enlargement and the Idea of Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28 (4): 581–601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Finotelli, Claudia, and Giuseppe Sciortino. 2013. Through the Gates of the Fortress: European Visa Policies and the Limits of Immigration Control. Perspectives on European Politics and Society 14 (1): 80–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giuffré, Mariagiulia. 2012. Watered-Down Rights on the High Seas: Hirsi Jamaa and Others V Italy. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 61 (3): 728–750.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobsbawm, Eric John, and Terence Ranger, eds. 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Russell, and Nicola Mai. 2008. Out of Albania. From Crisis Migration to Social Inclusion in Italy. London: Berghahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumin, Judith. 2014. Policy Adrift. The Challenge of Mixed Migrations by Sea. In Humanitarian Crises and Migration. Causes, Consequences and Responses, ed. Susan F. Martin, Sanjula Weerasinghe, and Abbie Taylor, 306–324. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kushner, Tony. 2003. Meaning Nothing But Good: Ethics, History and Asylum-Seeker Phobia in Britain. Patterns of Prejudice 37 (3): 257–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lendaro, Annalisa. 2015. «No finger print!» Les mobilisations des migrants à Lampedusa, ou quand l’espace compte. L’espace politique 25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marchetti, Chiara. 2010. Expanded Borders: Policies and Practices of Preventive Refoulement in Italy. In The Politics of International Migration Management, ed. Martin Geiger and Antoine Pécoud, 160–183. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Rifugiati e migranti forzati in Italia. Il pendolo tra ‘emergenza’ e ‘sistema’. Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana 43: 53–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ministero dell’Interno. Rapporto sulla criminalità in Italia 2006- Analisi, prevenzione, contrasto. Report. http://www.interno.gov.it/mininterno/export/sites/default/it/assets/files/14/0900_rapporto_criminalita.pdf.

  • Nascimbene, Bruno, and Alessia Di Pascale. 2011. The ‘Arab Spring’ and the Extraordinary Influx of People Who Arrived in Italy from North Africa. European Journal of Migration and Law 13 (4): 341–360.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pastore, Ferruccio, et al. 2006. Schengen’s Soft Underbelly? Irregular Migration and Human Smuggling Across Land and Sea Borders to Italy. International Migration 44 (4): 95–118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petrović, Nadan. 2011. Rifugiati, profughi, sfollati. Breve storia del diritto d’asilo in Italia dalla Costituzione ad oggi. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pugh, Michael. 2004. Drowning Not Waving: Boat People and Humanitarianism at Sea. Journal of Refugee Studies 17 (1): 50–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodenhäuser, Tilman. 2014. Another Brick in the Wall: Carrier Sanctions and the Privatization of Immigration Control. International Journal of Refugee Law 26 (2): 223–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salter, Mark B. 2006. The Global Visa Regime and the Political Technologies of the International Self: Borders, Bodies, Biopolitics. Alternatives 31 (2): 167–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sredanovic, Djordje. 2013. Fotografia: Media e immigrazione nel 2012. In Associazione Carta di Roma, Notizie fuori dal ghetto: Primo rapport annuale, 17–50. Roma: Edizioni Ponte Sisto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sredanovic, Djordje, and Raffaele Lelleri. 2015. The ‘Emergency North Africa’ in the Bologna Area: Visions and Tensions of Hospitality in Operators’ Discourses. Hospitality & Society 5 (2–3): 203–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sredanovic, Djordje, and Ardiana Zenuni. 2014. Fotografia. La rappresentazione di migranti e minoranze nei quotidiani 2013: numeri, temi, tendenze. In Associazione Carta di Roma, Notizie alla deriva: Secondo rapporto annuale, 19–44. Roma: Edizioni Ponte Sisto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tazzioli, Martina. 2015. The Desultory Politics of Mobility and the Humanitarian-Military Border in the Mediterranean. Mare Nostrum Beyond the Sea. Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana 44: 61–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torpey, John. 2000. The Invention of the Passport. Surveillance, Citizenship and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wihtol De Wenden, Catherine. 2012. La frontière dans les relations internationales: les révolutions arabes et le contentieux franco-italien à propos de Schengen. Migrations Société 140: 277–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willems, Helmut. 1995. Development, Patterns and Causes of Violence Against Foreigners in Germany: Social and Biographical Characteristics of Perpetrators and the Process of Escalation. Terrorism and Political Violence 7 (1): 162–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Group for Research on Ethnic Relations, Migration & Equality/Migration Asylum Multiculturalism, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Djordje Sredanovic

Authors
  1. Djordje Sredanovic
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Tabea Linhard

  2. Department of History, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Timothy H. Parsons

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Sredanovic, D. (2019). Defining Borders on Land and Sea: Italy, the European Union and Mediterranean Refugees, 2011–2015. In: Linhard, T., Parsons, T.H. (eds) Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77956-0_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation