Risk, Improvisation, and Emergency Governance on the Mediterranean Sea
Associate Professor Anja Simonsen has contributed the article "Risk, Improvisation, and Emergency Governance on the Mediterranean Sea" to a special issue of the journal Migration and Society edited by Tricia Redeker Hepner and Magnus Treiber.
The special issue is organised under the theoretical framework of the Anti-Refugee Machine (ARM). Hepner and Treiber draw on Ferguson’s Anti-Politics Machine (1994) to argue that rather than alleviating poverty or addressing the root causes of migration, Global North interventions empower elites and bureaucratic institutions, thereby perpetuating the conditions that drive migration. The ARM operates as a complex apparatus rooted in the historical trajectory of capitalist modernity that entangles various actors and interests across the globe while deepening inequalities and undermining the political and legal frameworks designed to protect refugees.
Simonsen argues that while Somali migrants see migration as a response to the deteriorating situation in their country of origin, the European Union (EU) governs irregular migration as an emergency and as a root cause of insecurity. Based on fieldwork among European journalists and staff working with private search and rescue operations and migrants, Simonsen's article explores the human consequences of the Anti-Refugee Machine (ARM) resulting from the emergency discourse of migration governance.
The ARM consists of the various ideological and material emergency measures implemented to stem irregular migration, and includes agendas and policies that ignore and obscure the historical context and human aspect of migration. Simonsen explores the different understandings and experiences of irregular migration and contextualizes the fatal encounters between authorities and migrants in Libya and the Mediterranean.
The article is available on Migration and Society's website.