Abolitionist vistas of the human. Border struggles, migration and freedom of movement

Bibliographic Data

ID4525341
AuthorsMezzadra (0000-0002-5592-824X, University of Bologna, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume24
Issue4
Pages424-440
Publication date2020-05-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621025.2020.1755156
OpenAlexW3019283638
LanguageEN
Citations received66
References cited29

We are confronting today in many global borderscapes (including the US/Mexico borderlands and the Mediterranean Sea) a criminalization of humanitarian intervention in support of people in transit. This raises important questions with respect to the critique of the governmental turn of the ‘humanitarian reason’ articulated in recent years by critical border and migration scholars. This article discusses such questions through an engagement with the issue of the ‘human’ inspired by black abolitionist thinkers. It also dwells on the transformations of the maritime border regime in the Mediterranean, emphasizing the relevance of the stubbornness of migrants challenging that regime and examining emerging forms of border activism and the practices of solidarity they embody. A discussion of freedom of movement as a political project concludes the article

Criminalization · Environmental ethics · Human rights · Humanitarian intervention · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · Sovereignty · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Sex work and related issues