The EGS seminar this year will continue to pursue the question of refugees, rights, and representation. The struggle for rights and recognition occurs on a battlefield of representations, among other things, and some of the chief actors on that field are humanitarians. “Refugee” is a category for both humanitarian and human rights discourses, and the tension between the two representations of this condition has given rise to a robust critical literature. To claim rights is not the same thing to ask for help; the demand for justice can be very different than the plea for aid. Both discourses, though, make reference to the concept of ‘humanity,’ and both practices increasingly rely on forensic or evidentiary strategies. We will explore critical accounts of humanitarian action and ask about their significance in light of the ongoing criminalization not only of migrants in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, but also of the humanitarians who seek to aid them. Is a new sort of politics of humanitarian action emerging in response to this targeting? We will continue to work with the investigators of Forensic Oceanography (this year Charles Heller will join us) , and we will also meet with humanitarian activists based in Malta.
SESSION 1: EXPELLED FROM HUMANTY ALTOGETHER
Hannah Arendt, “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man,” in The Origins of Totalitarianism, World Publishing (1958), 267-302
Jacques Rancière, “Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103:2-3 (Spring-Summer 2004), 297-310
SESSION 2: CRITIQUE OF HUMANITARIAN REASON
Didier Fassin, “Truth Ordeal” and “Conclusion,” in Humanitarian Reason, U Cal P (2011), 109-129, 243-257
Miriam Ticktin, “The Illness Clause,” in Casualties of Care , U Cal P (2011), 89-127
SESSION 3: FORENSIC OCEANOGRAPHY 1: FROM NON-ASSISTANCE TO DEATH BY RESCUE
Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani, “Case: Left-to-Die Boat” and “Liquid Traces,” in Forensis, Sternberg (2014) , 638-655, 657-684
Heller and Pezzani, “Ebbing and Flowing,” Near Futures Online 1, March 2016
Forensic Oceanography, The Left-to-Die Boat Case (2012): http://www.forensic-architecture.org/case/left-die-boat/
Forensic Oceanography, Death By Rescue (2016): https://deathbyrescue.org/report/narrative/
SESSION 4: FORENSIC OCEANOGRAPHY 2: CRIMINALIZING RESCUE
Amnesty International, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (2018)
Forensic Oceanography, Blaming the Rescuers (2018):
https://blamingtherescuers.org/
Valentina Zagaria, “When rescue at sea becomes a crime,” Open Democracy (15 September 2018)
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/valentina-zagaria/when-rescue-at-sea-becomes-crime-who-tunisian-fishermen-arrested-in-italy-really-a
Giulia Bertoluzzi, “Tunisian fishermen on the front line of migrant tragedy,” Middle East Eye (31 October 2017)
https://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/fishermen-zarzis-1153799343
SESSION 5: SEMINAR WITH MALTA HUMANITARIAN ACTIVISTS
SESSION 6: RESCUE AS DEPOLITICIZING OR REPOLITICIZING?
Sophie Hinger, “Transformative Trajectories” (interview with Heller and Pezzani), Movements 4, no. 1 (2018), 193-208
Heller and Pezzani, “The Perils of Migration” (October 2018), draft – no circulation
Paolo Cuttitta, “Repoliticization through Search and Rescue”,” Geopolitics 23, no. 3 (July -September 2018), 632-660
Paolo Cuttitta, “Pushing Migrants Back to Libya, Persecuting Rescue NGOs,” Border Criminologies blog (18 April 2018), Parts I and II
IF WE HAVE TIME
Joe Sacco, “The Unwanted,” in Journalism, Jonathan Cape (2012), 107-157
https://www.vqronline.org/vqr-gallery/unwanted-part-1
https://www.vqronline.org/vqr-gallery/unwanted-part-2