THE SEA OF SUFFERING
- Simar Kaur Kochhar
- Mar 7
- 4 min read
This research queries the ways in which architectural devices of reference, which have shaped the discourse of the field over the last few decades, are characterized by their transitioning through spatial, material, and temporal scales. The research explores the agencies architectural devices unfold through transscalar conditions—that is to say, the specific forms of politics that architectural devices perform by participating in diverse dimensional and physical settings; and the way they multiply their reach, influence, and sensitivity by entangling, for instance, the microbiological to the mineral, the atmospherical, the ecosystemic, the genetic, and the planetary.
In collecting and analyzing data, reports, and human testimonies related to the ‘Left-to-Die’ boat, Forensic Oceanography reconstructs and reveals a complex web of overlapping jurisdictions and the militarized border regime affecting migration in the Mediterranean Sea.
Borders are physical and imaginary, embedded in the ground and permeating the sea.
In collecting and analyzing data, reports, and human testimonies related to the ‘Left-to-Die’ boat, Forensic Oceanography reconstructs and reveals a complex web of overlapping jurisdictions and the militarized border regime affecting migration in the Mediterranean Sea.
The visualization of borders in the Mediterranean Sea reveals a landscape far from homogeneous and lawless. The delimitation of Search and Rescue (S&R) zones, the undefined zones of Tunisia and Libya, and the overlapping S&R borders of Italy and Malta depict a complex interplay of visible and invisible regions where the movement of migrants becomes intricately entangled with the politics of illegalization and the surveillance, search, and rescue laws.[3]
This transcalar space witnesses the convergence of national and transnational alliances and the blurring of territorial lines. Rather than a simple line dividing states, the border here becomes an expansive and ambiguous zone marked by contested gaps between legal jurisdictions.
At sea, border crossing evolves into a prolonged, dangerous process across an uneven and heterogeneous territory beyond any single authority's reach, where jurisdictional boundaries in the Mediterranean turn its waters into a lethal entity, endangering migrants' lives and disregarding their safety.
The SAR satellite imagery regularly collected and confirmed the presence of a significant number of ships near the drifting vessel in the Mediterranean Sea.
In the case of the ‘Left-to-die boat’, the remote sensing technologies usually used for surveillance are repurposed as evidence of guilt. Using these media to document the crime of non-assistance of people in distress at sea thus involved a strategic repurposing of images and the use of surveillance technologies ‘against the grain’.[3]
Forensic Oceanography exercises a disobedient gaze, one that refuses to disclose the clandestine migration but seeks to expose the violence of Europe’s border regime instead.
Despite the abundance of data and tracking methods, the political bodies failed to change the migrants' outcome. Instead, these tools have become accomplices to countless crimes committed by the search and surveillance coastguards and facilitated by invisible geopolitical boundaries.
By combining their testimonies with wind and sea-current data as well as satellite imagery, Forensic Oceanography reconstructed the liquid traces of this event.[3]
The poignant progression of the journey of the migrants from prison to the expansive and isolating oceans' vastness and back to the similar confines of the prison highlights the ironic symmetry of their experiences, encapsulating themes of confinement, liberation, and the inescapable nature of their circumstances.[4]
As most of the journey was through the NATO maritime surveillance area, it demonstrates a concerning lack of regard for the lives of migrants, reminiscent of past practices. NATO's primary focus on "security and defense" in maritime surveillance exposes how the laws in place create an imaginary border, differentiating between protecting what belongs to them and what does not.
Consequently, this figurative wall becomes even more formidable when unethical laws are established, allowing political entities to evade accountability for their actions. Additionally, this situation brings attention to the media's influence and the prevalence of articles discussing Europe's perceived disregard for migrants.
The Left-To-Die boat signals how the policing of illegalized migration creates conditions of both (in)visibility and (in)audibility, but these conditions are not static; they are influenced and contested by various actors.
It emphasizes that challenging the violence of borders requires challenging not only physical boundaries but also the limitations of perception.
To effectively examine these borders, one must expand what can be seen and heard, embracing a broader perspective that includes the voices and experiences of those affected by migration policies.
Sources Cited
[1] Balibar, Etienne. 1990. The Nation Form: History and Ideology . Research Foundation of State University of New York for and on behalf of the Fernand Braudel Center.
[2] Franț, Ancuța-Elena. 2022. Forensic architecture: A new dimension in Forensics. Romania: Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași.
[3] Heller, Charles, Lorenzo Pezzani, and Situ Studio. 2012. Forensic Oceanography Report on the “Left-To-Die Boat”. Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London.
[4] Nations, United. 2021. "A call to safeguard migrants in central Mediterranean Sea."
[5] Nations, United. 2020. "Mediterranean Sea: ‘Cycle of violence’ for fleeing migrants must be addressed."
Komentar