All Hands on Deck: The Sea as an Object to Rethink Migrations

Abstract

The thematic dossier “All Hands on Deck: The Sea as an Object to Rethink Migrations” proposes an approach to different ways of understanding migratory movements through their presence at sea. This dossier is part of the oceanic turn, its focus being the sea and its methodology removing the exclusivity of land marked by a visible border. Thinking about the complexity that the sea represents in the past and in the present, it allows a polychromatic reading of the Human/Territory relationship as well as providing a reading of space and time. It is a unique space, of connections and interconnections, of obstacles, but, above all, of ambiguities, promoted by the action of those who cross it, those who want to control it or those who appropriate it only from the viewpoint of a dream, or else symbolically. Population movements, regardless of their nature or motivation, lead individuals, States or future nations to (re)interpret and (re)organise the spaces in which they interact, symbolically or materially. In this involve‐ ment of different geopolitical and ideological players and stakes, etched in long and suspended times and at multiple distances, it is necessary to question how and for what purposes the sea is appropriated, (re)defined or (re)constructed by the various historical subjects. We start from the idea that the sea is, simultaneously, a unique element and a creator of specificities, and that, as such, it is used by migratory movements as a means of fulfilling a trajectory, transmitting messages or signalling intentions, as we can see in the processes of construction of national identities. Now, the idiosyncrasies of the sea justify, from the out‐ set, that we challenge the definition of the maritime border itself, since we are facing chronologies where the original principle of freedom of the seas is already obsolete. As such, addressing the concept of a maritime border