Beyond and across the Mediterranean: Tending to the "Lost" at Sea through Poetry and Collective Care
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
Department
Communication Studies
Abstract
On August 17, 2020, forty-five African “migrants and refugees” drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while on route to Europe from Libya. This unfortunate and largely avoidable incident reflects wider human rights issues concerning the international failure of Search and Rescue (SAR) efforts to protect Black African lives. UN Reports indicate that as of August 2020, “at least” 302 people had drowned while traversing the same route. The increasing normalization of these drownings is symptomatic of a widespread global disregard for Black lives that connects the contemporary experiences of continental African freedom seekers to the earlier Transatlantic Crossings of the Middle Passage. In making this argument, I draw on Saidiya Hartman’s concept of “the afterlife of slavery” and Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the weather” to register the globalizing systems that drive contemporary Black African migratory patterns in the Mediterranean within an ongoing legacy of chattel slavery.
Recommended Citation
Brown, Shaunasea. “Beyond and across the Mediterranean: Tending to the 'Lost' at Sea through Poetry and Collective Care". Interdisciplinary Humanities (Spring 2021) pp 122-140.