https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/15390 2026-06-05T17:06:14Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/143640 Title: Slow and spectacular violence : debilitation and onward mobility at the EU’s borders Authors: Mainwaring, Ċetta; DeBono, Daniela Abstract: From pushbacks to shipwrecks, spectacular forms of state violence at the EU’s borders are well documented. In this article, we trace a continuum of racialised violence that exists between these spectacular instances of state border controls, as well as more mundane practices that discourage arrival, integration and settlement. Following Rob Nixon, we conceptualise these latter practices as a slow violence that precludes finding a ‘liveable life’, echoing the experiences of the working poor and other racialised communities. Using the Maltese Islands as a case study, we argue that these two forms of violence occur at sea and on land, and are intimately linked, working to reinforce each other. This continuum of violence both encourages onward mobility and creates barriers to that same mobility – a mobility that remains shackled to the state violence that shapes it. Finally, the paper turns to how people resist this spectacular and slow violence, reflecting on the different strategies adopted by people on the move and their allies. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/136559 Title: Using qualitative research in community engagement to capture and mitigate vulnerability mechanisms in the face of infectious diseases : insights from a research-based program in five European countries during the Covid-19 pandemic Authors: Geise, Mandy; Osborne, Jacob; Grohma, Paul; Giles-Vernick, Tamara; Lana, Benedetta; Diagne, Papa Mamadou; Ocek, Zeliha; Cebron, Ursula Lipovec; Vodopivec, Neza; Brunec, Anja; Baldacchino, Jean Paul; Said, Maurice; Orsini, Gisella; Sultana, Victoria; Vaccaro, Concetta; Volkmann, Anna-Maria; Kutalek, Ruth; Dückers, Michel Abstract: Various frameworks have been proposed for carrying out community engagement (CE) in the context of infectious disease response, but few have done so through a lens of vulnerability and even fewer, if any, have compared cases across countries. This paper reflects on the implementation of a project based on social science research and CE to capture and mitigate vulnerability mechanisms, which was carried out in France, Germany, Italy, Malta, and Slovenia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using qualitative data collected through interviews, a focus group discussion, and project meetings, we describe how a stepwise CE process was carried out in the context of an international, multi-sectoral project. As such, this paper sheds light on the applicability of the methodology, the strategies followed, and overlapping themes encountered during the CE implementation. In all five countries, researchers created overviews of multiple vulnerability case descriptions situated in communities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Several recurring themes played a role in the CE process in the different settings: the challenges of finding, defining, and working with(in) communities; the role and position of researchers “in action”; stakeholders and power dynamics; timing of stakeholder involvement; translating qualitative data on vulnerability mechanisms into practical solutions; and sustainability and institutional integration. It is important to consider these themes when planning future initiatives to apply social and behavioral science methods to address and mitigate vulnerabilities in communities confronted with pandemics or other crisis contexts. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/136413 Title: Analytic approaches to the anthropology of the good : moral incoherence and mental health in the wake of COVID-19 Authors: Baldacchino, Jean Paul Abstract: Building on the anthropology of the good, this article seeks to apply a taxonomical approach inspired by analytical philosophy to the study of moral incoherence. The topic of moral incoherence is a growing concern in clinical contexts. Drawing on fieldwork and clinical data during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malta, this article brings together approaches from anthropology, psychiatry and psychology to look at the way in which such ‘moral breakdown’ has been studied in relation to mental health and existing diagnostic structures. Moral incoherence, it is proposed, can be conceived of as a problem in terms of rationality, which has implications for the imaginary coherence of the subject. This article, therefore, makes two primary contributions. It develops an approach to the anthropology of the good by means of an analytical reduction in terms of a series of ought statements. Secondly, it applies the approach to the problem of moral incoherence by engaging with various disciplinary perspectives, particularly those in psychiatry, psychology, and, to a lesser extent, philosophy. The implication of moral problems to mental health cannot be merely dismissed as the pathologisation of everyday life. Such problems are exacerbated in times of crisis, where the possibilities for coherence become increasingly challenged. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/135815 Title: Drifting in dark waters : Mediterranean boat journeys between (in)visibility and presence Authors: DeBono, Daniela Abstract: Boats carrying people fleeing across the Mediterranean Sea often depart at night. The boats are not visible to the authorities, or other vessels traversing the same space. But it is this same play on (in)visibility that enables these journeys of hope across borders. Last year over 150,000 people made it successfully across the central Mediterranean Sea. This figure does not include those that perished or others who were pushed back. In this article I interweave travellers’ personal experiences with the social and political processes traversing this liquid border/space to capture a snapshot of the various layers of these boat journeys. This will allow me to draw out the paradoxes of (in)visibility and presence, and resistance and subjugation, and therefore locate these invisible boats and journeys in the web of global, geopolitical and historical processes that converge in this historical juncture reminiscent of Arendtian ‘dark times’. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z