Drifting in dark waters : Mediterranean boat journeys between (in)visibility and presence

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’.