Cosmopolitan solidarity vs. national belonging: How many more deaths can we tolerate?

How do we explain the contradiction between the expressions of anger and grief of the European leaders and the immigration policies pursued by European nations? What is the role of media in framing these events as “tragedies” and, in so doing, legitimizing the gap between the rhetoric and practices of European leaders? How do media produce and disseminate images of migrants, and to what ends? How is the viewer's experience shaped and aestheticized? The article explores how the «spectacle of the border» – performed in Lampedusa by a wide range of state and non-state actors, and characterized by constant negotiations and power dynamics – is intimately intertwined with the ways contemporary mediated representations construct, deconstruct and reconstruct the nation as a symbolic category of belonging as well as ourselves as cosmopolitan citizens