Contesting the lethal Mediterranean frontier

What plays out in the Mediterranean context is a conflict over mobility. ‘People on the move’ and actors in solidarity with them come up against EU policies and infrastructures of border control which have turned the Mediterranean migration corridor into one of the deadliest routes in the world. As members of activist and civil society initiatives, as well as critical research collectives, we have been implicated in this mobility conflict over the past ten years. In this chapter, we reflect on strategies of protest and contestation in the Mediterranean region that have evolved over the years and become ever-more violently suppressed, in particular after 2015’s ‘long summer of migration’. Despite these forces of suppression, and by drawing from our experiences as scholar-activists, we highlight how migrant struggles and forms of civil society resistance have constantly, and creatively, challenged EU border enforcement at sea.