Forensic Oceanography: Contesting the violent Architecture of the EU’s Maritime Frontier

Key information

Date
Time
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Venue
Russell Square: College Buildings
Room
G52

About this event

Dr Lorenzo Pezzani (Goldsmiths)


The bordering of migration across the Mediterranean Sea has been in the past years a striking laboratory from which novel legal arrangements, surveillance technologies and institutional assemblages have emerged at dazzling speed. In the wake of what has been defined as the biggest refugee crisis since WWII, these transformations have also created the conditions that have led to the death of thousands of migrants. This presentation will attempt to draw a political anatomy of this violence by tracing the ebbs and flows of bordering and (non-)assistance practices in the Mediterranean after the Arab uprisings. I will do so by drawing on material produced in the frame of Forensic Oceanography, a project that I have co-initiated in 2011 and which has used imaging, mapping, and modelling technologies in order to document the death of migrants at sea and sustain their demands for freedom of movement.

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Dr Lorenzo Pezzani Forensic Oceanography: Contesting the violent Architecture of the EU’s Maritime Frontier

About the speaker

Lorenzo Pezzani is Lecturer in Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. His work deals with the spatial politics and visual cultures of migration, with a particular focus on the geography of the ocean. Since 2011, he has been working on Forensic Oceanography, a collaborative project that critically investigates the militarized border regime in the Mediterranean Sea. Together with a wide network of NGOs, scientists, journalists and activist groups, he has produced maps, visualizations and human right reports that attempt to document the violence perpetrated against migrants at sea and challenge the regime of visibility imposed by surveillance means on this contested area.

Organiser: Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies

Contact email: cb92@soas.ac.uk