Lampedusa between border production and representation

Abstract

Why is Lampedusa a synonym for the Euro-African border? Borders are social products, and turning a place into a border, or transforming the symbolic and practical role of a border place, is always the result of specific social acts. Starting from this assumption, the paper analyses the most important acts that increased Lampedusa’s “borderness”, thus determining its “borderization”, between the 1990s and 2011. The research focuses on specific choices of the Italian legislator, on the relations with North-African countries, and on the practices of border control and management: the establishment of a detention centre, the choice to systematically divert migrants to Lampedusa and to concentrate professionalized reception activities on the island, the production of artificial emergencies.

Keywords
Lampedusa; Italy; border; migration; control