About the project

PRIN PROJECT

“Securitizing Human Transit across the Central Mediterranean migratory corridor: shifting mobility governance discourses and practices in Italy, Malta, Libya, and Niger” (Shut-Med)

SHUT-MED examines how irregular mobility across the Central Mediterranean has been securitized between 2000 and 2023, why the framing of migrants as threats has changed across countries and over time, and the impact of such processes on the practices enacted by migration governance stakeholders operating at the borders of Niger, Libya, Malta, and Italy. The research project focuses on four distinct dimensions that are constitutive of migration governance models and inform the project’s analytical framework: actors, discourses, institutions, and practices.

In order to shed light on the co-constitution of border control discourses and practices, Shut-Med combines textual and visual content analysis as well as ethnographic fieldwork. By reconceptualising the relationships between discourse and practices as well as the interplay between threat and vulnerability narratives, SHUT-MED seeks to provide an ambitious theoretical contribution to securitization theory and the study of international politics at large. By studying how border enforcement practices travel across states, it also provides a novel contribution to the study of norm diffusion and the dynamics of Europeanization beyond European borders, highlighting the agency of both countries in the Global South and migrants themselves in reinterpreting, contesting and resisting externally-imposed human mobility governance agendas.

“SHUT-MED: Securitizing Human Transit across the Central Mediterranean migratory corridor: shifting mobility governance discourses and practices in Italy, Malta, Libya, and Niger” is a 24-month research project led by prof. Eugenio Cusumano, University Messina, Department of Political and Legal Studies, and co-led by Dr. Luca Raineri, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Institute of Law, Politics and Development (DIRPOLIS). Two postdoctoral researchers integrate the research team: Dr. Chiara Loschi, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, DIRPOLIS Institute, and Dr. Diego Caballero Vélez, University of Messina, Department of Political and Legal Studies.

The project is financed by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under the  Research projects of relevant national interest (Programma Nazionale di Ricerca e Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale – PRIN) with the support of Next Generation EU fund. Research – Grant N. 2022NKLAFW, CUP J53D23005760006.