PhD defence E.A. (Eva) van Gemert

Brief summary: 

This dissertation studies how an imaginary of European humanity is articulated in Europe's 'migration crisis' of 2015-2020. While the large-scale drowning of migrants is not exceptional in the history of the Mediterranean Sea, 'migration crisis' itself constitutes an exceptional moment in which EUrope actively relates its humanitarian values to a racialized border infrastructure of a politics of death. Constituting both a particular (i.e. European) claim to universal (hu)mankind, and a violent stake in a moralized ideal of humaneness that is grounded in Europe's history of imperialism and colonialism, an imaginary of European humanity occurs throughout the dissertation as the constitutive paradox to a social system that can subsequently be recognized as 'Europe'. Subsequently, the dissertation studies the postcolonial rearticulation of European humanity throughout three case studies of 'migration crisis': the EU's military mission Operation Sophia, civil search-and-rescue organizations, and the German Willkommenskultur. Mobilizing humaneness as a quality of being, these cases show how European humanity reverses a historical relationship between Europe and its Others that is characterized by domination, violence, and exploitation. Consequentially, 'Europe' itself becomes the subject of practices of rescuing. Rescuing Europe thus becomes another way of continuing a politics of death.