MEDITERRANEAN MIGRATION: UN Appeal

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Migration

The Last Mediterranean, 1950–2010

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Olive Oil ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Post War ◽  
Mediterranean Migration ◽  
History Of Migration ◽  
North And South America

The late twentieth century was one of the great periods of Mediterranean migration. Migrations out of North Africa and into and out of Israel have been discussed in the previous chapter. The history of migration out of Sicily and southern Italy began as far back as the late nineteenth century, and it was largely directed towards North and South America. In the 1950s and 60s it was redirected towards the towns of northern Italy. Southern Italian agriculture, already suffering from neglect and lack of investment, declined still further as villages were abandoned. Elsewhere, colonial connections were important; for example, British rule over Cyprus brought substantial Greek and Turkish communities to north London. Along with these migrants, their cuisines arrived: pizza became familiar in London in the 1970s, while Greek restaurants in Britain had a Cypriot flavour. Not surprisingly, the food of the south of Italy took a strong lead among Italian émigrés: the sublime creation of Genoese cooks, trenette al pesto, was little known outside Italy, or indeed Liguria, before the 1970s. But the first stirrings of north European fascination with Mediterranean food could be felt in 1950, when Elizabeth David’s Book of Mediterranean Food appeared. It drew on her often hair-raising travels around the Mediterranean, keeping just ahead of the enemy during the Second World War. Initially, the book evoked aspirations rather than achievements: Great Britain was still subject to post-war food rationing, and even olive oil was hard to find. With increasing prosperity in northern Europe, the market for unfamiliar, Mediterranean produce expanded and finally, in 1965, Mrs David found the confidence to open her own food shop. By 1970 it was not too difficult to find aubergines and avocados in the groceries of Britain, Germany or Holland; and by 2000 the idea that a Mediterranean diet rich in fish, olive oil and vegetables is far healthier than traditional north European diets often based on pork and lard took hold. Interest in regional Mediterranean cuisines expanded all over Europe and North America – not just Italian food but Roman food, not just Roman food but the food of the Roman Jews, and so on.

Basta!: Anti-System Politics in Italy

2020 ◽  
pp. 216-247
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hopkin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
The Other ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Sharp Rise ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
Powerful Explanation ◽  
Mediterranean Migration

This chapter examines the evolution of anti-system politics in Italy. The Italian case has all the familiar ingredients of an anti-system revolt: a severe economic crisis, high levels of inequality, and an unresponsive and discredited political system. However, the form anti-system politics took differed from the rest of the South in intriguing ways. Italy differed from Greece, Spain, and Portugal in lacking a strong anti-austerity movement that could have acted as a focal point for a left alternative. The other exception of the Italian case is the strength of the anti-system Right. Italy experienced a sharp rise in migration, as well as having to manage the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. Migration may have mobilized some voters, but the failings of the established parties to address a serious economic crisis offers a powerful explanation of the collapse of Italy’s party system, just as it did in the early 1990s.

Lost at Sea

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1197-1208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
German Law ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Lost Generation ◽  
Death Toll ◽  
Mediterranean Migration ◽  
Relative Salience

This essay aims to expand the definitional contours of the “lost generation” discussed in this special section of the German Law Journal. A reflection on the existential loss experienced by many young Europeans must also acknowledge, for the record and for reasons of relative salience, those who have literally drowned in the waters of southern Europe in their quest for a better future. Their youth has been lost in a true—not just metaphorical or metaphysical—sense. The per-day death toll reached its peak on 3 October 2013, when over three hundred bodies were retrieved off the coast of Lampedusa by Maltese and Italian rescue forces. The just-concluded summer brought another tragic surge in Mediterranean migration, including more deadly shipwrecks.

scholarly journals Hidden geographies of the ‘Mediterranean migration crisis’

2020 ◽  
pp. 239965442093590
Author(s):  
Vicki Squire
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Critical Dimension ◽  
Migration Forms ◽  
Historical Dynamics ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Mediterranean Migration

This article explores the hidden geographies of what has been widely referred to as the ‘Mediterranean migration crisis’ of 2015 and 2016. Specifically, it draws on a large-scale analysis of migratory testimonies from across the central and eastern Mediterranean routes, in order to explore the claims or demands posed to European policy-makers by people on the move. Reflecting on the idea that migration forms a subversive political act that disrupts spatialised inequalities and longer histories of power and violence, the article sets out the argument advanced by scholars of the autonomy of migration approach that migration forms a ‘social movement’ involving subjective acts of escape. It makes the case for a move beyond an abstract account of migration as a social movement, to emphasise the importance of an analysis that unpacks the concrete ways in which multiple ‘nonmovements’ expose the hidden geographies of the so-called ‘crisis’. In so doing, it draws attention to two specific ways in which migration forms a political act. First, the article highlights anti-colonial acts that contest the spatialised inequalities of global migration along with longer-standing historical dynamics of exploitation and dispossession that these implicate. Second, it highlights anti-war acts that reject securitised responses to cross-border migration along with longer-standing spatial and historical dynamics of masculinist violence. While imperceptibility remains a critical dimension of many migratory acts, the article concludes that paying attention to the perceptible claims to justice that subversive political acts of migration involve is crucial in understanding the distinct transformations put into motion by people on the move.

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