From Humanitarianism to Rights? (Un)Deservingness Frames in the Central Mediterranean.
From Humanitarianism to Rights? (Un)Deservingness Frames in the Central Mediterranean.
Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 14:00
Location: SJES024 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
Oral Presentation
This paper identifies and explores (un)deservingness frames towards People on the Move (PoM) discursively constructed by representatives of Search and Rescue (SAR) actors in the context of precarious migration across the Central Mediterranean. It draws from eight qualitative interviews with heterogeneous civil, as well as state, EU and international institutional SAR actors active in Italy, the primary country of arrival via the Central Mediterranean Route and employs reflexive thematic analysis.
The findings reveal several overlapping (un)deservingness frames, which are intertwined with gendered and racialised logics. Moral-based deservingness frames are mobilised throughout to varying degrees by civil and institutional actors, with situational vulnerability as the central criterion of deservingness, mobilising idealised figures of PoM. By emphasising situational vulnerability, the (un)deservingness frames obscure the structural causes of the unequal distribution of vulnerability, resulting in an ahistorical and depoliticised framing.
Performance-based undeservingness frames are also evident, mainly mobilised by institutional actors, wherein concerns about assimilation and security combined with racialised imaginaries, produce a hierarchy of undeservingness.
These frames are consistent with the rationales inherent to the humanitarian government of migration, and hence perpetuate existing power asymmetries and reinforce the EU border regime. To address power relations and structural causes, the paper advocates moving beyond the logic of humanitarian reasoning towards rights instead of rescue. It proposes situating and rendering visible this humanitarian border within the long history of migration and neocolonial continuities, through a feminist reappropriation of vulnerability and by centring the perspectives and practices of PoM in the analysis.
The findings reveal several overlapping (un)deservingness frames, which are intertwined with gendered and racialised logics. Moral-based deservingness frames are mobilised throughout to varying degrees by civil and institutional actors, with situational vulnerability as the central criterion of deservingness, mobilising idealised figures of PoM. By emphasising situational vulnerability, the (un)deservingness frames obscure the structural causes of the unequal distribution of vulnerability, resulting in an ahistorical and depoliticised framing.
Performance-based undeservingness frames are also evident, mainly mobilised by institutional actors, wherein concerns about assimilation and security combined with racialised imaginaries, produce a hierarchy of undeservingness.
These frames are consistent with the rationales inherent to the humanitarian government of migration, and hence perpetuate existing power asymmetries and reinforce the EU border regime. To address power relations and structural causes, the paper advocates moving beyond the logic of humanitarian reasoning towards rights instead of rescue. It proposes situating and rendering visible this humanitarian border within the long history of migration and neocolonial continuities, through a feminist reappropriation of vulnerability and by centring the perspectives and practices of PoM in the analysis.