The Archaeology of Contemporary Migrant Journeys in Western Sicily
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.40579Keywords:
contemporary migration, migrant material culture, Sicilian Channel, Sicily, TunisiaAbstract
The Sicilian Channel between Sicily and North Africa receives global attention as a major migratory routefor undocumented people entering Europe clandestinely, a tragic nexus of transnational displacement anddesperation. While the plight of massively overloaded and unseaworthy boats of people justifiably receivesthe bulk of media attention, there is a less-observed movement that occurs and has occurred for thousandsof years: small boats expertly transporting handfuls of people back and forth across the Channel betweenTunisia and western Sicily. This study explores the material vestiges of cross-channel migrations throughassemblages identified during fieldwork by the Arizona Sicily Project along the southwest coast of Sicily inthe summers of 2018 and 2019. While the exigencies of maritime crossing require distinct technologies ofmobility, certain elements of migrant material culture are analogous to that found elsewhere, e.g. along theUS-Mexico border zone of Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Such elements include migrants' strategic triangulationof speed, invisibility and survival in deciding what to bring and the tactical triage of gear en route.Moreover, the political and economic injustices that are catalysts for the movements are comparable, as is thecriminalization of the migrants, which has done more to endanger than dissuade them. This article shedsnew light on migrant choices and challenges and contributes to the archaeology of contemporary migration.
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Sadiki, L. 2019 Tunisia’s migration to the north and what it says about the crisis of democratization in the country. Order from Chaos [Brookings Institution], 17 January. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/orderfrom-chaos/2019/01/17/tunisias-migration-tothe-north/
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Seitsonen, O.I., V.-P. Herva and M. Kunmari 2018 Abandoned refugee vehicles ‘in the middle of nowhere’: reflections on the global refugee crisis from the northern margins of Europe. In Y. Hamilakis (ed.), The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, 139-55. Sheffield: Equinox. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.31697
Singer, A., and D.S. Massey 1998 The social process of undocumented border crossing among Mexican migrants. International Migration Review 32: 561-92. https://doi.org/10.2307/2547764
Tyrikos-Ergas, G. 2018 Orange life jackets: materiality and narration in Lesvos, one year after the eruption of the ‘Refugee Crisis’. In Y. Hamilakis (ed.), The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, 121-26. Sheffield: Equinox. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.32068
Badagliacca, M. 2013 Frammenti. https://www.mariobadagliacca.com/2013_frammenti-r8112.
Bechtold, B. 2012 Amphorae production in Punic Sicily (7th–3rd/2nd centuries BCE): an overview. FACEM: Provenance Studies on Pottery in the Central Mediterranean http://facem.at/img/pdf/Amphorae_in_Punic_Sicily_2012_12_06.pdf
Ben-Yehoyada, N. 2011 The clandestine central Mediterranean passage. Middle East Report 261: 18-23.
2017 The Mediterranean Incarnate: Region Formation Between Sicily and Tunisia since World War II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Campisi, A., and F. Pisanelli 2015 Mémoires et Contes de la Méditerranée: l’Émigration Sicilienne en Tunisie entre XIXe et XXe Siècles. La Soukra, Tunisia: MC-Éditions.
Clancy-Smith, J. 2010 Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, c. 1800–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dalli, C. 2008 Bridging Europe and Africa: Norman Sicily’s other kingdom. In J. Carvalho (ed.), Bridging the Gaps: Sources, Methodology and Approaches to Religion in History, 77-93. Pisa, Italy: Pisa University Press.
Davis-Secord, S. 2007 Muslims in Norman Sicily: the evidence of Im?m al-M?zar?’s fatw?s. Mediterranean Studies 16: 46-66.
De León, J. 2012 ‘Better to be hot than caught’: excavating the conflicting roles of migrant material culture. American Anthropologist 114: 477-95. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01447.x
2013 Undocumented migration, use wear, and the materiality of habitual suffering in the Sonoran Desert. Journal of Material Culture 18: 321-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183513496489
2015 The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Oakland: University of California Press.
Deghen, S.K. 2017 Migrant sea route to Italy is world’s most lethal. The Guardian, 10 September. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/11/migrantdeath-toll-rises-after-clampdown-on-east-european-borders
Driessen, J. 2018 An archaeology of forced migration – introduction. In J. Driessen (ed.), An Archaeology of Forced Migration: Crisis-Induced Mobility and the Collapse of the 13th c. BCE Eastern Mediterranean, 19-23. Louvin: Presses universitaires de Louvain.
Fentress, E., S. Fontana, R.B. Hitchner and P. Perkins 2004 Accounting for ARS: fineware and sites in Sicily and Africa. In S. Alcock and J. Cherry (eds.), Side by Side Survey: Comparative Regional Studies in the Mediterranean world, 147-62. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Frey-Kupper, S. 2014 Coins and their use in the Punic Mediterranean: case studies from Carthage to Italy from the fourth to the first century BCE. In J. Quinn and N. Vella (eds.), The Punic Mediterranean: Identities and Identification from Phoenician Settlement to Roman Rule, 76-110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107295193.008
Giglioli, I. 2017 Producing Sicily as Europe: migration, colonialism and the making of the Mediterranean border between Italy and Tunisia. Geopolitics 22: 407-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2016.1233529
Gokee, C., and J. De León 2014 Sites of contention. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1: 133-63.
Gori, M., and M. Revello Lami 2018 From Lampedusa to Trieste: tracing forced migrations to understand identity patterns. In J. Driessen (ed.), An Archaeology of Forced Migration: Crisis-Induced Mobility and the Collapse of the 13th c. BCE Eastern Mediterranean, 31-53. Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain.
Hamilakis, Y. 2018 Archaeologies of forced and undocumented migration. In Y. Hamilakis (ed.), The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, 1-19. Sheffield: Equinox. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.32409
Heller, C., L. Pezzani and S. Studio 2012 Report on the ‘Left-To-Die Boat’. London:
Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London. https://web.archive.org/web/20160405004620/www.forensic-architecture.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/FOreport.pdf
Herbert, M. 2016 At the Edge: Trends and Routes of North African Clandestine Migrants. Institute for Security Studies Papers 298. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.
Herbert, M., and M. Gallien 2018 Tunisia isn’t a migrant transit country – yet. ISS Today [Institute for Security Studies], 28 August. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/tunisia-isnt-a-migrant-transit-country-yet
Khedher, R. 2016 From Dreams to Deportations: The Case of Tunisian Irregular Migrants in Italy after 2011. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Khosravi, S. 2010 ‘Illegal’ Traveler: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Legendre, J.-P. 2018 Vestiges of the Spanish Republican exodus to France: an archaeological study of the retirada. In J. Driessen (ed.), An Archaeology of Forced Migration. Crisis-Induced mobility and the Collapse of the 13th c. BCE Eastern Mediterranean, 55-73. Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain.
Monzini, P. 2010 Smuggling of Migrants into, through and from North Africa: A Thematic Review and Annotated Bibliography of Recent Publications. Vienna: UNODC-United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Mulazzani, S., F.X. Le Bourdonnec, L. Belhouchet, G. Poupeau, J. Zoughlami, S. Dubernet, E. Tufano, Y. Lefrais and R. Khedhaier 2010 Obsidian from the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic eastern Maghreb: a view from the Hergla context (Tunisia). Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 2529-37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.05.013
Pistrick, E., and F. Bachmeier 2018 Empty migrant rooms: an anthropology of absence through the camera lens. In Y. Hamilakis (ed.), The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, 97-107. Sheffield: Equinox. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.31668
Post, P. 2018 Refugee rituals: exploring ritual repertoire of victimhood. In M. Hoondert, P. Mutsaers, and W. Arfman (eds.), Cultural Practices of Victimhood, 55-80. London: Routledge.
Reineke, R. 2019 ARTIFACT: an unnamed fishing vessel. Southwest Folklife Alliance, 29 May. https://www.southwestfolklife.org/artifact-an-unnamed-fishing-vessel/
Sadiki, L. 2019 Tunisia’s migration to the north and what it says about the crisis of democratization in the country. Order from Chaos [Brookings Institution], 17 January. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/orderfrom-chaos/2019/01/17/tunisias-migration-tothe-north/
Schapendonk, J. 2012 Turbulent trajectories: African migrants on their way to the European Union. Societies 2(2): 27-41. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc2020027
Seitsonen, O.I., V.-P. Herva and M. Kunmari 2018 Abandoned refugee vehicles ‘in the middle of nowhere’: reflections on the global refugee crisis from the northern margins of Europe. In Y. Hamilakis (ed.), The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, 139-55. Sheffield: Equinox. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.31697
Singer, A., and D.S. Massey 1998 The social process of undocumented border crossing among Mexican migrants. International Migration Review 32: 561-92. https://doi.org/10.2307/2547764
Tyrikos-Ergas, G. 2018 Orange life jackets: materiality and narration in Lesvos, one year after the eruption of the ‘Refugee Crisis’. In Y. Hamilakis (ed.), The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, 121-26. Sheffield: Equinox. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.32068
Published
2020-01-30
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Blake, E., & Schon, R. (2020). The Archaeology of Contemporary Migrant Journeys in Western Sicily. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 32(2), 173-194. https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.40579
