Your World of Legal Intelligence
 United Kingdom | +44 (0) 20 7284 8080

Carceral Seas

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date01 June 2021
DOI10.1177/03058298211040188
Date01 June 2021
AuthorLaleh Khalili
Subject MatterConference
https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298211040188
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2021, Vol. 49(3) 462 –471
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/03058298211040188
journals.sagepub.com/home/mil
Carceral Seas
Laleh Khalili
Queen Mary University of London, UK
Keywords
maritime, migration, carcerality
In his haunting ‘The Sea Is History’, the great Trinidadian poet Derek Walcott marries
the story of the maritime transportation of enslaved Africans to the narrative progression
of the Old Testament:
Then there were the packed cries,
the shit, the moaning:
Exodus.
Bone soldered by coral to bone,
mosaics
mantled by the benediction of the shark’s shadow,
that was the Ark of the Covenant.
Then came from the plucked wires
of sunlight on the sea floor
the plangent harps of the Babylonian bondage,
as the white cowries clustered like manacles
on the drowned women,
Corresponding author:
Laleh Khalili, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK.
Email: l.khalili@qmul.ac.uk
1040188MIL0010.1177/03058298211040188Millennium - Journal of International StudiesKhalili
research-article2021
Conference

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT