The two-sided spectacle at the border: Frontex, NGOs and the theatres of sovereignty

Published date01 August 2021
Date01 August 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/13624806211007858
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/13624806211007858
Theoretical Criminology
2021, Vol. 25(3) 379 –399
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/13624806211007858
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The two-sided spectacle at
the border: Frontex, NGOs
and the theatres of sovereignty
Katja Franko
University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract
The Southern Mediterranean border has in the past decade become one of the most
deeply contested political spaces in Europe and has been described as a site of the
border spectacle. Drawing on textual and visual analysis of Twitter messages by two
of the most prominent actors in the field, the European Border and Coast Guard
Agency, Frontex, and the humanitarian and medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières,
the article examines the split nature of the Mediterranean border which is, among
others, visible in radically different narratives about migrants’ journeys, border deaths
and living conditions. The findings challenge previous scholarship about convergence
of humanitarianism and policing. The two actors are waging a fierce media battle for
moral authority, where they use widely diverging strategies of claiming authority, each
of which carries a particular set of ethical dilemmas.
Keywords
border deaths, Frontex, humanitarianism, media practices, migration
The Southern Mediterranean border has in the past decade become one of the most
deeply contested political spaces in Europe. This liminal space between Europe and
Africa has seen intense media and political focus on boat arrivals as well as high levels
of contestation surrounding search and rescue activities (SAR). According to International
Corresponding author:
Katja Franko, Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, PB 6706, St Olavs plass,
Oslo, 0130, Norway.
Email: katja.franko@jus.uio.no
1007858TCR0010.1177/13624806211007858Theoretical CriminologyFranko
research-article2021
Article
380 Theoretical Criminology 25(3)
Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Missing Migrants Project, almost 20,000 people
have died in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014, making it the most dangerous border in
the world (IOM, 2017). Several observers have pointed out the ritualistic and performa-
tive aspects of contemporary border enforcement (Andersson, 2014; Andreas, 2000;
Brown, 2010; De Genova, 2013; Franko, 2020). Drawing on the work of Guy Debord
(1995), De Genova (2013) argues that today the border is a spectacle. However, the bor-
der spectacle is, as Andersson (2014) points out, two-sided. The spectacular nature of
cross-border mobility encompasses not only the threatening, militarized and law-
enforcement aspects, but also the humanitarian ones. ‘The visual economy of clandestine
migration’ (Andersson, 2014 : 142) thus involves the highly politicized discourses of
threat and invasion, as well as the production, distribution and consumption of images of
migrant suffering and death (Franko, 2020).
The article explores this two-sided nature of the border spectacle, and the media econ-
omy supporting it. It examines the visual and discursive framing of the Mediterranean
border by two of the most prominent actors in the field: the European Border and Coast
Guard Agency, Frontex, and the humanitarian and medical non-governmental organiza-
tion (NGO) Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The two organizations have been in recent
years drawn into an increasingly contentious disagreement about search and rescue
activities in the region. Since 2016, humanitarian actors have gradually become the main
actors within SAR in the Mediterranean (Cuttitta, 2018). Frontex and EU member states
have, on the other hand, chosen to decrease their involvement, or as Carrera and
Cortinovis (2019) suggest, abdicate their responsibility for the saving of lives at sea. This
abdication of responsibility has been accompanied by heightened levels of political con-
testation, resulting in threats of criminalization and confiscation of assets of humanitar-
ian actors (Carrera and Cortinovis, 2019; FRA, 2018).
However, there seems to have been not only a transfer of actual authority for SAR
from state to humanitarian actors, but also a growing disagreement regarding how to deal
with border deaths: with criminalization and inaction on the one hand, and unconditional
priority given to search and rescue on the other. These developments raise questions
about previous scholarly findings about convergence of humanitarianism and policing
(Pallister-Wilkins, 2015). For example, while the following message about the situation
in the Moria refugee camp is typical of MSF communications, the tragic situation in the
camp is hardly mentioned by Frontex:
We saw the fire spread across #Moria and rage all night long. The whole place was engulfed in
flames, we saw an exodus of people from a burning hell with no direction. Children scared and
parents in shock. We are working now to address their needs.
(Marco Sandrone, @MSF Lesvos, 9 September 2020)
Drawing on textual and visual analysis of Twitter messages by Frontex and MSF_Sea the
article documents and aims to understand the process of splitting of the Mediterranean
border as a political space.
The interesting question to ask is: if we presume that the high levels of migrant suf-
fering and mortality are perceived as tragic and unfortunate by all actors involved, how

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