Migrant deaths in border-zones have become a major social and political issue, especially in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean refugee/migrant crisis. While media, activists, and policy makers often mention precise figures regarding the number of deaths, little is known about the production of statistical data on this topic. This article explores the politics of counting migrant deaths in Europe. This statistical activity was initiated in the 1990s by civil society organizations with the purpose of shedding light on the deadly consequences of “Fortress Europe” and of challenging states’ control-oriented political strategies. In 2013, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) started to count migrants’ deaths: while this intergovernmental organization seems to follow up on civil society initiatives, it actually works with different political objectives. Rather than criticizing states, IOM aims at conciliating the control of irregular migration with the prevention of deaths. IOM’s statistics on border deaths illustrate the humanitarianization of the border, as denunciation of migrants’ deaths and life-saving activities become integrated in border management and border control. In producing statistics on border deaths, IOM depoliticizes this data and challenges the critical framework that was central to earlier civil society initiatives. Finally, the article explores ways in which statistics on border deaths are being repoliticized to challenge European states’ immigration policies.
AgierM. (2011). Managing the undesirables: Refugee camps and humanitarian government. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
2.
AlbahariM. (2015). Crimes of peace: Mediterranean migrations at the world’s deadliest border. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
3.
Al TamimiY.CuttittaP.LastT. (in press). The Missing Migrants Project: The global authority on border deaths data. In GeigerM.PécoudA. (Eds.), The International Organization for Migration: The new “UN migration agency” in critical perspective. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave.
4.
Amnesty International. (2014). The human cost of fortress Europe: Human rights violations against migrants and refugees at Europe’s borders. London, England: Author.
5.
AndrijasevicR.WaltersW. (2010). The International Organization for Migration and the International Government of Borders. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28, 977-999.
6.
BoliJ.ThomasG. M. (1999). Constructing world culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
7.
BrachetJ. (2016). Policing the desert: The IOM in Libya beyond war and peace. Antipode, 48, 272-292.
8.
BrunoI.DidierE.PrévieuxJ. (Eds.). (2014). Statactivisme: Comment lutter avec des nombres [How to fight with numbers]. Paris, France: Zones/La Découverte.
9.
CarlingJ. (2007). Migration control and migrant fatalities at the Spanish-African borders. International Migration Review, 41, 316-343.
10.
ClochardO.LambertN. (2015). L’évolution d’un régime: Mort aux frontières et contrôles migratoires en mer Méditerranée. In SchmollC.ThiolletH.de WendenC. Wihtol (Eds.), Migrations en Méditerranée: Permanence et mutations à l’heure des révolutions et des crises [The evolution of a regime: Border deaths and migration control in the Mediterranean Sea]. (pp. 145-156). Paris, France: CNRS Editions.
11.
Council of Europe. (2012). Lives lost in the Mediterranean Sea: Who is responsible?Strasbourg, France: Author.
CuttittaP.LastT. (Eds.). (2019). Border deaths: Causes, dynamics and consequences of migration-related mortality. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press.
14.
De GenovaN. (2013). Spectacles of migrant “illegality”: The scene of exclusion, the obscene of inclusion. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36, 1180-1198.
15.
FoucaultM. (2007). Security, territory, population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78. New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan.
16.
GeigerM.PécoudA. (Eds.). (2020). The International Organization for Migration: The new “UN migration agency” in critical perspective. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave.
17.
GeorgiF. (2010). For the benefit of some: The International Organization for Migration and its global migration management. In GeigerM.PécoudA. (Eds.), The politics of International Migration Management (pp. 45-72). Basingstoke, England: Palgrave.
18.
HellerC. (2014). Perception management: Deterring potential migrants through information campaigns. Global Media and Communication, 10, 303-318.
19.
HellerC. (2015). Liquid trajectories: Documenting illegalised migration and the violence of borders, London, England: Centre for Research Architecture, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University.
20.
HellerC.PezzaniL. (2014). Traces liquides: Enquête sur la mort de migrants dans la zone-frontière maritime de l’Union européenne [Liquid Traces: Inquiry into migrant deaths in the maritime border-zone of the European Union ]. Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 30, 71-107.
21.
KobelinskyC. (2015). Les morts aux frontières de l’Espagne: Trajectoire des corps et pratiques locales [Death at the Spanish border: trajectory of corpses and local practices]. In SchmollC.ThiolletH.de WendenC. Wihtol (Eds.), Migrations en Méditerranée: Permanence et mutations à l’heure des révolutions et des crises. Paris, France: CNRS Editions.
22.
MbembeA. (2001). De la postcolonie: Essai sur l’imagination politique dans l’Afrique contemporaine [On the postcolony]. Paris, France: Karthala.
23.
Migreurop. (2012). Atlas des migrants en Europe: Géographie critique des politiques migratoires [Atlas of migrants in Europe: critical geography of migration politics]. Paris, France: Armand Collin.
24.
NewmanD. (2006). The lines that continue to separate us: Borders in our “borderless” world. Progress in Human Geography, 30, 143-161.
25.
NieuwenhuysC.PécoudA. (2007). Human trafficking, information campaigns and strategies of migration control. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 1674-1695.
26.
International Organization for Migration. (2014). Fatal journeys: Tracking lives lost during migration. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
27.
International Organization for Migration. (2016). Fatal journeys: Volume 2: Identification and tracing of dead and missing migrants. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
28.
International Organization for Migration. (2017a). Fatal journeys: Volume 3 Part 1: Improving data on missing migrants. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
29.
International Organization for Migration. (2017b). Fatal journeys: Volume 3 Part 2: Improving data on missing migrants. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
30.
International Organization for Migration. (2019). Fatal journeys: Volume 3 Part 2: Missing migrant children. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.
31.
PécoudA. (2015). Depoliticising migration: Global governance and international migration narratives. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave.
32.
PécoudA. (2018). What do we know about the International Organization for Migration?Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44, 1621-1638.
33.
RoseN. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
34.
ScottJ. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
35.
StenumH. (2012). Making migrants governable: Counting and defining the “illegal migrant.”Journal of Nordic Migration Research, 2, 280-288.
36.
TazzioliM. (2015). The politics of counting and the scene of rescue: Border deaths in the Mediterranean. Radical Philosophy, 192, 3-6.
37.
WaltersW. (2011). Foucault and frontiers: Notes on the birth of the humanitarian border. In BröcklingU.KrasmannS.LemkeT. (Eds.), Governmentality: Current issues and future challenges (pp. 138-164). New York, NY: Routledge.
38.
WeberL.PickeringS. (2011). Globalization and borders: Death at the global frontier. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave.
