Transidioma Afloat: Communication, Power, and Migration in the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaker: Dr. Marco Jacquemet
Communications Studies, University of San Francisco
When & Where:
Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024 | 12:30pm-2:00pm
Anthropology & Sociology Building (ANSO) Room 207, 6303 NW Marine Drive
Light refreshments to follow in Lino Lounge. Please RSVP in advance.
Abstract:
One consequence of European unification has been the transformation of the Mediterranean Sea into a barrier to stop the flow of unwanted migrants. In this zone, the communicative networks of “Fortress Europe” have established, through interception and monitoring technologies (and their corresponding speech acts), a techno-political moat surrounding European Union territorial waters. This paper documents how maritime encounters between state authorities, migrants, and fishermen are shaped by the multiple languages and channels of communication that traverse the Mediterranean Sea—a communicative environment I call “transidiomatic.” With the concept of transidioma, I explore how this communicative landscape is undergoing rapid change due to late-modern cultural globalization, which creates ways of speaking more similar to the communicative interactions that emerged in this area after the Middle Ages than to those of modern nation-states. More importantly, I want to discuss how these hybrid interactions are situated in a political and military context where the European Union and its member states impose a shibboleth-like test on refugees and migrants—a test that often contributes to serious and irreversible human rights violations.
About Dr. Marco Jacquemet
Marco Jacquemet teaches courses in communication and culture, intercultural communication, geographies of communication, and justice and social change. His scholarship focuses on the communicative mutations produced by the circulation of migrants and media idioms in the Mediterranean area. His more recent book project is called Transidioma: Language and Power in the 21st Century. He is also present in Italian media activist networks, where he investigates the link between media and power.
