Mediterranean Mobilities and Europe’s Changing Relationships

Following a mobility approach, this chapter considers the complexity and variety of mobilities in the Basin to frame our group\u2019s research. The research is about the geographical complexities but also opportunities of multiple evolutions of the Mediterranean Basin flows, between Europe and non-European countries and beyond the North\u2013South divide. Research adopted the non-\ue9lites perspectives provided by narratives of people in mobilities. This chapter has two main objectives. First, it provides an introductory reading of the characteristics of Mediterranean mobilities. Second, it introduces the frame of research which drove fieldwork and discussions of findings. In particular, we examine the concept of Mediterranean mobilities which provides insights on the topic of internal and external Europe relationships and challenges to usual concepts shaping regional views on the area and migration studies. Our findings identify important factors that have structured and will structure relationships with consequent needs of specific focus of policy arenas in Europe

The Mediterranean alternative

This paper is a critical review of Italian and French Mediterranean studies from a postcolonial and geographical perspective. It claims that the relationship between contemporary Mediterranean geographies and mainstream European modernities has been overlooked by the Mediterraneanist literature, a literature from which geography has been surprisingly absent. We hope to begin addressing this gap, rethinking the Mediterranean as a postcolonial sea. In its real and metaphorical ‘liquidity’, the Mediterranean represents a fertile ground for the exploration of ‘other spaces', capable of recovering the ambiguities and plurality of voices that make it a source of inspiration for experiencing ‘alternative modernities

The Constitution of EU territory

This paper offers a contribution to debates around the reconfiguration of political space in the project of European integration. Its specific focus is the Draft Constitution of the European Union, and its problematic understanding of territory. It claims that there is a profound ambiguity between senses of territory in the Draft Constitution, which in part aims to transcend existing territorial divisions and notions of territory, particularly those associated with the nation-state. This is an aspirational sense of Europe as a putative space of values and area of solidarity, illustrated through the ideal of territorial cohesion. On the other hand, territory is being re-inscribed in the Constitution in a 'hard' sense, organized through border controls, jurisdictional limits and a concern with territorial integrity and sovereign rights. In providing a reading of the draft Constitution itself, analysing the tensions and silences within its text, the article seeks to contribute to wider debates concerning the European project and its values, and the contribution social theory and political geography can make to an assessment of them

At the century mark (messages celebrating the 100th issue of the journal)

International audienceno abstrac

At the century mark (messages celebrating the 100th issue of the journal)

International audienceno abstrac