Conceptualizing the Mediterranean Global South to Understand Border Crises and Human Mobility Across Borders

This chapter provides the reader with the lexicon used by the contributors to this volume and anticipates most of the concepts used and addressed in the chapters that follow. First of all, it contributes to the International Relations (IR) debate on the definition of ‘Mediterranean’ by providing a new conceptualization drawn from the observation that the Mediterranean is a critical junction between Global North and Global South, it is an intertwined area at the borders of the European Union (EU) where a variety of actors are engaged with transboundary crises. Then, it addresses the issue of borders, border crises and border security. Finally, it investigates crucial issues related to human mobility illustrating that human security is at stake when crossing the borders, with migrants blocked at sea or entrapped at the EU borders. The main assumption that lays at the basis of this volume is that states’ security and migrants’ security are not necessarily contradictory and mutually exclusive; on the contrary, as long as human security is provided, also state- security is guaranteed. Therefore, these authors struggle to assess the linkage between Mediterranean borders’ security and human security.