CONTEMPORARY BOAT MIGRATION

This book explores contemporary migration by boat through the intertwined and underexplored elements of empirical data governance and geopolitics and discourses While the migration of people by boat is a longstanding phenomenon journeys have become more frequent and precarious as states illegalise entry As migration at sea becomes more common it has gained attention from a range of actors including enforcement authorities political elites media and nonintergovernmental organizations The sea has thus become a space of hopedesperation for migrants as well as conflict over territory and sovereignty representing wider social debates in and beyond Australia Canada the European Union and the United States Current literature on migration by boat reflects these debates primarily concentrating on the humanitarian and legal realities of migration by boat and border enforcement at sea however few studies have analysed their empirical relationship This edited volume aims to fill this gap and thereby address three important overlapping aspects of these debates The first theme will explore data and methods on migration by boat its discourse and its enforcement and in addition identifying appropriate research methodologies and sources to gather these data The second theme will build upon the first by focusing on the relationship between data on migration by boat and governance and geopolitics of the border Building upon the two themes already outlined the third theme will identify and analyse how elite discourses represent migration at sea