In 2011, the researcher and filmmaker Charles Heller and the architect Lorenzo Pezzani founded the Forensic Oceanography project to investigate the lethal effects of the militarized border regime and the politics of migration in the Mediterranean Sea. In collaboration with a wide network of non governmental organisations (NGOs), activist groups, researchers and journalists, they have produced various human rights reports as well as articles, maps, and videos that document and challenge the violence perpetrated against migrants at the EU’s maritime borders. In 2012, they contributed to found the online mapping and monitoring platform WatchTheMed, and in 2014, the Alarmphone, a hotline for migrants in distress at sea. Pezzani and Heller are affiliated with the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Sophie Hinger, research fellow at the IMIS (Osnabrück) and member of the Alarmphone, communicated with them via skype and e-mail between July 2017 and February 2018. Their exchange was concerning transformations of the Euro-Mediterranean border regime with a focus on the Central Mediterranean and the role of activist-researchers in this contested arena.
Hinger et al. (Thu,) studied this question.