B/ordering humanitarian action: the (in)security of SAR operations in Italy

This article intervenes in current debates on the Mediterranean border regime and suggests rethinking the concept of the ‘humanitarian border’. Drawing on Border and Critical Security Studies, it argues that the current Italian government is not simply governing and disciplining mobility, but is bordering, ordering and othering humanitarian action, and especially search and rescue (SAR) operations. While existing scholarship highlights the coexistence of securitarian and humanitarian rationalities, this article argues that, in the context of SAR operations, an analytical distinction between the two should be made. Specifically, it argues that the Meloni government has inaugurated a border regime in which the activation of SAR operations – whether by NGOs or the Italian Coast Guard – is systematically prevented, obscured, and made difficult. In light of this observation, this article introduces the concept of b/ordering humanitarian action as a theoretical prism through which to capture the hierarchical subordination of care and protection at sea to securitarian logic.