Blood in the Water tracing an interspecies alliance between at-risk humans and jellyfish in the mediterranean Blood in the Water: tracing an interspecies alliance between at-risk humansBlood in and the jellyfishWater: in the mediterranean Blood in the Water: an interspecies alliance between human an interspecies alliance between human migrants and jellyfish in the mediterranean migrants and jellyfish in the mediterranean By Ala Tannir - 2017 By Ala Tannir - 2017 By Ala Tannir - 2017 A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MasterA thesis of presented Industrial in Design partial infulfillment the Department of the requirements of Industrial forDesign the degreeof the Rhode IslandMasterA thesis School of presented Industrial of Design, in Design partial Providence, infulfillment the Department Rhode of the Island. requirements of Industrial forDesign the degreeof the Rhode IslandMaster School of Industrial of Design, Design Providence, in the Department Rhode Island. of Industrial Design of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. Approved by Master’s Examination Committee: Approved by Master’s Examination Committee: Approved by Master’s Examination Committee: Ingrid Burrington Ingrid Burrington IngridRhode Island Burrington School of Design IndustrialRhode Island Design School of Design IndustrialRhode Island Design School of Design Industrial Design Paolo Cardini Paolo Cardini PaoloRhode Island Cardini School of Design IndustrialRhode Island Design School of Design IndustrialRhode Island Design School of Design Industrial Design Lorenzo Pezzani Lorenzo Pezzani LorenzoGoldsmiths, Pezzani University of London ForensicGoldsmiths, Architecture University of London ForensicGoldsmiths, Architecture University of London Forensic Architecture Acknowledgements I would like to extend special thanks to my advisory committee at RISD and beyond, Paolo, Ingrid, and Lorenzo for their insightful critique, and for making sure I remain on the right track at different stages throughout the process of bringing this project to life. As well as to all those who participated in overseeing it, Tim Maly, Ayako Takase, Tom Weis, Jennifer Liese, Andy Law, Scott Geiger, and Emily Rothschild. For generously providing a shoulder, a continuous amount of hot meals, and for uninterrupted love and support I owe my thanks to the beautiful Khadija Mneimne, Aya Tannir and the little baby boy in her belly, Karim Hamade, and Amin, Maya, Haya and Thalia Tannir. At RISD, I am very lucky to be surrounded by Atulya Chaganti, Lokesh Zope, Jonathan Meléndez Davidson, and Biniam Kebede. For always believing in and passionately following the progress of this project since its inception during that very first fall conversation at 6i in Harlem, I am © 2017 by Ala Tannir grateful to Khaled Malas. I am also forever indebted to Garine Boghossian in Cambridge, Kat Pongrace in Providence, and Salim Al-Kadi and Alfred Tarazi in All rights reserved. Please contact author Beirut. Different discussions, and extended Skype and phone sessions with all of for more information and requests. you have helped enrich this thesis beyond imagination. Printed in Providence, RI, 2017 We will perpetually make the revolution irresistible. 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 3 Abstract 5 1. Illegalized Migrants Crossing The Mediterranean Sea 7 1.1. Europe: An Ever Harder To Reach ‘Utopia’ 1.2. Sea Arrivals And Main Routes Abstract Migrant Jellyfish Species in the Mediterranean This thesis seeks to examine the Mediterranean Sea as a space of simultaneous 2. Precarious Journeys: 13 ecological and political resistance to human-induced violence articulated by the 2.1. Dynamics Of Migrant Smuggling concept of the Anthropocene. In one capacity, the Mediterranean Sea is the space 2.2. Hazardous Conditions At Sea: The Boat Experience that connects the extracting impulses of European States to the raw materials and Life Jacket: Enhancing Chances Of Survival And Visibility At Sea resources of their ‘former’ colonies in Africa and the Middle East. Despite being divided in relation to national interests, the Sea defies the easy legibility of such 3. Mare Liberum? Questions Of Sovereignty In The Mediterranean 21 bordering practices, and exemplifies a “vast, complex expanse” that contains many 3.1. The Mediterranean Sea: A Militarized Border of the contradictions of national and regional interests that are pursued in isolation 3.2. Remote Sensing: “Pre-Frontier Detection” from broader ecological and political considerations. Aquatic Invasive Species Satellite Views Of Phytoplankton Blooms In his seminal work on the Mediterranean, Fernand Braudel defines three coexisting 3.3. Complex Jurisdictions And Overlapping Maritime Borders i Artificial Coastal Constructions And Overfishing: Encouraging temporalities to read the landscape of the sea. The first and slowest is environmental Jellyfish Blooms and geographical time pertaining to repetitive and almost imperceptible change. The second comprises long-term social and economic changes, spanning centuries. As for the third and shortest one, “the time of surfaces,” it is that of “events, politics, 4. Loss Of Life At Sea 33 4.1. Mediterranean Deaths Soaring To An All-Time High and people.” Increases In The Population Density of Phytoplankton In The Mediterranean Sea Despite never being addressed synchronously, recent reports from the Mediterranean 4.2. Abdication Of Responsibility, A Case Study: The “Left-To-Die Boat” region suggest a sharp increase in jellyfish population in the water and the migration An Interspecies Alliance: A Satellite Memorial For Bodies Lost At of humans across its surface. In this context, new narrative forms are required to Sea And A Jellyfish Takeover recast dominant ones, and to expose and connect these types of ecological “slow violence”ii with ones that are more immediately and visibly occurring within the same space. Through the use and appropriation of information, text, images, Postface 43 and representation, and towards the pursuit of justice and dignity for all species Endnotes and Image Sources 44 involved, this project proposes the possibility of an interspecies alliance between Bibliography 48 at-risk humans and jellyfish in the Mediterranean Sea. 6 7 1. Illegalized Migrants Crossing The Mediterranean Sea 1.1. Europe: An Ever displaced people in the world. This Harder To Reach 'Utopia' has lead to remarkable increases in the number of people crossing the sea Since the early 1990s and with the towards Italian islands and Malta on the progressive enlargement of the one hand, and towards Greece on the European Union, citizens of its Member other. States have enjoyed the abolition of nearly all internal borders within Europe.iii This freedom of movement 1.2. Sea Arrivals And on the inside has been simultaneously Main Routes coordinated with the adoption of policies of closure and impermeability Crossings towards Europe occur of external borders.iv Unified and along three main routes: (1) Western increasingly prohibitive visa processes Mediterranean, namely from Morocco have rendered legal access to EU to the southern coast of Spain through territory ever more difficult for non- the straight of Gibraltar, or via the European migrants, pushing them to enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta; (2) resort to more clandestine methods of Central Mediterranean, typically from reaching Europe, namely by sea. With Libya and Tunisia towards Sicily, or declining means to enter the European mainland Italy, via the small Italian Union regularly, everyday hundreds island of Lampedusa, and Malta; and (3) of migrants fleeing countries in crisis Eastern Mediterranean, from Turkey via or conflict embark on long perilous the Dodecanese towards Greece, Sicily, journeys towards European shores. or mainland Italy.1 Geopolitical changes in North Africa The United Nation High Commissioner fewer people using the Eastern increased resettlement by the EU of and the Eastern Mediterranean have for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported Mediterranean Route after the EU- Syrian refugees already present in since 2011 significantly intensified that in 2015 the number of arrivals by Turkey deal in March 2016.vii This Turkey.viii migration patterns to Europe. Tunisian sea reached a record high that exceeded agreement aims to reduce the number and Libyan regimes—in cooperation a million migrants in total on European of people crossing Aegean Sea from However, such intensified efforts to with European States—are no longer shores. Of these, over 800,000 Turkey and entering Greek islands exercise control over these movements able to regulate the emigration of their migrants arrived in Greece from irregularly, by allowing Greece to return have failed to put a definitive end citizens following their respective Turkey and were from the Arab Syrian migrants back to Turkey. In exchange, to surreptitious flows of migration. collapses,v and the Syrian conflict Republic. In 2016 the total number Turkey receives political and financial Instead, they resulted in the has resulted in the largest number of dropped significantly to 363, 348 due to concessions from the EU, as well as fragmentation and diversification of Total Irregular Migration Land | Sea Migration 1 It is worth noting that humans are not the only species using strategic maritime passages 1, 800, 000 900, 000 in the Mediterranean to migrate. In fact, at least twelve recorded species of jellyfish—none 1, 400, 000 700, 000 considered native to the basin—have invaded the Mediterranean