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Crisis narratives are widespread in migration and border governance globally, including in EUrope. In response, a body of scholarship that critically scrutinizes crisis narratives and imaginaries has emerged. Building on and further extending this scholarship, this article questions the dichotomy between 'normality' and 'crisis' in border governance. Focusing on four moments in which crises were declared in relation to migration and EUropean borders and their immediate aftermath, we examine how the European Union border agency Frontex framed these events through an analysis of its press releases, annual reports, and practices. In so doing, we argue that narratives pertaining to border practices beyond moments of 'crisis' invoke fears of uncontrolled mass migration of unruly 'others' as an ever-present possibility and perpetual threat to EUrope. Within this article, we propose a differentiation between protracted and acute crisis narratives. Focusing on the political work that these two narratives do in relation to EUropean border governance, we demonstrate that the interplay between these crises narratives has contributed to Frontex's evolution and expansion over the last two decades while further consolidating the externalization and fortification of EUropean borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past years, we have seen a rise in political mobilisations in EUrope and elsewhere, by and in solidarity with migrant newcomers. This article focuses on specific examples of what we conceptualise as transversal solidarities by and with migrants, and rooted in the city, the focus of this special issue. The examples we explore in this article include: Trampoline House, a civil society organisation which provides a home to migrant newcomers in Copenhagen; Queer Base, an activist organisation in Vienna providing support for LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) migrants; and finally, the Palermo Charter Process, a coalition of diverse groups seeking to create open harbours and 'corridors of solidarity', from the Mediterranean to cities throughout EUrope. While these examples are situated in and across different urban spaces, they share a common grounding in building solidarity through spaces of encounters related to ideas of home, community, and harbour. By exploring these distinct solidarity initiatives in tandem, we examine, on the one hand, how the production of spaces of encounters is linked to building transversal solidarities and, on the other, how transversal solidarities also connect different spaces of solidarity across different political scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the figure of the "migrant slave" that appears to conjoin antithetical notions—migration, often associated with intentionality and movement, and slavery, commonly associated with coercion and confinement. The figure of the migrant as slave has been frequently mobilized by "antitrafficking crusaders" in debates over unauthorized forms of trans-Mediterranean crossings to EUrope. Besides scrutinizing the depoliticized and dehistoricized ways in which contemporary migrant journeys have come to be associated with imaginaries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, this article draws other, actual, comparisons between historic slavery and contemporary forms of migration. It argues that there does exist a historical resonance between the former and the latter. By remembering slave rebellions on land and at sea, the article makes the case that if one had to draw comparisons between historic slaves and contemporary migrants, beyond often crude visual associations, one would need to do so by enquiring into moments in which both enacted escape to a place of perceived freedom. It is shown that the fugitive slave escaping on the "underground railroad" resembles most closely the acts of escape via the Mediterranean and its "underground seaways" today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and WatchTheMed Alarm Phone activist hotline through which migrants in distress at sea can call. Topics discussed include decline in migrant movements along the central Mediterranean route, the intensity of Moroccan-Spanish border transgressions and a bilateral repatriation agreements between Spain and West African countries.