Necropolitics in the Atlantic Route: Borders, Death and Resistances

Abstract

This article analyzes the consolidation of the Atlantic Route as a space marked by necropolitics and crisscrossed by resistance. As a maritime border and gateway to Europe, this route has been the target of control policies aimed at curbing migration from the Global South. However, far from halting the flow, these measures have increased deaths and disappearances at sea, evidencing a migration management that operates through the production of death. Such management is based on colonial and racialized logics that decide «who is able to live and who must die» in this maritime corridor. However, in the face of these dynamics, resistance emerge: from migrants themselves, from their families, from communities, and in transnational settings. The article argues that necropolitics along the Atlantic Route cannot be understood without these resistances, and questions whether they manage to reverse it or merely mitigate its effects.