As an introduction, Mareike Gebhardt presented her paper on democratic theory with the working title "Another Solidarity is Im-Possible: Saving (Black) Lives between Radical Democracy and Colonial Continuities". The programme continued with the contribution "Searching: Attending to a politics of neglect and extractivism through a migration drama in Zarzis" by Amade M'Charek (University of Amsterdam) and Khaled Tabbabi (FTDES). The third and final paper presentation of the first workshop day was given by Laila Riedmiller (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg) under the german working title “Rettung als Ausdruck kultureller Selbstaufgabe? Zivile Seenotrettung als Feindbild der extremen Rechten”(“Rescue as an expression of cultural surrender? Civil sea rescue as an enemy of the extreme right”). The presentation of these three works in progress was followed by an academic-activist intervention by Maurice Stierl (University of Osnabrück) and a short report on a planned interview with a captain of the Italian coastguard by Paolo Cuttitta (Paris Sorbonne XIII) and Luca Queirolo Palmas (University of Genoa).

The second day of the workshop continued with further interventions and workshop reports from the activist-academic spectrum: filmmaker Sarah Hüther gave an insight into her feminist documentary film project on female activism in the Mediterranean. Charlotte Weiß (Sea-Eye) presented the work of the so-called land crews. Going on, Khalid Abaker gave a presentation on his activist book project about his escape across the Mediterranean and Adrian Pourviseh showed the first sketches of a comic strip on civil sea rescue, which will also appear in the movements issue. Under the title "Handling Dead Bodies at Sea. Deathcare and Necropolitics in the Mediterranean Border Death Regime", Sarah Spasiano presented a part of her ongoing work of her ZivDem dissertation project. Concluding the workshop, Lena Laube and Maria Ullrich presented their planned contribution "What do the boats symbolise? A country comparison on rationales and motivations for supporting search and rescue activities on the high seas", in which they outlined preliminary results of the field research conducted by ZivDem 2023 in Germany, Spain and Italy.

Internship at Zivdem

Nina Arndt (B.A.) has been working as an intern at ZivDem from ocotober 2023 until april 2024. As part of her internship, she analyzed documentary films on civilian sea rescue from a frame-analytical perspective.

Fellowship with the research group "Internalizing Borders" at the ZiF in Bielefeld

Since October 2023, Mareike Gebhardt is a fellow of the research group "Internalizing Borders: The Social and Normative Consequences of the European Border Regime" at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld University. From February 2024, she is working there for six months as a fellow in residence with a scholarship on the topics of ZivDem's sub-project III.

Click here for the Webpage of the research group "Internalizing Borders" 

Workshop: Social and Legal Sciences on the High Seas

On April 5 and 6, 2023, the workshop "Social and Legal Sciences on the High Seas" took place at the University of Münster in the Karl Bender Hall of the Juridicum. The workshop was hosted by the ZivDem research group, the Chair of Public International Law and International Human Rights Protection, and the Junior Professorship of Political Theory. The main purpose of the workshop was for the three teams to get to know each other and to identify common research interests and intersections in order to explore further collaboration. 

The participants were Svenja Ahlhaus, Iman Al Nassre, Sebastian Benedikt, Fabian Endemann, Mareike Gebhardt, Lena Laube, Nora Markard, Eva Schmidt, Sarah Spasiano, Marlene Stiller, Pia Storff, and Maria Ullrich.

FIW Lecture Series, Summer 2023 | Perspectives of Modernity. Conflicts about Borders and Mobility

Social actors in different European places argue over Search and Rescue Missions in the Mediterranean Sea. Based on these conflicts, broader disputes crystallize in which the right to mobility and (the sovereignty over) borders of inclusion and exclusion are negotiated. According to the thesis of the research group ZivDem, the future shape of European democracy is thus up for discussion.

With this lecture series, we look at Search and Rescue Missions in the central Mediterranean and situate them in general social and political negotiations about migration movements to Europe. For this purpose, we invited experts from different disciplines to discuss these topics at the University of Bonn in the summer semester of 2023. 

Mareike Gebhardt opened the series on April 26, 2023 with her lecture "Un-Mögliche Solidarität: Zivile Seenotrettung als kommende Demokratie". A detailed program as well as recordings of further lectures by Prof. Nicole Doerr and Dr. Benjamin Etzold can be viewed here.

Kick-off Events

The ZivDem project was launched in the summer of 2022. Two events represented ZivDem’s kick-off:

At the 28th International Conference of Europeanists CES “The Environment of Democracy,” on June 20-22, 2022, at the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Mareike Gebhardt, Lena Laube, and Maria Ullrich presented the research group’s initial preliminary assumptions in a panel on “Migrant Rights Activism and Legal Support: Contestation or Conformation?” (organized by Saskia Bonjour and Sonja Evaldsson Mellström, both University of Amsterdam).

For its official kick-off, all members of ZivDem met on August 24, 2022, at FIW Bonn.