African Migrants, European Borders, and the Problem with Humanitarianism

P. Khalil Saucier is professor of critical Black studies at Bucknell University.Tryon P. Woods is professor of crime & justice studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and special lecturer in Black studies at Providence College.

The decadence of contemporary critical thought is clear in the use of the dead drowning abject black body as material for imaginaries of an antiracist, humanitarian and abolitionist Europe. Saucier and Woods analyze how radical thought is so often sucked into a liberal antiracism that reinforces colonial hierarchies rather than questions them. Written with passion and acuity, this important book opens up a new avenue for thought in migration and border studies and beyond. Required reading.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Ex Aqua in the Mediterranean: Confronting the Police Power of HumanitarianismChapter 1: Still Trafficking in Blackness: The Antiblack Basis of Global CapitalismChapter 2: Europe’s Ode to Itself: The Charter of Lampedusa and the Problem of Black MobilityChapter 3: The Fantasy of Mourning: Surplus Enjoyment in the BasinChapter 4: “Does Anybody Need a Digger?”: Visualizing AbolitionCoda: Riding with Death/Failure of InventionIndexBibliographyAbout the Authors