At a time when thousands of refugees risk their lives undertaking perilous journeys by boat across the Mediterranean, this multidisciplinary volume could not be more pertinent. It offers various contemporary case studies of boat migrations undertaken by asylum seekers and refugees around the globe and shows that boats not only move people and cultural capital between places, but also fuel cultural fantasies, dreams of adventure and hope, along with fears of invasion and terrorism. The ambiguous nature of memories, media representations and popular culture productions are highlighted throughout in order to address negative stereotypes and conversely, humanize the individuals involved.

This book aims to address ‘boat migration’ with a holistic approach. The different chapters consider the multiple facets of the phenomenon and the complex challenges they pose, bringing together knowledge from several disciplines and regions of the world within a single collection. Together, they provide an integrated picture of transnational movements of people by sea with a view to making a decisive contribution to our understanding of current trends and future perspectives and their treatment from legal-doctrinal, legal-theoretical, and non-legal angles. The final goal is to unpack the tension that exists between security concerns and individual rights in this context and identify tools and strategies to adequately manage its various components, garnering an inter-regional / multi-disciplinary dialogue, including input from international law, law of the sea, maritime security, migration and refugee studies, and human rights, to address the position of ‘migrants at sea’ thoroughly.

Discussions about U.S. migration policing have traditionally focused on enforcement along the highly charged U.S.-Mexico boundary. Enforcement practices such as detention policies designed to restrict access to asylum also transpire in the Caribbean. Boats, Borders, and Bases tells a missing, racialized history of the U.S. migration detention system that was developed and expanded to deter Haitian and Cuban migrants. Jenna M. Loyd and Alison Mountz argue that the U.S. response to Cold War Caribbean migrations established the legal and institutional basis for contemporary migration detention and border-deterrent practices in the United States. This book will make a significant contribution to a fuller understanding of the history and geography of the United States’s migration detention system.

At a time when thousands of refugees risk their lives undertaking perilous journeys by boat across the Mediterranean, this multidisciplinary volume could not be more pertinent. It offers various contemporary case studies of boat migrations undertaken by asylum seekers and refugees around the globe and shows that boats not only move people and cultural capital between places, but also fuel cultural fantasies, dreams of adventure and hope, along with fears of invasion and terrorism. The ambiguous nature of memories, media representations and popular culture productions are highlighted throughout in order to address negative stereotypes and conversely, humanize the individuals involved.

Globe and Mail bestseller, The Boat People is an extraordinary novel about a group of refugees who survive a perilous ocean voyage only to face the threat of deportation amid accusations of terrorism When a rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees from Sri Lanka's bloody civil war reaches Vancouver's shores, the young father thinks he and his six-year-old son can finally start a new life. Instead, the group is thrown into a detention processing center, with government officials and news headlines speculating that among the "boat people" are members of a separatist militant organization responsible for countless suicide attacks—and that these terrorists now pose a threat to Canada's national security. As the refugees become subject to heavy interrogation, Mahindan begins to fear that a desperate act taken in Sri Lanka to fund their escape may now jeopardize his and his son's chance for asylum. Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer, Priya, a second-generation Sri Lankan Canadian who reluctantly represents the refugees; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan's fate as evidence mounts against him, The Boat People is a spellbinding and timely novel that provokes a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis.

"Henrietta Nyamnjoh must be highly commended for her initiative and courage to tackle in-depth research into the hazardous and largely unpredictable reality of boat migration, with a view to erasing existing misconceptions, false and partial explanations, and to enhancing our understanding. This is an original and innovative piece of work -well- written and well-argued. It certainly deserves a wide readership even beyond the normal academic and policy-making circles." --Book Jacket.

This book examines clandestine migrant journeys across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe. It combines ethnographic focus with macro-level analyses of EU and national migration policies and practices. It draws on the case study of Malta, and pushes the boundaries of our knowledge of the global politics of migration, asylum, and border security.