The hole, the corridor and the landings: reframing Lampedusa through the COVID-19 emergency

This article presents the results of an ethnography carried out in Lampedusa – a fundamental hub in the border spectacle of irregular migrations – during the COVID-19 emergency, where landings have increased, specially from Tunisia. Through fieldwork and interviews to local key actors, the research aims to answer the following intertwined questions: how does migrant agency develop? How is the borderwork reinvented? How do different local groups and authorities act, react, and interact with migrant agency and borderwork? These questions are addressed, scrutinizing three steps of a migrants’ corridor towards Europe: firstly, the landings and their social fabrication around the piers; secondly, the hole and the confinement fences on the hotspot-island; thirdly, the forced return to sea on the quarantine ships. In this way, the article shows how the pandemic becomes a constituent moment in border policies, devices and procedures, opening up a reinforced space-time of migrants’ containment.