8 The Long-term Influence of a Short-lived Colony: Postcoloniality and Geopolitics of Energy and Migration Control in Libya
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Mathias Hatleskog Tjønn
Abstract
This chapter applies a postcolonial gaze on a very specific architecture of energy, trade and displacement politics, namely the evolution of successive and entangled layers of imperial and postcolonial actors and geopolitics on forced migration in Libya. Recognizing how colonial infrastructures and matrices of power did not end when Libya gained independence, and that such matrices can be identified also in current forced migration dynamics, the chapter details the complex entanglements of colonial powers and empires in Libyan politics, such as Italy, the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, and the EU. Spanning from the 1911 Italo-Turkish war that gave rise to the Italian colony of Libya, through the Gaddafi regime, and to the present, the chapter details linkages between water exploration, settler colonialism and mass displacement, between Big Oil and natural gas pipelines and anti-colonial discourses, and recently, between the EU’s externalized migration control in Libya and Turkish visions of energy corridors through a ‘blue homeland’. The chapter demonstrates the intricate and strategic uses of postcoloniality, and the enduring effect of an otherwise epistemologically erased era of brutal colonial suppression in Libya.
Abstract
This chapter applies a postcolonial gaze on a very specific architecture of energy, trade and displacement politics, namely the evolution of successive and entangled layers of imperial and postcolonial actors and geopolitics on forced migration in Libya. Recognizing how colonial infrastructures and matrices of power did not end when Libya gained independence, and that such matrices can be identified also in current forced migration dynamics, the chapter details the complex entanglements of colonial powers and empires in Libyan politics, such as Italy, the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, and the EU. Spanning from the 1911 Italo-Turkish war that gave rise to the Italian colony of Libya, through the Gaddafi regime, and to the present, the chapter details linkages between water exploration, settler colonialism and mass displacement, between Big Oil and natural gas pipelines and anti-colonial discourses, and recently, between the EU’s externalized migration control in Libya and Turkish visions of energy corridors through a ‘blue homeland’. The chapter demonstrates the intricate and strategic uses of postcoloniality, and the enduring effect of an otherwise epistemologically erased era of brutal colonial suppression in Libya.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on Authors vii
- Acknowledgements xii
- Series Preface xiv
- Introduction 1
- Slave Trade Refugees and Imperial Agendas: The Resettlement of ‘Liberated Africans’ into British West Indian Regiments and Liberian Militias, 1808–60 28
- Colonization, Territorialization and Displacement in Ottoman Migration Policy, 1856–1918 46
- Situating the Coloniality of Encampment and Deportation as a Mode of Mobility Governance: Insights from Ceuta and Melilla, Mayotte and Tanzania 61
- Colonial Continuities and the Commodification of Mobility Policing: French Civipol in West Africa 76
- Displaced, Profiled, Protected? Humanitarian Surveillance and New Approaches to Refugee Protection 93
- Of the Mobile and the Immobilized: COVID-19 and the Uneven Geographies of Disease Transmission 109
- The Long-term Influence of a Short-lived Colony: Postcoloniality and Geopolitics of Energy and Migration Control in Libya 125
- Echoes of Imperialism: Crisis, Conflict and the (Re)configurations of Otherness in the Evros/Edirne Borderlands 144
- The Practice of ‘Sanctuary’ and Refugee Protection in India 161
- Refugees and Political Theorists: The Problem of Complicity 176
- Singing Historical Reparations: Alabaoras Challenging the Spectacle of Forgiveness in Communities Affected by Deracination in Colombia 192
- The Subaltern Can Speak: The Mobility Strategies of Forced Migrants in Kenya’s Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement 209
- Conclusion: Postcoloniality and Forced Migration 223
- Index 237
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on Authors vii
- Acknowledgements xii
- Series Preface xiv
- Introduction 1
- Slave Trade Refugees and Imperial Agendas: The Resettlement of ‘Liberated Africans’ into British West Indian Regiments and Liberian Militias, 1808–60 28
- Colonization, Territorialization and Displacement in Ottoman Migration Policy, 1856–1918 46
- Situating the Coloniality of Encampment and Deportation as a Mode of Mobility Governance: Insights from Ceuta and Melilla, Mayotte and Tanzania 61
- Colonial Continuities and the Commodification of Mobility Policing: French Civipol in West Africa 76
- Displaced, Profiled, Protected? Humanitarian Surveillance and New Approaches to Refugee Protection 93
- Of the Mobile and the Immobilized: COVID-19 and the Uneven Geographies of Disease Transmission 109
- The Long-term Influence of a Short-lived Colony: Postcoloniality and Geopolitics of Energy and Migration Control in Libya 125
- Echoes of Imperialism: Crisis, Conflict and the (Re)configurations of Otherness in the Evros/Edirne Borderlands 144
- The Practice of ‘Sanctuary’ and Refugee Protection in India 161
- Refugees and Political Theorists: The Problem of Complicity 176
- Singing Historical Reparations: Alabaoras Challenging the Spectacle of Forgiveness in Communities Affected by Deracination in Colombia 192
- The Subaltern Can Speak: The Mobility Strategies of Forced Migrants in Kenya’s Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement 209
- Conclusion: Postcoloniality and Forced Migration 223
- Index 237
