{"id":2200,"date":"2026-10-21T17:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T14:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/?page_id=2200"},"modified":"2026-10-23T17:10:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T14:10:32","slug":"wretched_of_the_sea","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/blogs\/wretched_of_the_sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Women, Borders and Autonomy: Introducing Camille Schmoll\u2019s Book \u201cThe Wretched of the Sea\u201d to the Greek Public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Women, Borders and Autonomy: Introducing Camille Schmoll\u2019s Book \u201cThe Wretched of the Sea\u201d to the Greek Public<\/h1>\n\n\n

A new Greek edition brings Camille Schmoll\u2019s study of women crossing the Mediterranean to local readers. The study shows the border not as a line on a map but as a long condition of violence, waiting and uncertainty, within which autonomy is always in tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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23\/10\/2026 | 7 minutes read<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Iris Polyzou<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iris Polyzou is a researcher at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning of NTUA. Her research focuses on inequalities and spatial segregation across multiple spatial scales, drawing on quantitative, qualitative and ethnographic methods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is a member of the scientific committee of the Interdisciplinary Migration Research Unit (IMRU) and co-leads the research programme \u201cAtlas Global Network\u201d at the French School at Athens (\u00c9cole fran\u00e7aise d\u2019Ath\u00e8nes). She recently published a monograph on the relationship between migration and urban space (Ville et migrations internationales, BEFAR, 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dina Vaiou<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dina Vaiou is Professor Emerita in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her research interests, reflected in numerous publications in Greece and abroad and in conference presentations, include feminist critiques of urban studies, the changing characteristics of local labour markets, with an emphasis on the workings of the informal sector, and the impact of migration on southern European cities, particularly women\u2019s migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The title of Camille Schmoll\u2019s book is a direct reference to Franz Fanon\u2019s Les Damn\u00e9s de la terre.<\/a> The reference to Fanon\u2019s book, and specifically to the dual theme of the \u201cviolence of colonialism\u201d and the \u201cneed for resistance\u201d to it, shapes the central concern of Camille Schmoll\u2019s book:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does violence set migration in motion and make the journey more difficult along the way, and through what mechanisms of resistance do women on the move manage it? How do violence and fear on land and at sea shape the experience of the border and subsequently prolong it across the European continent?<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The book 1<\/a><\/sup> is based on long-term research that began in the early 2000s in the geographical space of southern and northern Mediterranean. The author approaches this space methodologically through a \u201cmobile ethnography\u201d (ethnographie mobile<\/em>), which includes in-depth interviews with women from East and West Africa and the Maghreb who have crossed the Mediterranean, experienced multiple forms of violence and survived \u2014at the beginning of their journey, along the way, and upon arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Although the book focuses on movements from African countries to Malta and Italy, the broader framework for managing \u201cflows\u201d is quite similar to that in Greece, as it forms part of the changing policies of the European Union towards stricter border control in the name of \u201csecurity.\u201d The shift towards securitisation has gradually taken shape since the beginning of the 2000s. However, the so-called \u201csummer of migration\u201d in 2015 marked a turning point, as it changed the terms under which refugee and migrant flows were managed through a series of institutional regulations2<\/a><\/sup> . These mass movements are represented in dominant discourse in negative terms, as an \u201cinvasion\u201d and a \u201cthreat\u201d, and as a \u201cstate of emergency\u201d, leading to the implementation of measures to regulate, filter, control, and \u201cclassify\u201d migrant women and men in space. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The book traces the genealogy of this \u201cstate of emergency\u201d in Southern Europe. In this context, there is a generalised political and economic investment in detention spaces outside the urban fabric (camps and mega-detention centres), which are often transformed into traps, into ideal places for capture, sorting, and blocking of unwanted flows. In what follows, we focus on three themes from the book, namely Borders and their multiplication; Feminist perspectives and the \u201cfeminisation of the gaze\u201d; and Autonomy in tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Borders and their multiplication<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debate on borders has a long history and has been developed in multiple ways across a range of academic fields, including human geography. In the recent \u201cencounter\u201d between earlier approaches and migration research, as well as in Camille Schmoll\u2019s research, particular emphasis is placed on the idea that borders extend far beyond a line on a map, into entire border zones that constitute dynamic sites of ideological, cultural, and material conflict<\/mark><\/em>3<\/a><\/sup>. These zones delimit the mobility of \u201cothers\u201d at different scales, from the body to global space, while at the same time enclosing a \u201cwe\u201d that is understood to be characterised by multiple levels of homogeneity. From this perspective, they constitute dynamic sites of socio-spatial and symbolic constraints that are connected, at least in part, to perceptions of gender and gendered practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This regime is multifaceted and shifting; it creates new spatialities through the establishment of camps, the externalisation of European borders to third countries characterised as \u201csafe\u201d, as well as the creation of \u201creturn hubs\u201d in neighbouring countries outside the EU<\/mark><\/em>. Since the 2010s, we can observe an acceleration in the construction of the Euro-Mediterranean space as a border zone. The book examines how women live and survive at, or in, the border. And to what extent is this life determined by the violence of European policies. The author\u2019s extensive fieldwork demonstrates that \u201clife at or in the border\u201d encompasses mobility but also immobility; redefinition of goals and short-term arrangements that become prolonged; prolongation of a condition of uncertainty and insecurity that persists between a condition of \u201cillegality\u201d and the violence of the legal regime<\/mark><\/em>. Under this regime, migrant women may be classified as deportable, non-deportable, awaiting a decision, asylum seekers, subject to the provisions of \u201cDublin\u201d, refugees, or something else. Thus, the experience of the border and of crossing it is not limited to a moment, but includes a long, sometimes endless, process of crossing\u2014a liminal condition between two positions: neither truly \u201cfrom here\u201d nor entirely \u201cfrom somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Feminist perspectives and the \u201cfeminisation of the gaze\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camille Schmoll proposes the \u201cfeminisation of the gaze\u201d (f\u00e9miniser le regard) in the study of mobility in migration and in science more generally. This involves a change in the approach to migratory flows, with the aim of highlighting and recognising the presence and role(s) of women. It challenges the universal masculine subject and inscribes gender as a central dimension in migration processes. This proposal forms part of, and enriches, a history of feminist research on women\u2019s migration across various academic fields\u2014including human geography\u2014 for at least four decades. Feminist research initially focused on quantitative investigations to demonstrate that \u201cyet they move\u201d4<\/a><\/sup>, even alone, that is, without accompanying a man. It soon, however, moved towards more complex approaches, through the social construction of gender in its various forms, in the place of origin, along increasingly difficult routes, and at the (desired) place of settlement. Gradually, this body of work incorporated approaches connecting gender with sexuality, and more rarely with other axes of oppression, while emphasising the performativity of gender and the potentially fluid construction of femininities and masculinities during the migration process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feminist research, in its different forms, contributed to establishing as scientifically \u201clegitimate\u201d methodological approaches based on qualitative inquiry, such as in-depth interviews, life histories, focus groups, thick or participant observation, and so on. Such research tools, in the field of migration as well as more broadly, gave voice to women themselves as subjects of migration, but also as political subjects of their own histories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feminist research brought to light the importance, in migrant women\u2019s experiences, of the politics of intimacy, of the role of emotions and the body, of other scales and other everyday processes that had usually remained in the dark.<\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Autonomy in tension<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camille Schmoll belongs among migration theorists who highlight the migrant woman or man as an acting subject. The concept of the acting subject is not merely related to the notion of resistance. Above all, it gives meaning to the migratory trajectory (parcours migratoire) that migrants follow in a context of structural constraints imposed upon them and the choices that emerge along the way. This is a reading of migration which can be traced historically in population movements and gives primacy to the migrant subject. Autonomy, in this line of understanding, is not a property possessed by a subject; it is produced through social structures, interactions, and practices; and it is embedded in a framework of power relations that shape the migration process<\/mark><\/em>. Here lies also the importance of micro-geographies and of being situated in spaces and places in which migrant subjectivities are redefined. The book proposes the concept of \u201cautonomy in tension\u201d (autonomie en tension), which emerges under particular conditions and remains at stake throughout migratory trajectories. It is constituted as relative or contingent and recognises that subjectivities are shaped by desires, emotions, passions, and attachments within the new conditions created by mobility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camille Schmoll\u2019s book constitutes an important addition to the literature on migration, on the geographies of migration, on women\u2019s migration, on the concept of the border, on the Mediterranean and the significance that its crossing has acquired in the movements of migrant and refugee women and men. It opens an interesting debate both for specialists on migration issues\u2014the migratologu.e.s, as she herself calls them\u2014and for readers who adopt a critical perspective towards the inequalities embedded in mobility from the Global South to the Global North. The book has received the recognition it deserves, having already been translated into English and Italian, while in France it has been presented to the wider public on many different occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to the Greek edition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schmoll, C. (2026). \u039f\u03b9 \u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2. \u0393\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b7 \u039c\u03b5\u03c3\u03cc\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf. \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b1: \u03a4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2. \u03a0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u2013 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1: \u039d\u03c4. \u0392\u03b1\u0390\u03bf\u03c5, \u0399. \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5. \u0395\u03ba\u03b4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03a4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2. https:\/\/www.toposbooks.gr\/contents\/books_details.php?nid=1093<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Footnotes:<\/p>\n\n\n

  1. The book was translated with funding from the National Technical University of Athens, within the framework of the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Programme in Urban and Regional Planning, and from the \u00c9cole des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Sciences Sociales \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. See, among many, European Agenda for Migration 2015; Emergency Support Instrument 2016; EU-Turkey Statement 2016, and the recognition of Turkey as a \u201csafe third country.\u201d \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. This discussion is connected with concerns about the weakening of the nation-state within the framework of a globalised economy. However, the relaxation of controls concerns the movement of capital, goods, and information, not the movements of migrants and refugees, which remain subject to multiple restrictions and power relations at different scales. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. Characteristic title of a conference on migration (Et pourtant elles bougent!) organised by the renowned historian Michelle Perrot in 1983. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n
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    The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Interdisciplinary Migration Research Unit (IMRU) or the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    A new Greek edition brings Camille Schmoll\u2019s study of women crossing the Mediterranean to local readers. The study shows the border not as a line on a map but as a long condition of violence, waiting and uncertainty, within which autonomy is always in tension. 23\/10\/2026 | 7 minutes read Iris Polyzou Iris Polyzou is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1049,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"The book was translated with funding from the National Technical University of Athens, within the framework of the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Programme in Urban and Regional Planning, and from the \u00c9cole des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Sciences Sociales\",\"id\":\"2e43e7c5-fd52-4863-b2f9-8232fae4cec0\"},{\"content\":\"See, among many, European Agenda for Migration 2015; Emergency Support Instrument 2016; EU-Turkey Statement 2016, and the recognition of Turkey as a \u201csafe third country.\u201d\",\"id\":\"aaf77c43-5ed6-450a-bbe1-18a6747218c1\"},{\"content\":\"This discussion is connected with concerns about the weakening of the nation-state within the framework of a globalised economy. However, the relaxation of controls concerns the movement of capital, goods, and information, not the movements of migrants and refugees, which remain subject to multiple restrictions and power relations at different scales.\",\"id\":\"0bbf1571-befa-4b0b-a757-1fe46a8ce1ca\"},{\"content\":\"Characteristic title of a conference on migration (Et pourtant elles bougent!) organised by the renowned historian Michelle Perrot in 1983.\",\"id\":\"5e390ebd-3072-41f3-94f2-51711e82b7c1\"}]"},"class_list":["post-2200","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PhcU9x-zu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2200"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2298,"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2200\/revisions\/2298"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imru.ekke.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}