Border Death and the Ethics of Response-ability in the Mediterranean

This article investigates ethically grounded forms of solidarity in the Central Mediterranean. By focusing on the situated ethical commitments of NGOs engaged in Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, it argues that their imperative to save human lives—which has often entailed the transgression of Italian (security) norms—are not driven solely by care, charity, or compassion, but by a deep sense of responsibility toward the Other. Drawing on Levinas’s notion of infinite responsibility and Jacques Derrida’s concept of response-ability—that is the capacity to respond ethically to the needs of the Other, even at the cost of breaking security norms—this article advocates a theoretical shift: from the concept of the ‘humanitarian border’ to that of the ‘responsible border’. Rather than asking whether humanitarianism and security can coexist—as dominant Foucauldian approaches suggest—it examines whether a non-calculable obligation to the Other fundamentally challenges and limits states’ capacity to govern unauthorised mobility as well as prevent NGOs SAR activities. By prioritising life-saving over restrictive security norms, NGOs are enacting a dissensual ethics, that is an ethics that challenges, and at times breaks away from, dominant security norms. In doing so, NGOs are redefining ethical action and moving it outside the lenses of govern-mentality.