Border and im/mobility entanglements in the Mediterranean

In this special issue, we aim to contribute to the rich body of existing critical work on theMediterranean through ethnographic research on migration and border policies. We propose the concept of ‘entanglement’ to examine a variety of interconnections at play with regard to Mediterranean im/mobilities and border regimes. We use entanglements as a fruitful metaphor to explore the intertwining of places, histories and different sectors inways that not only shape human mobility and its control within and across the two sides of the Mediterranean. But we also show how the kind of im/mobilities emerging out of such intertwinement impact context-specific economic, social and political realities. The contributions that follow this introduction study ‘entanglements’ of Mediterranean im/mobilities and border regimes through a range of perspectives that are particularly attentive to the histories of imperialism and capitalism as well as to the local, national (e.g. nation-building)international histories of borders and borderlands. Recognizing context- and sector-specific mobility and border histories helps us address some stumbling blocks of migration studies:methodological nationalism, presentism and the discussion of migration as distinct from other economic, social and political dynamics. Taking into account the multiple entanglements at play allows for a better understanding of border and im/mobility in and around theMediterranean, considered in itself as a historically constructed space.