Description
The Mediterranean as a space of social, economic, cultural and coercive encounter has, over the last few centuries, been made and remade many times as an imagined political space, occupying different roles in various projects of nation-building and “civilisation”. In this paper, we contribute a distinctive perspective on the unfolding story of the Mediterranean taking a particular starting point: the island of Leros in the southern Aegean Sea. Leros, we show, has been witness to some of the most consequential transformations to reshape the modern Mediterranean - from its distinctive position in the Ottoman empire in the 16th to 19th centuries, through the Italian occupation and subsequent colonisation as part of the project of the Fascist Mediterranean, to the incorporation into Greece in 1948 and reinvention as a space dedicated to the “rehabilitation” and containment of those deemed to be at odds with the project of Greek nation-building, and, finally, the contemporary role as an external border of the European Union. In each epoch, it has found itself entangled with and marking the boundaries of different political, cultural and civilisational projects. In the sedimentation of these different historical experiences, we argue, it has also taken on a distinctive role: that of a space defined by its own marginal location, dedicated to the warehousing and containment of undesirable populations - be they political prisoners, orphans and psychiatric patients, or refugees and asylum seekers. In focusing on the spatio-temporal transformations of the island of Leros, we find a novel entry point through which to interrogate the making and remaking of the modern Mediterranean and its shifting role at the core and the periphery of ‘western civilisation’. We thereby contribute to critical scholarship in political geography, on South-East Europe, and border studies.
