Defend(ing) Europe? Border control and identitarian activism off the Libyan Coast

Abstract

In the summer of 2017, the identitarian youth organization ‘Defend Europe’ deployed a ship in the Mediterranean to prove sea rescue NGOs’ alleged collusion with human smugglers and assist the Libyan Coast Guard in interdicting migrants. This study shows that Defend Europe developed organizational structures, discourses, and practices that display meaningful similarities with those of the charities it sought to oppose, strategically portraying itself as a humanitarian actor despite its very dubious humanitarian credentials. Defend Europe’s tendency to behave as a ‘doppelganger’ of sea rescue NGOs shows that institutional isomorphism and discursive frame appropriation can be found even among organizations with diametrically opposite ideologies. Besides contributing to scholarship on political activism, humanitarianism, and migration, these findings also add to the study of European (in)securities, showing that discourses and practices developed to enhance human security at sea can be emulated and hijacked to support agendas restricting human mobility