Narratives of the Sea: South Atlantic Escape Routes

Paper Abstract: The paper analyses and articulates reflections on maritime mobility based on the narratives of individuals crossing the Atlantic Ocean in cargo ships clandestinely and/or via smugglers from the West African coast to Brazil. The flow of migrants from the West African coast to Brazil often occurs in air transportation. Still, it is taking on a new and precarious trend: the crossing of the Atlantic, carried out mainly by young people from West African countries by the sea. Maritime flows in the South Atlantic started exhibiting violent practices, with reports of human rights violations, like those observed in the Mediterranean Sea crossings, the English Channel, and the sea crossing in northern Australia. This route takes us to the trafficking of Black people who were enslaved, going through a violent process of objectification during the crossing of the South Atlantic until disembarkation, where they would become properties to be used in the process of colonisation of Brazil (Gilroy, 2020; Alencastro, 2000). In this way, one cannot avoid articulating concerns about this South-South maritime movement being crossed by issues of race and colonisation. Based on interviews with refugees who have crossed the South Atlantic and arrived in Rio de Janeiro, the article focuses on their stories of displacement, while also looking at theoretical reflections on mobility and flows, hierarchies and marginalisations that occur precisely based on maritime routes, since each space has its own political and social articulation (Steinberg, 2009; Peters, 2015).

Paper co-authored with: Francisco Eduardo Lemos de Matos, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil