Floating in fear: Rohingya as subjects of haphazard oceanic governance in the Andaman Sea

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Abstract
This paper examines how contemporary ocean governance in the Andaman Sea operates as a technology of abjection, transforming maritime spaces into abject seascapes where irregularised migrants become trapped subjects of intensified state management: intercepted, punitively expelled and abandoned rather than rescued and disembarked. We demonstrate how South(east) Asian states exploit the juridical ambiguities of ocean space to enforce migration control while evading protection and rescue obligations. Through maritime interceptions that result in push-backs, delayed or deliberate non-assistance to boats in distress, and even illegal maritime deportations, state actors weaponise the ocean against migrants, creating zones of expulsion and prolonged strandedness at sea while maintaining plausible deniability of responsibility through sovereignty claims. The paper contributes to critical ocean governance debates by exposing how seemingly technical and humanitarian maritime policies, including search and rescue operations, function as bordering technologies. We term the pattern governing these abject seascapes haphazard oceanic governance : dispersed and often unilateral modes of sovereign power that exploit jurisdictional ambiguities at sea to evade rescue and protection obligations, remaining rooted in territorial paradigms of control and abandonment.
Funding Information
  • Volkswagen Foundation (9D888)
  • Volkswagen Foundation (9E534)

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