The Italian Quarantine Ship (Dystopia): Externalization Practices during COVID-19

This paper examines the use of quarantine ships in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic as a mechanism of border externalization and racialized containment. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted aboard two quarantine ships, it explores how these vessels, ostensibly established for health surveillance, functioned as securitized spaces that perpetuated inequalities and restricted access to asylum. The study situates quarantine ships within broader practices of European border control, highlighting their role in governing mobility through viapolitics and racialized bio-political techniques. By tracing the historical and political dimensions of quarantine and migration, the paper argues that these ships reflect long-standing practices of controlling disease and mobility as threats to the nation-state. Despite their disbandment in 2022, the legacy of quarantine ships underscores the enduring racialized violence embedded in European migration policies. This research contributes to critical discussions on border externalization, racial capitalism, and the Mediterranean as a contested space of mobility and exclusion.