People have been migrating across the Mediterranean Sea between Africa and Europe for thousands of years. Since the 1990s, the Mediterranean has often been the only route for people to reach the EU due to the tightening of the EU border regime. As a result of more restrictive EU migration policies and conflicts in African regions and parts of the Middle East, dangerous crossings of the Mediterranean have increased. The violence occurring every day at Europe's external borders against migrants stands in stark contrast to the self-image of democracy, human rights, and liberty that the EU presents to the rest of the world. To unpack this paradox, this thesis seeks to analyse the concept of the humanitarian border by examining the humanitarian entanglements in discourse and practise with the violent border government of the European Union in the Mediterranean Sea. To do so, the socio-political and material dimensions of the humanitarian border are examined with the help of conceptual analysis based on secondary scholarly sources in addition to key EU policy documents. Across the socio-political dimension, the EU and related actors, such as Frontex, use the humanitarian narrative of saving lives to pave the way for military-security operations in the Mediterranean. On the material level, the humanitarian border manifests itself in practices related to Search and Rescue Operations, cooperation between NGOs and police forces in AVRR, and the humanitarian border of NGOs in reception centres. This thesis documents the ambivalent humanitarian engagement with the border regime, which is characterised by forms of resistance at the micro- and meso-levels, but without structural change. Subsequently, this thesis then discusses the inequality of mobility perpetuated by the EU border regime and seeks to show pathways to change the humanitarian border.

The humanitarian space in the European Union is shrinking, causing unnecessary suffering and preventable deaths, or is it? Humanitarian organisations are calling on the respect of principled humanitarian aid, protection of humanitarian workers and unhindered access to the affected population namely, undocumented asylum seekers.They are blaming the prioritisation of national security interests over humanitarian concerns as well as the politicisation of aid for the shrinking humanitarian space. In doing so, humanitarian organisations are becoming the primary obstacle in their appeal for a greater humanitarian space by misinterpreting it as a borderless, apolitical arena governed by supra-national laws. Through a single case study of the humanitarian border in the EU, this study seeks to analyse to what extent the humanitarian space in the EU is really shrinking. The three-fold enclosed humanitarian pyramid theoretically guides the critical analysis of the qualities and virtues that make up the humanitarian space as constructed in the humanitarian arena. Furthermore, acts of humanity are clearly defined as either belonging to the humanitarian or civic space, thereby further enforcing the borders of the humanitarian space. This study finds that the humanitarian space as the humanitarian pyramid is unable to shrink, it is built to overcome obstacles and external pressures. As it cannot shrink, so it cannot grow; it is either complete orabsent. Originally, the humanitarian space debate was employed to promote safe and accessible humanitarian assistance and protection for affected populations. Today, the discourse is employed by humanitarian organisations to promote the agency space while the needs of rights-based individuals seeking assistance and protection has become secondary. The affected population is rendered invisible through a crisis narrative, only to be made visible through a greater humanitarian space. Humanitarian organisations need to abandon false narratives of apolitical and borderless ideals,especially when working within violent borders, and train on political literacy to improve cooperation with states.

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