ABSTRACT
Islandness is often considered to be a disadvantage. However, it has helped the residents of islands to delay, deter, and, in some cases, totally insulate themselves from COVID-19. While islanders have been quick to lock themselves down, this has had a tremendous impact on their connectivity and on tourism, which in many cases is their major economic sector. Yet, the association of islands with being safe, "COVID-19 free" zones has helped these spaces to be among the first destinations to restart the tourism economy once travel restrictions were lifted. After several weeks of lockdown, and with the COVID-19 threat still looming, social distancing remained the norm. Travellers were thus eager to immerse themselves in island environments while avoiding crowds and seeking small accommodation facilities in less densely populated rural areas to limit the risks of infection - a package offered by several islands in the central Mediterranean. With many travellers opting to travel close to home, islands benefited from domestic tourism - a key market segment for islands in this region. Islands have thus performed relatively well in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and in restarting their economies;but the pandemic has also exposed challenges including a dangerous overreliance on tourism.
ABSTRACT
Over April and May 2020, some 425 undocumented male migrants, mainly of Sub-Saharan origin, making the perilous crossing by boat from Libya toward Europe across the central Mediterranean, were saved and taken aboard by Maltese search and rescue vessels. However, instead of being immediately ported and disembarked, they were transferred to four “pleasure boats” and left bobbing on the high seas, some for forty days, while the Maltese government sought out other European countries who might be willing to take in some of them. This article uses this episode to foreground the manner in which boats and ships are serving as floating islands, also in international waters, producing a modern form of forced immobility and arrest.