Paper short abstract:

This paper is about the many lives of detection systems in the Mediterranean from the Cold War to the present. Looking at the evolving uses of sonar and satellites puts technology at the center of current migration issues.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is about the many lives of detection systems in the Mediterranean from the Cold War to the present. In particular, it focuses on sound surveillance systems and radars technologies as they went from tracking Soviet submarines to monitoring a changing environment to, finally, maps migrant boats and populations.

The top-secret Sound Surveillance System consisted of underwater arrays of hydrophones installed in the bottom of the ocean to detect all ships passing through particularly sensitive areas, for instance the Strait of Gibraltar, which the US Navy feared Soviet submarines could use to sneak into the Atlantic. After declassification, marine biologists put it to a new use: tracking whale populations as they traveled through the world ocean. Moreover, in order for this detection system to be effective, knowledge about the ocean environment and its effect on sound propagation needed to be developed. Thus, anti-submarine warfare and environmental monitoring became deeply entangled in the Mediterranean.

Together with sonar, radar and satellites also have a longer military history that enabled them to generate big data about local and global environments. Nowadays, national and international agencies like FRONTEX deploy those same technologies as part of large systems of detection. These systems constitute a new technological barrier based on the ability to process and image big data.