# SEA RESCUE - SESSIONS
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# Session 1: Pirates of the Central Mediterranean

Introduction

The European states have created a zone at their margins, where all their proclaimed values, their human and civil rights are suspended: A state of exception that reduces the sea to a weapon, people to bargaining chips - and the fluid southern border of the European Union to the deadliest migration route in the world.1 This is where activists organized to respond immediately in a solidary way. What can we learn from the brief history of thousands of years of migrations in the Mediterranean and that of six years of civil sea rescue?

Let’s learn together

Step 1: Words we think with (30 mins)
Hand out post-it papers (the bigger ones). Ask participants to write words or phrases that come to their mind for each of the following concepts: piracy, migration, duty to rescue, socially organized death, freedom of movement, humanitarian crisis, solidarity; one after another, giving them 3 minutes for each. Assemble papers by theme (concept), sticking them to a wall.

Step 2: Let’s watch and read (70 mins)
Participants read:
* Chris Grodotzky’s Thesis
* paragraphs from the “Who will Go “a Pyrathing”, chapter 3 in Marcus Rediker’s "Villains of all Nations: Atlantic Pirates in th Golden Age", starting with “Who became a pirate after the War of Spanish Succession?” and ending with “Men who went “upon the account” were familiar with a single-sex community of work and the rigors of life—and death—at sea.”

And watch the following videos:
* https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/seawatch-vs-the-libyan-coastguard
* https://youtube.com/watch?v=IYADPiqB7AY&T=123
* https://youtube.com/watch?v=jTVnUGqGkk4
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN8fjAjLLpg

Step 3: New meanings? (45-60 mins)
Repeat the process from Step 1. Then look back at two sets of post-its (those made before reading and watching, and those made after); give participants 15-20 minutes to reflect and discuss these concepts and how their thinking about them has been changed by the reading, in small groups. Have the groups report to the full group (sitting in a circle if viable). Randomize who is speaking by using a speaking-ball, if viable. Let the speakers freely pass the ball to whomever wants to add on what is being said; moderate the discussion in terms of relevance but allow personal accounts if they happen.

# Session 2: We are all on the same ship, aren’t we?

Introduction

At their very best, responses to a problem perceived as external to particular (individual or group) agency - in origin at least, and possibly of such a scale that it gets called a “crisis” - include intensified emphasis on community organizing. It is one of this charged words, rich in history yet elusive in its contemporary forms in capitalist societies: a community. (Mostly reduced to the following prefixing contexts: indigenous, gated, activist.) A community can be conceptualized as an ongoing process/action of co-producing relationships, values, material resources, infrastructures, needs, preferences, commitments, identities, and beings. In the words of John A. Schumacher,1 making community is never over: community is the making of it. On a search and rescue ship, with crews of 22 most of whom change for each mission - every three weeks or so – there is a strong overlap between missions and communities. So-called virtual communities, on the other hand, can stretch longer in time but lack a connection to a place and sustenance and are perhaps always affinity groups rather than communities.

Let’s Learn Together

Step 1: Introduce ourselves

Step 2: Let’s read (30 min.)
Participants take turns reading aloud a paragraph each of the introduction to the Camille’s stories in Staying with Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, by Donna J. Haraway (pages 137-143).
The facilitator reads out the following statements of the interviewees from the To Care like a Pirate, to Pirate Care: Ethics of Confrontational Search and Rescue, Practiced by Sea Watch, by Morana Miljanovic:

* Sea Watch crews see abuses of people in Lybia (torture, slavery, rape, etc.) as intolerable, human life and freedom of movement as valuable irrespective of race, and it runs the ship in their own way, operating “outside of the wishes of the states, not outside of the law.” (Kim)
* It is exactly the common goal and common cause that has also led to failure of crew care in some cases, according to Ruben, “because we always put the mission first, and sometimes we should say crew first”, not as regards safety on board but giving time off to hard-working volunteers.
* In the words of Daniel: “Without the ship being in good order, we’d be in trouble. That focuses people on being a good community, cleaning, being responsible.” There is a common understanding that consequences of lack of care for the ship can mean a “a bad rescue, where our actions could contribute to people dying” (Daniel), or inability to stay operational, if the organization fails to comply with legal standards regarding the condition of the ship.
* (Kim) pointed out that everyone’s voice is heard – although whether one would voice an opinion is up to an individual crew member – and that this has been “built into the organization from the beginning, and not something that grew organically on the ship. It was consciously decided to have as flat a hierarchy and as inclusive environment as possible.
* (Lorenz) observed that opinions and proposals of crew members who are shy or disliked are less likely to be heard. Lorenz also noted that skill-sharing acts as an equalizing mechanism: everyone is invited to learn new skills.
* Due to the large number of people participating in the weekly teleconference call, which is the decision making forum, discussions are difficult and decisions are de facto made about ideas that had been discussed first in small circles of friends.

Step 3: Vessels of the times past (30 min.)
Ask participants to map out their experience that comes closest to their notion of community along the vectors of relationships, values, material resources, infrastructures, needs, preferences, commitments, identities and beings. Ask them to discover what was missing in each plane, where they overlap, and what alternative ways of connecting these planes exist. Guide participants in the analysis of the above concepts that enables mapping to be as concrete as possible. Ask how features internal to the community (e.g. size of the community, communication structures, decision-making structures) and those external to it (e.g. place where it was situated, climate, political context) shaped the experience.

Step 4: Ce ci n’est pas un bateau (45 min.)
Ask participants to imagine a community that would come closer to a functional community along the same vectors as mentioned above, and to map them out one by one, without reference to others. Then, ask them to put these mini maps together. Guide a discussion around what has happened.
Bring back the maps made in the Step 2 and contrast them with new maps. Solicit observations and thoughts on this process as well as what participants find as interesting discoveries in their maps, guide a discussion. Examine the choices of each of internal and external features of community making/maintenance and ideas underlying those choices.

Step 5: Who are we (45 min.)
Ask the participants to list those who would be excluded or have trouble accessing their imagined community, as well as grounds and modes of exclusion/limited access. Then, ask them to revisit the maps and identify spaces where exclusion originated.

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# Session 3: From an affinity group to an activist organization: maintaining community

Introduction

As a small group of activists formalizes their work in organizational terms, and grows in regard of persons and resources involved, difficulties arise from that growth. In particular, ways of doing that were tied to friendships among the small group of activists no longer apply. In this session, organizational mechanisms of care, communication, and decision-making used by Sea Watch are explored critically, to learn and inherit useful mechanisms of continually structuring a growing community of care.

Let’s Learn Together

Step 1: Introduce ourselves

Step 2: Care on the ship (2 hours)
Explain (1) the buddy system, (2) psychological briefings, (3) knowledge/skill sharing among crew, (4) the cleaning routine and other work of ship maintenance, and (5) care for the guests. Guide a discussion for each, asking participants to connect these mechanisms to their experiences.
(1) The buddy system: Each member of the crew of 22 is paired up with another person (of their choice or random, decided prior to pairing up among and by specific crew members) for the duration of the mission, to check on daily on each other in terms of psychological well-being, especially regarding how they are dealing with stress.
(2) Psychological pre-briefing and de-briefing: Before each mission, the entire crew meets for the first time, joined by an external psychologist, who facilitates their introduction to each other and tackles the topic of stress related to their care work. After the mission, the crew meets again in plenum to share reflections and feelings that came out of what happened during the mission.
(3) Skill sharing: Whereas skills that are vital to performing search and rescue are systematically trained on board within a strict schedule, other skills related to the maintenance of the ship, seamanship, and skills of interest to particular crew members are scheduled upon demand when ship is underway and not engaged in search and rescue. The ones related to the ship contribute to the equalizing effect among the crew composed of professional seafarers, non-professional seafarers, and persons with no/little prior experience on the sea.
(4) Morning cleaning and maintenance jobs: Crew vacuums, mops, and scrubs the common spaces, to maintain the working routine as much as to maintain tidiness. Based on their function on the ship, crew members belong to one of the three “departments” (deck, engine room, bridge) and are given maintenance jobs by the person responsible for the department when appropriate and necessary. Maintaining the ship in the good shape is seen as a prerequisite for being able to sail and undertake effective missions.
(5) Guest care: The core task of a mission. After a rescue, and once the survivors are helped on board, a medical triage is done and urgent medical care given, water and blankets handed out, as well as reassuring and friendly smiles and careful words that convey the message that ship is a safe place and that they would not be handed back to those who harmed them, but words that at the same time don't promise what we cannot deliver. Crew participates in cooking, serving food, watches, crowd mood observing, and other tasks distributed and coordinated by the so-called Guest Coordinator. Every crew member enters into relationships with guests according to own capacities and guidelines set by the Guest Coordinator (for example: do not give a blanket to a person if you cannot give it to everyone, unless there is a specific valid case for it). There is a crew member (Cultural Mediator) who does the work of preparing referrals with and for the guests, so that they have access to adequate and professional care once on the land. Psychological first aid is within our limits of what a crew can do to accompany the guests (survivors) in their recovery from trauma. Main task of Sea Watch crew isto bring the guests to the closest safe port. Care incudes sharing information, sitting down and listening, observing a need and responding to it in a way that takes into account needs of others and contraints on the context that is being on a rolling ship in the middle of the Meditteranean sea.

Step 3: Modes of communicating, knowing, aligning, strategizing, choosing action, (re)acting, coordinating, overseeing, intervening, questioning, collaborating (2 hours)
Explain (1) the weekly teleconference call, (2) the morning meeting on Sea Watch 3, (3) the Mission Support group. Guide a discussion for each, asking participants to connect these mechanisms to their experiences.

(1) The weekly teleconference call, so-called Monday telco: The decision-making body of the organization, where all its formal members have a voice and voting rights. Decisions made are ones that belong to the ‘greater picture” level, whereas operational questions get delegated to departments. Teleconference is facilitated/moderated by the Organization Coordinator, who has no voting rights.
(2) The Mission Support group: Is one of such departments to which specific decision-making is delegated. What happens during a mission affects not only the ship and Logistics but also departments such as Media and Advocacy. The MSG includes representatives from relevant departments and decides autonomously on mission relevant issues. Like the Monday telco, it has a coordinator.
(3) The morning meeting: Every morning on the ship, the entire crew (except 2 persons on watch at that moment) meets in a mess room. Captain, the chief engineer, and the bosun give updates concerning the mission and the ship. Any crew member can add on and/or take a word on any issue of interest to the whole crew.
(4) Discourse: Online platform where everyone who has participated in SW missions, shipyard times, or is otherwise volunteering or working for SW, and the organization members, have a voice. There is no decision-making power.

Step 4: Compost (2 hours)
Ask participants to design mechanisms of sharing information and acting upon it that integrate care, for an organization of a given and changing size. Guide them working in small groups. Discuss the results.

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# Session 4: Undoing the division carer / cared for

Introduction

In this session, we look at the strategies used by Sea Watch to make visible own biases in terms of latent sexism and racism as well as their influence on organizational practices and structures. We reflect on the potential pitfalls of power implicit in the giving and receiving different kinds of caring, restraints and limits to undoing of the division between care givers and recipients, and available ways to puncture and dilute these diving lines.

Let’s learn together

Step 1: Lets’s read
Participants read aloud:

* The chapter “Talking Race and Racism”, starting with last paragraph on the page 29, from Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope
* The paragraph “And we learn-teach” from the To Care like a Pirate, to Pirate Care: Ethics of Confrontational Search and Rescue, Practiced by Sea Watch, by Morana Miljanovic
* Pages 120-127 from The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups, by Starhawk.
* Statements from Virgia Held’s:
“An aim of the ethics of care is to promote the responsible autonomy of the cared-for where this is appropriate.” p.84
“Ethics of care...demands that meeting the needs of the vulnerable be seen as valuable” p.132

Step 2: Let’s talk about how we talk
Share mixed experiences, lessons learned, and strategies of the activist group / organization as well as those of the activists, related to sexism and racism. Look into: (1) unstructured, spontaneous or ad hoc conversations around sexism and/or racism, (2) internal organizational mechanisms for responding to denounced instances of sexism/racism on the ship, (3) conversations among carers (crew) and cared for (guests) that touch issues of sexism/racism, (4) interventions of the carers (crew) in situations of sexism/racism among cared for-s (guests), and (5) working groups active on the issues of sexism/racism. Give examples. Open for discussion.

Step 3: Guests and hosts
Explain the constraints on the undoing of the carer/cared for division. On the Sea Watch 3, these are: (1) temporal dimension of the relationship between the crew and the guests on board – short time spans, at least before the times of long stand-offs, (2) logistical, skilled workload, security and safety issues that are basis for control mechanisms (e.g. taking away lighters from guests, not allowing them to certain spaces in/on the ship, not including them in work that requires specific skills) and coordination mechanisms, and (3) issues of psychosocial and physical vulnerability – different survivors need different care, all carry traumas, some require specific medical care…
Think which of these, and to what extent, should and can be undone or modified in a way that introduces more mutuality, and which should not and/or cannot. Examples of challenging the clean division of recipients and givers of care on the ship: including guests in the searching for boats in distress with binoculars, in ship maintenance tasks and preparation of meals.