Foreword – Scientific editing: Dina Vaiou & Iris Polyzou

For many years, women were absent from the dominant narratives concerning migration flows in the Mediterranean from the African continent. The world imagined them more as Penelopes, patient and stationary, in constant waiting for the return of their husbands. The issue of their own movement to another place was not examined by anyone. However, there were and still are many women who migrate, who leave their home and family and cross the desert and the Mediterranean. Some never reach their destination.

Based on long-term research starting from the 2000s, conducted at the geographical boundary of Europe – in Italy and Malta – the book The Damned of the Sea by geographer Camille Smol investigates the traces of the women who survived. Through the collected narratives, it reconstructs their routes, the harsh separations, the encounters or relationships formed during their journey. It offers an insightful reading of the daily life of migrant women in reception centers, where their routes are either suspended ("neither truly settled") or waiting for their recognition ("neither truly deported") by a Europe that often rejects them.

Reconstructing the multifaceted aspects of these journeys, the author studies the history of migration in the Mediterranean through the perspective of the women who lived it, putting aside the dichotomies migrant-victim or migrant-heroine, in order for the true experience to emerge, so that we may understand the deeper causes and what is at stake in their attempt to cross geographical borders and worlds.