This paper address the rarely discussed issue of underwater areas. The author draws attention to the political and economic importance of areas on the sea bed’ both those areas that are under jurisdiction and those that are beyond any jurisdiction. In particular the article discusses international treaties relating to the sea bed. First, it analyzes the 2001 Paris Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Next, it discusses the new Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks (2007). A further part of the article presents the decision to protect the wreck of the “Estonia” ferry (the Tallinn Agreement o f 1995) and the old Paris Convention (1884) on the protection of submarine cables. Finally, the author draws attention to the relatively low amount of interest of national legislation in issues connected with underwater areas and proposes concrete changes and additions to Polish maritime law.
The UK’s decision to leave the EU illustrates some of the tensions embedded in European integration, enabling us to examine how nationalism and cosmopolitanism operate simultaneously, thus reinforcing each other. Furthermore, the prolonged Brexit negotiations have created a climate of protracted insecurity where the only certainty is uncertainty. This is particularly reflected in the migratory experiences of European citizens currently residing in the UK. Academic research has begun exploring the affective impact of Brexit; however, little is known about how processes of connection and disconnection operate simultaneously, nor which coping strategies European migrants have employed to navigate this state of in-betweenness. Using the anthropological notion of liminality as a lens, we draw on participant observation and semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of Brexit and the coping practices of a range of (new) Bulgarian and (old) Italian European migrants. We argue that Brexit results in a loss of frames of reference for European migrants in the UK – which can be both liberating and unsettling, depending on migrants’ positioning as unequal EU subjects as well as their views on the nature of their future re-incorporation in post-Brexit Britain.