The land in sight: waiting for a Libyan government

Abstract

The article reconstructs the waiting of EU officials for a Libyan government to partner with, amidst the broader 2015 European Refugee Crisis. Methodologically, it takes recourse to two iconic stories of waiting—Homer’s Odyssey and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot—to push on the multiple im/materialies of waiting and of sovereignty. This illuminates the situation as one of Libya maintaining its sovereignty without a sovereign.