1,721,026 research outputs found
Al confine tra paura e desiderio. Sull'intreccio tra soggettività politiche e relazioni affettive nei percorsi di vita dei rifugiati
No full textThe ongoing EU “refugee crisis” is drawing public attention on the brutal forces of war, persecution and exploitation, which are at the origin of contemporary displacements. However, the humanitarian governance of forced migration is now more than ever embedded in the construction of powerful moral imaginaries, which tend to depict “real refugees” as speechless and passive subjects, substantially devoid of wills, personal aspirations or desires. In an attempt to contrast the pervasive de-politicisation of forced migrants’ life trajectories this article seeks to contest the by shedding light on the role of intimacy in the shaping of the struggle for freedom and mobility, as well as of claims to the right to settle. Drawing on the ethnographic account of subjective experiences of an Iranian refugee encountered during my fieldwork in Bologna (Italy) in 2011, I show how affective relationships experienced or sought, existing or missing can play a crucial role in imagining and concretely enacting the flight from oppressive regimes, as well as in taking the decision to settle in a specific national context. Through an analysis of the transformative nature of intimate relationships, this paper sheds light on the multiple connections between political subjectivity and affectivity in forced migrants’ life paths in contemporary Europe
(In)Visibility: On the Doorstep of a Mediatized Refugees’ Squat
Full text linkMigrants’ squats often inhabit marginal and “out of sight” urban areas, placed at the intersection of institutional neglect and alternative strategies for self-managed living. Yet, at times, migrants’ informal settlements become highly visible places, as they find themselves in the spotlight as symbols of governmental failure and urban decay. This chapter reflects on the hurdles and conundrums of negotiating access as a researcher within such a place. It is based on a number of ethnographic encounters that took place at “Ex-MOI”, a housing squat in Turin’s abandoned Olympic Village that became catalyst of local anxieties, as well as of national xenophobic propaganda. Entering a housing squat – at once a public and a private environment – is by no means obvious. Yet, this scenario offers a fertile perspective to look at some underlying aspects of the ethnographic encounter, such as research subjects’ resistance to the “ethnographic gaze”, cross-gender and cross-racial dynamics within fieldwork, as well as the role of the “unsaid” as a telling social act. Refugees’ refusal to be “domesticated” for academic purposes testifies to their multiple attempts at re-gaining control over the representation of their lives, as well as to the inherent political nature of acts of homemaking
Beyond Compassionate Aid: Precarious Bureaucrats and Dutiful Asylum Seekers in Italy
Full text linkIn this article, I track shifting paradigms of refugee management in Italy in times
of austerity and welfare state restructuring. Drawing on an ethnographic analysis
of asylum-related bureaucratic work in Bologna, the essay explores paradoxical and
violent effects of welfare decline both on reception workers’ labor conditions and on
the dynamic of aid that they end up providing to asylum seekers. On the one hand,
recent developments in asylum management in Italy suggest a transition to post-compassionate
forms of aid, hinged more on the making of dutiful subjects ready to repay
the “hospitality” offered by the state than on the moral imperative to rescue suffering
bodies and lives. On the other hand, reception workers’ precarious positioning
and unrest hold the potential for exposing the inherent contradictions of state-based
narratives, thereby shaping alternative discourses on the causes and responsibilities
of both refugee and economic “crises.
The list. On discretion and refusal in the Italian asylum system
No full textDrawing on the ethnographic account of the everyday functioning of an asylum support service in the North of Italy, this article explores contradictory tasks and thorny dilemmas of caseworkers engaged in the assistance to asylum seekers. In the name of the constraints imposed by a system on ‘permanent crisis’, asylum caseworkers find themselves engaged in discretionary processes of aid distribution, embedded in blurred subjective criteria. By doing so, they tacitly accept a burden of responsibility over asylum seekers’ lives that goes far beyond their regular duties. Yet, at times, some caseworkers refuse to comply with some of the directions–implicit or explicit–given by their coordinators. Their critical stance, although restricted by their institutional positioning, holds the potential of shedding light into some of the contradictions of the asylum bureaucratic machine. This scenario offers important insights on the open-ended reconfigurations of the relationships between ‘state power’ and ‘state intermediaries’, as well as on the possibility of producing forms of agency from within the system of state-managed humanitarian aid distribution
Entering into domestic hospitality for refugees: a critical inquiry through a multi-scalar view of home
No full textGrassroots refugee hospitality is an innovative, if still little investigated field of practices, which illuminates and reshapes the native/immigrant divide. It also sheds light on ‘domestic humanitarianism’, as a range of everyday modes of helping that take place even in the domestic space. Drawing on a case study in Northern Italy, this article develops a framework on the societal implications of refugee hospitality, based on a multi-scalar view of home. From the inside, the lived experience of hospitality involves profound re-definitions of domesticity and meaningful personal changes for hosts and guests alike. From the outside, the connective function of local actors is crucial in shaping the lived experience of domestic reception. From the bottom up, hosting refugees is tantamount to opening, hence questioning, the most intimate threshold of the ‘national we’. Overall, and despite its limitations, domestic hospitality enables refugees to enter ‘home’ on different scales, from the micro-literal to the macro-metaphorical, thereby providing a potential counter-narrative to anti-immigrant discourses, emotions and politics
Exposing the private, engaging in the public. Asylum seekers, intimate publics and normative performances of public participation
No full textBy bringing together scholarship on affective (non)citizenship and critical geographies of public space, in this article we examine how the exposure of refugees’ intimate lives, private relationalities and personal histories mediate their conditional access to “the public”. Drawing on long-term ethnographic engagement in the field of asylum in Italy, we show how asylum seekers are confronted with changing patterns of obligation and dependency in both their private and public lives. On the one hand, the elicitation of multiple private life details is the only currency for them to negotiate with state institutions for a potential access to the “right to stay”. On the other hand, their conditional access to the “hosting community” is increasingly contingent on normative performances of public participation, which often involve domestic activities and intimate relations to be cultivated in public or semi-public spaces. These reconfigurations speak about broader redefinitions of the public sphere, oriented towards a rising importance of the intimate as a proper terrain of public legitimacy and inclusion. Yet, exposing the intimate self in the public does not guarantee recognition; rather, the normative incorporation of refugees in the public sphere most often naturalises their conditional belonging in the national space
Potential for Snow Water Equivalent Retrieval by Across-Track Formations of SAR Satellites: A Sensitivity Analysis
No full textThis paper investigates the potential for accurate retrieval of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) using an across-track formation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites
The ionospheric effects mitigation in the BIOMASS mission exploiting multi-squint coherence
No full text
Outside the asylum reception system: Marginality and autonomy within informal refugee settlements
No full textDrawing from the cases of housing squats in Rome and Turin, this article analyses potentialities and limitations of the extra-institutional refugee settlements, as well as their fate after the restrictive turns of the 2018 security decree. Building on international literature on urban informality, we highlight the social value of informal housing, as well as the importance of building on these initiatives rather than erasing them. By combining ethnographic observations, interviews and policy analysis, we compare squatting and eviction in these two urban contexts. Those experiences illustrate the key role of informal housing in the emergence of grassroots forms of social support and «acts of citizenship». Whilst those spaces are considered «unliveable» by securitarian narratives, their eviction often results in an increased vulnerability of an already vulnerable population
- …
