This thesis aims at analysing the agency of migrants residing in the second biggest reception cen... more This thesis aims at analysing the agency of migrants residing in the second biggest reception centre in Europe, the now-closed, CARA of Mineo. The thesis uses a framework avoiding the classic understanding of the migrant as a victim deprived of real agency, while at the same time eschewing the claim that all migrants perform solidarity actions. Methodologically, I collected several interviews of migrants and other actors involved in the CARA in order to show the possibility of action and the capacity of subverting the power-relations allegedly confining migrants into the space of the camp. I analysed the movements escaping the center showing their directions and aims, supporting the analysis through detailed maps. This thesis tries to dismantle several prejudices against migrants’ actions, showing how illegal behaviours are merely the results of the confinement perpetrated by the asylum system. The abusive taxies and the phenomenon of caporalato are widely discussed. The thesis ends with an analysis of a ghetto in the biggest city nearby the centre (Catania), showing the concoction of space produced by the power-relations and the actions performed by the migrants themselves to circumvent their alienation from societal places.
The paper aims to connect the work of Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler in order to formulate a... more The paper aims to connect the work of Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler in order to formulate a framework through which analyse contemporary digital phenomena. It draws a parallel between Deleuze's notion of virtual and Stiegler's epyphilogenesis, situated in the broader context of phenomenology.
Newcomers as Agents for Social Change: Learning from the Italian Experience, 2021
In this paper I analyse how camps have started dotting the geography of Sicily becoming part of t... more In this paper I analyse how camps have started dotting the geography of Sicily becoming part of the landscape surrounding cities and towns. They have become a new device implemented by governments and run by private companies to contain asylum seekers and exclude them from civil society. Moreover, they are located in proximity of specific labour places, mostly the agricultural sector, where asylum seekers are exploited due to their precarious status in the EU. This is what has been defined as differential inclusion, implying that the exclusion from society marks the inclusion within illegal labour. For this reason, the camp cannot be detached from the economic geography it sustains. Yet, we have examples of re-appropriation of space, and although most of the studies are mostly conducted on informal camps, even within reception centres, asylum seekers have been able to shape the space according to their needs, filling all the lacks purposely produced by the asylum system. To achieve this re- appropriation, they employ strategic tactics, capable of subverting the power-relations defining and affecting reception centres. Moreover, they intersect with movements of solidarity and migrant grassroot organisations in order to generate a sort of welfare from below, providing access to services that are not provided by the state, nor the centres.
This thesis aims at analysing the agency of migrants residing in the second biggest reception cen... more This thesis aims at analysing the agency of migrants residing in the second biggest reception centre in Europe, the now-closed, CARA of Mineo. The thesis uses a framework avoiding the classic understanding of the migrant as a victim deprived of real agency, while at the same time eschewing the claim that all migrants perform solidarity actions. Methodologically, I collected several interviews of migrants and other actors involved in the CARA in order to show the possibility of action and the capacity of subverting the power-relations allegedly confining migrants into the space of the camp. I analysed the movements escaping the center showing their directions and aims, supporting the analysis through detailed maps. This thesis tries to dismantle several prejudices against migrants’ actions, showing how illegal behaviours are merely the results of the confinement perpetrated by the asylum system. The abusive taxies and the phenomenon of caporalato are widely discussed. The thesis ends with an analysis of a ghetto in the biggest city nearby the centre (Catania), showing the concoction of space produced by the power-relations and the actions performed by the migrants themselves to circumvent their alienation from societal places.
The paper aims to connect the work of Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler in order to formulate a... more The paper aims to connect the work of Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler in order to formulate a framework through which analyse contemporary digital phenomena. It draws a parallel between Deleuze's notion of virtual and Stiegler's epyphilogenesis, situated in the broader context of phenomenology.
Newcomers as Agents for Social Change: Learning from the Italian Experience, 2021
In this paper I analyse how camps have started dotting the geography of Sicily becoming part of t... more In this paper I analyse how camps have started dotting the geography of Sicily becoming part of the landscape surrounding cities and towns. They have become a new device implemented by governments and run by private companies to contain asylum seekers and exclude them from civil society. Moreover, they are located in proximity of specific labour places, mostly the agricultural sector, where asylum seekers are exploited due to their precarious status in the EU. This is what has been defined as differential inclusion, implying that the exclusion from society marks the inclusion within illegal labour. For this reason, the camp cannot be detached from the economic geography it sustains. Yet, we have examples of re-appropriation of space, and although most of the studies are mostly conducted on informal camps, even within reception centres, asylum seekers have been able to shape the space according to their needs, filling all the lacks purposely produced by the asylum system. To achieve this re- appropriation, they employ strategic tactics, capable of subverting the power-relations defining and affecting reception centres. Moreover, they intersect with movements of solidarity and migrant grassroot organisations in order to generate a sort of welfare from below, providing access to services that are not provided by the state, nor the centres.
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Yet, we have examples of re-appropriation of space, and although most of the studies are mostly conducted
on informal camps, even within reception centres, asylum seekers have been able to shape the space
according to their needs, filling all the lacks purposely produced by the asylum system. To achieve this re-
appropriation, they employ strategic tactics, capable of subverting the power-relations defining and affecting reception centres. Moreover, they intersect with movements of solidarity and migrant grassroot organisations in order to generate a sort of welfare from below, providing access to services that are not provided by the state, nor the centres.
Yet, we have examples of re-appropriation of space, and although most of the studies are mostly conducted
on informal camps, even within reception centres, asylum seekers have been able to shape the space
according to their needs, filling all the lacks purposely produced by the asylum system. To achieve this re-
appropriation, they employ strategic tactics, capable of subverting the power-relations defining and affecting reception centres. Moreover, they intersect with movements of solidarity and migrant grassroot organisations in order to generate a sort of welfare from below, providing access to services that are not provided by the state, nor the centres.