L'improvvisa e traumatica conclusione della ventennale avventura militare occidentale in Afghanistan (agosto 2021) ha rilanciato con toni drammatici la questione dell'accoglienza dei rifugiati, nonché la discussione su quanti e quali rifugiati i diversi paesi sono disposti ad accogliere. L'imprevisto ritorno del tema in una posizione di priorità nell'agenda politica e mediatica ha rimesso in movimento un contesto in cui i paesi sviluppati sembravano aver trovato il modo per fronteggiare il fenomeno delle migrazioni forzate, riuscendo sempre più a confinarle lontano dalle loro frontiere
L'immigrazione è una delle questioni più controverse del progetto europeo: un luogo di contraddizioni, tra governi che cercano di mantenere prerogative decisionali sul tema e rituali rimandi alle istituzioni comunitarie perché prendano in mano la questione e trovino soluzioni ai suoi nodi più intricati. La categoria degli "immigrati" raccoglie inoltre soggetti molto eterogenei, e con una dotazione assai differenziata di status legali e di diritti. Molta confusione e difficoltà di gestione del fenomeno derivano dalla sovrapposizione e commistione di popolazioni diverse: migranti tra paesi dell'UE, che godono di diritti assai prossimi a quelli dei cittadini nazionali; immigrati da paesi esterni con permessi di lunga durata; immigrati con permessi a breve termine; immigrati altamente qualificati, che nell'UE godono di un permesso di soggiorno ad hoc, la "blue card"; nonché altre categorie, come gli studenti, gli sportivi, i ministri di culto. Anche nella galassia dei rifugiati le distinzioni sono rilevanti: richiedenti asilo in attesa di un verdetto definitivo, che arriva spesso dopo anni; rifugiati pleno iure, ai sensi della convenzione di Ginevra; titolari di una protezione sussidiaria, perché provenienti da zone di guerra; titolari di forme di protezione più debole e temporanee, come la protezione umanitaria che l'Italia ha ora quasi del tutto abolito. Discutere di immigrazione e di politiche migratorie significa navigare tra queste diverse popolazioni, evitando di confonderle. Il contributo intende fornire alcune coordinate generali per la comprensione del fenomeno, approfondendo la dimensione europea della questione. ; 'Going beyond the challenge' means looking at the phenomenon of migration in its complexity, through a multi and interdisciplinary approach. The chapters that make up the first part offer an over-view of the phenomenon, with a reflection on the numbers of migrations in Italy followed by an in-depth examination of its international dimension. The second part focuses on the Italian case, and on the Italian foreign policy towards some African countries. The third part of the book adopts a sociological perspective, including the reconfiguration of the 'border' in Italian legislation and the analysis of the reception model promoted in Tuscany. The fourth part analyses public communication, from hate speech to stereotypes, up to the politicization of the migration issue in some European countries.
Scholarship has sought to develop theoretical frameworks to set order on the rather muddled web of actors, interactions and tensions involved in asylum and immigration policies. The article considers three of them: the "venue shopping approach", the "multi-level governance approach" and critical humanitarian studies. The purpose is to contribute to this debate by elaborating the concept of "battleground" of asylum (and immigration) policies. With this concept, I mean that they are a contentious field in which different actors interact, cooperating or conflicting. Different levels of public responsibility are involved but also non-public actors play a role. They encompass various promigrant supporters but also xenophobic movements. The article will analyse the crucial actors involved, with a focus on the local level: pro-refugee civil society; coalitions of diverse pro-refugee actors; opponents to refugee reception; local governments acting for and against refugee and migrant reception and asylum seekers and irregular immigrants themselves.
La principale parola d'ordine delle politiche migratorie contemporanee è selettività. Finora la cittadinanza dell'UE ha tutelato gli italiani in movimento, collocandoli dalla parte dei privilegiati, ma la Brexit ci ha insegnato che il sovranismo realizzato alza steccati e limita la mobilità, non risparmiando chi parte dall'Italia. I lavoratori qualificati e i giovani istruiti forse non troveranno barriere, ma i più deboli sì. Una rinnovata attenzione al fenomeno delle nuove emigrazioni italiane non può trascurare l'esigenza di favorirne l'accesso a mercati del lavoro più ampi. Se avanzeranno ancora progetti politici nazional-populisti, con uno strascico di polemiche nei confronti dei tradizionali partner internazionali del nostro paese, i nuovi emigranti e i potenziali emigranti saranno i primi a pagarne il prezzo. Uno sguardo simpatetico verso i nuovi emigranti dal nostro paese non può accompagnarsi a uno sguardo arcigno né in direzione dei paesi verso i quali si dirigono, né verso altre persone che cercano accoglienza e speranza all'estero. Altrimenti prima o poi le chiusure investiranno anche noi.
L'articolo apre una riflessione sull'impatto della pandemia da COVID-19 sulla condizione delle popolazioni immigrate in Italia. Prende in considerazione l'impoverimento dei lavoratori che hanno perso il lavoro e altre fonti di sostentamento; l'ondata di ostilità nei confronti delle persone di origine cinese e la chiusura nei confronti dei richiedenti asilo salvati in mare; le difficoltà delle lavoratrici domestiche e assistenziali. Per contro, il confinamento ha posto in rilievo il ruolo dei lavoratori che assicurano servizi essenziali, specialmente nel settore sanitario: tra questi, anche se non sempre riconosciute, molte persone di origine immigrata. Nella seconda parte l'articolo tratta la conseguenza più importante della pandemia nell'ambito migratorio: l'apertura di una seppur parziale e contrastata possibilità di emersione per i lavoratori agricoli e occupati presso le famiglie. Questa novità viene collocata nel solco delle politiche migratorie italiane e discussa nelle sue opportunità e contraddizioni ; The article opens a reflection about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the condition of immigrant population in Italy. It considers the impoverishment of workers who have lost their employment and other sources of income; the wave of hostility against people of Chinese origin and the closure of entries to asylum seekers rescued at sea; difficulties of domestic and care workers. On the other side, the lockdown has also highlighted the role of workers providing essential services, especially in the health sector: among them many with an immigrant background, even if not always recognized. In the second part, the article treats the most relevant consequence of the pandemic in the field of immigration: the opening of a partial and contentious window of regularization in the case of workers employed in agriculture and in households. This new fact is placed in the tradition of Italian immigration policies and discussed in its opportunities and contradictions.
Il termine «integrazione», riferito all'inserimento degli immigrati nelle società riceventi, dà luogo a molte discussioni e a non poche confusioni. Occorre distinguere in primo luogo tra la dimensione dell'integrazione come processo sociale che avviene per così dire "dal basso", e quella dell'integrazione degli immigrati come obiettivo consapevole di un insieme di politiche, perseguito quindi "dall'alto": ossia, in sintesi, delle politiche d'integrazione, come strategia pubblica, esplicita, di governo del fenomeno. Le politiche evidentemente incidono sui processi d'integrazione, ma questi sono influenzati da svariati fattori, che vanno oltre le politiche esplicite in materia: vi contribuiscono anzitutto il mercato del lavoro, che può offrire o meno opportunità di lavoro, di crescita professionale, di sviluppo di attività indipendenti; le politiche di welfare, con la loro capacità di offrire protezione sociale e di attutire le disuguaglianze di partenza; i sistemi educativi, come ascensore sociale per le seconde generazioni; le società civili con le loro organizzazioni pro-sociali e l'impegno a contrastare razzismi e discriminazioni. Per es., negli Stati Uniti diverse ondate di immigrati europei si sono integrati nella maggior parte dei casi in modo soddisfacente non per effetto di politiche d'integrazione particolarmente generose, ma grazie alle opportunità offerte da un mercato per decenni straordinariamente dinamico; in Germania il robusto e universalistico sistema di welfare ha prodotto nei fatti molta più integrazione degli immigrati delle politiche di altri paesi, apparentemente più liberali, ma non sostenute da una dotazione altrettanto consistente di misure di politica sociale.
Il veicolo fondamentale mediante il quale le famiglie separate a causa dell'emigrazione mantengono legami di sollecitudine reciproca è l'invio di rimesse, ossia di aiuti in denaro. In paesi dal welfare pubblico povero e disorganizzato, la risposta a esigenze sociali come le cure mediche, l'educazione, l'invecchiamento, si auto-organizza nei limiti del possibile grazie a questi flussi di risorse da parte degli emigranti. Questa dimensione microsociale delle rimesse ha poi effetti cumulativi che conferiscono al fenomeno un posto di rilievo nel dibattito su migrazioni e sviluppo. Si tratta infatti di "transazioni agili" (Ramirez et Al. 2005: 19) che resistono sia alle fluttuazioni dei mercati, sia alla volatilità degli investimenti esteri, fino ad assumere in vari casi un significato anti-ciclico in tempi di recessione. Secondo Van Hear e Sørensen (2003), rappresentano il contributo chiave che le migrazioni possono offrire per il miglioramento del benessere delle popolazioni rimaste in patria. Sono però anche un fenomeno sfaccettato e denso di implicazioni sociali, che vedono le famiglie in una posizione cruciale. Entrano infatti a pieno titolo nei processi di globalizzazione dal basso e di costruzione di reti transnazionali, mantenendo vivi i legami tra le due sponde delle migrazioni. Sotto il profilo dello sviluppo, hanno effetti controversi: migliorano il tenore di vita delle famiglie che ricevono aiuti dai congiunti emigrati, ma generano una dipendenza da risorse esterne e un incentivo a nuove emigrazioni da parte di altre persone per sostenere il tenore di vita delle famiglie che rimangono in loco. Hanno dunque implicazioni politiche molto attuali, innestandosi nel dibattito sull'aiuto ai paesi di origine come politica di contenimento delle migrazioni.
The article asserts that the governance of immigration, especially at local level, can be considered a "battleground" involving diverse actors. Beyond the idea of a "negotiated order" as the result of the interaction among actors (mainly institutional) in the multilevel governance framework, the management of asylum at a local level is the output of conflict and cooperation, of alternative views and political actions, of official policies and practical help, of formal statements and informal practices. The practical governance of immigration and asylum is not only determined at an institutional level; it is also influenced by this mobilization on the part of civil society. In order to reconstruct the dynamics of this "battleground, the article analyses in first place the different attitudes of Italian municipalities to asylum seekers, and in particular the mobilization of local governments against refugees' reception. In second place, it shows by contrast how civil society actors mobilize in favour of the reception of refugees and immigrants with dubious legal status, or against them. Third, among civil society's actors, it focuses in particular on "supporters" acting in favour of asylum seekers in various ways, for moral, political or religious reasons, and on the issue of their political engagement.
The article aims at distinguishing and deepening various aspects of the relation between the Catholic Church and Catholic immigrants, taking the cue from the Italian case. It argues that the Catholic Church is very active in providing services to people in need, advocacy, political representation in favour of immigrants; quite open in supplying spaces and gathering opportunities to Catholic immigrants' communities and to their clergy; less active, often indifferent, on the side of the inclusion of Catholic immigrants in its structures and in usual pastoral activities. The "ecclesial citizenship" of Catholic immigrants in Italy remains largely to build. From the Italian case the article draws a more theoretical consideration: it is possible to identify several dimensions of the relation between the Catholic Church and immigrants, and these dimensions can diverge. The relation between mainstream religions in a given country and immigrants of the same religious affiliation is not monolithic, but it is multifaceted and fraught with tensions, beyond the alleged fraternity.
Italy is a significant case in the European landscape of refugee policies for two main reasons. First, it has faced the so-called "refugee crisis" with growing difficulties and anxiety. The establishment of the "hotspots", as required by the EU has been a turning point, also because the enactment of tighter controls at the Alpine borders by the neighbouring states followed the new regulation. The Italian government was compelled to abandon its traditional, albeit implicit, policy of allowing the transit of the asylum seekers towards North-Western Europe. The second aspect concerns the cultural and political consequences of this unexpected entanglement in the refugee issue. Most Italians were convinced that they were being invaded by asylum seekers coming from Africa by sea. Anti-establishment and xenophobic political forces reached a wide audience, spreading fears and accusations against asylum seekers, the NGOs rescuing them, and the cooperatives providing reception services. This hardening of asylum policies appears to be supported by the majority of Italian citizens at present, according to several polls. The xenophobic League, after shifting to a far-right position, experienced a sharp increase in virtual preferences by the interviewees (more than 30 per cent at present), and its leader Mr. Salvini enjoys much popularity, even if he recently lost the Ministry of Home Affairs. This trend, however, does not go without opposition. Civil society is at the forefront, developing manifold activities in favour of refugees, ranging from political protest to the provision of services. The restrictions enacted by the State indeed are giving more space to alternative providers of services. Furthermore, the radicalisation of the struggle on asylum and migration policies is giving a political meaning also to ordinary actions of help and support.
Despite many efforts to combat irregular immigration, there is a widespread perception of a failure of public policies in this field. But because unauthorised immigrants are officially excluded from formal labour markets, housing markets and most welfare provisions, they can settle if they find other sources of work, income, housing, and social protection. In this regard, a crucial role is played by various intermediaries: people or institutions who favour the entrance of immigrants, their entry into the labour market, accommodation, response to their social needs, and possibly regularisation. They can act for profit, but also for moral reasons. They can break the laws and work in the shadows, but they can also work in legal forms. In this article, I will explore the identities of these intermediaries and their practices of support towards irregular migrants. My purpose is to show (1) what precisely constitutes intermediation, in what activities it can be factored, and what the main categories of intermediaries are; (2) that the implementation of migration policies is hindered not only by migrants' practices to circumvent controls but also by the action of these intermediaries. For this reason, too, it is so difficult to eradicate.
The permanent settlement of immigrants of foreign origin, and then the formation of the second and third generations, has long contributed to re-launching the debate on the content and limits of the institution of citizenship, bringing into question the close connection with the national states. The increasing number and the growing diversity of the legal status of foreigners residing in the territory of sovereign states blurs the dividing lines between insiders and outsiders. Therefore this raises questions about the criteria and ways of participation of residents in the community of citizens, with all the obligations and benefits that derive from it. After having considered the citizenship 'from above', that is in terms of the type of rights granted to foreign residents, their extent, timing and modes of access, the article presents a more recent branch of studies that starts 'from below', i.e. from the point of view of actual practices to access and use, re-interpretations and negotiations of the contents of citizenship: processes in which migrants and refugees take active roles at various levels and in different ways, both individual and collective.
The economic crisis started in 2008 has heavily hit labour markets even in rich regions, spreading unemployment also among adult workers, who previously were in Italy quite well protected against economic downturns. The article presents a research study, conducted in Lombardy between September, 2009 and April, 2011, using different methods: a survey on a sample of 911 unemployed workers, 44 in-depth interviews and an ethnographic study on Employment Services. The research study has grasped social profiles of unemployed workers; relations between unemployment and family life; forms and results of job search; the functioning of Employment Services. In the conclusion, the article suggests several policy recommendations, in order to tackle the issue.
The argument of this paper is the development of local policies aimed to exclude migrants from various kinds of benefits and rights. It is based on a pilot research, conducted in Lombardy (northern Italy), on seventy cases, referred to forty-seven different local authorities. I define as local policies of exclusion the measures adopted by local authorities that aim to separate immigrants from the native component of the population, by establishing specific, albeit implicit, indirect or hidden prohibitions against them, setting up special screening procedures or limiting their access to benefits and resources of local social policies. These are therefore policies aimed at marking the boundaries of the legitimate local community, reinforcing a duality between rightful members (the insiders, coinciding with the native population or those of Italian nationality) and outsiders, whose right to residence tends to be redefined in more limited and conditional forms. Five types of exclusion can be detected in these local measures: civil exclusion, social exclusion, cultural exclusion, security exclusion, economic exclusion. Then, the outcome of these policies is studied: the exclusion of migrants is a tool to seek political consent, but is also a battlefield, where anti-discrimination institutions, advocacy groups and courts react against the measures approved by local authorities. The paper analyzes the battles conducted by voluntary associations of lawyers, connected to other civil society actors, against the xenophobic policies of local governments. On the other side, some examples of campaigns for migrants rights are considered: above all, the campaign for a new law on citizenship for young people of migrant origin.
Local policies for immigrants in recent years have attracted a growing interest among scholars. It is increasingly accepted that they are distinct units of analysis in the governance of migration, with significant degrees of autonomy with regard to national policies. Most of the literature, however, deals with the inclusive role of local policies. The argument of this article, on the contrary, is the development of local policies aimed to exclude migrants from various kinds of benefits and rights. It is based on a pilot research, conducted in Lombardy (northern Italy), on seventy cases, referred to forty-seven different local authorities. Then, the outcome of these policies is analysed: the exclusion of migrants is a tool to seek political consent, but is also a battlefield, where anti-discrimination institutions, advocacy groups and courts react against the measures approved by local authorities.
