Agency, resistance and (forced) mobilities.The case of Syrian refugees in transit through Italy.

Abstract

Abstract. During the biennium 2013-2014 Syrian refugees started to reach Italy through Mediterranean seaborne migration routes, from Libya and Egypt. Their presence contributed to partially modifying the configuration of the incoming migration flows to Italy, both in terms of socio-demographic composition and access to the European asylum system. Data shows that most of the Syrian refugees who landed in Italy between 2013 and 2014 decided to pursue their journeys to Northern Europe, by overcoming the restrictions imposed by the Dublin Regulation. The article focuses on the phenomenon of transit, as an interesting standpoint from which to observe certain acts of agency and resistance, put in place by refugees in order to "choose the country where to live": the refusal to provide fingerprints during identification, the organization of hunger strikes, the secondary mobility per se. Moreover, the article attempts to shed light on the relational and socio-political context in which these practices have taken shape, by focusing on the construction of relationships with activists and volunteers, and the (explicit and tacit) processes of negotiation which refugees conducted with police authorities and other stakeholders. Keywords

The smell of bare death: Encountering life at the graveyard of Lampedusa

“…A Syrian couple who survived the 11 October 2013 shipwreck, participated to the memorial ceremony for the dead migrants that took place in Lampedusa on 3 October 2016, explaining publicly that after 3 years, they still did not know for certain what happened to their missing child, who was separated from them during the rescue operations that took place in international waters, with the co-responsibility of the Maltese and the Italian authorities. Such cases are common and pervade the literature on border death in the Mediterranean (Denaro, 2016;Heller and Pezzani, 2017;Kobelinsky, 2019;Zagaria, 2020). Grievability is a difficult path which requires multiple actors and joined attempts to creatively overcome the structural inequalities of 'a politics of erasing deaths' (Kobelinsky, 2019: 10), and it is always devastating for the families of the dead or missing migrants.…”

From Insecurity to Secondary Migration: “Bounded Mobilities” of Syrian and Eritrean Refugees in Europe

“…Italy represents a "transit country" also for Syrian refugees, whilst their secondary migration movements are somewhat less visible -and not accounted for yet. As noted by Denaro (2016), during the first phase of the "refugee crisis", Syrian refugees arriving spontaneously by sea engaged in high levels of agency and resistance by avoiding the provision of fingerprints. This entailed an "unbounded mobility" and the possibility of having a free choice in terms of the country of asylum.…”

Refugee settlement and inclusive local communities: An ethnographic study in the dwindling town of Riace, Italy

“…However, due to the continuing arrivals of refugees and migrants by sea, asylum seekers are often forced to reside in such centers for long periods of time. The housing facilities, such as schools, exhotels and residences, stadiums, indoor sport arenas, makeshift camps tend to be provisional and sometimes lack services such as legal, social and sanitary assistance that are legally required as the bare minimum (Denaro, 2016). Due to the temporary nature of many of the reception structures, it is difficult to provide statistics on the number of asylum seekers that reside in CASs, but estimated numbers were around 32,000 in 2014 (Denaro, 2016) and 50,000 in 2015 (Aida, 2017;ANCI, 2017).…”

“…These are small-scale reception projects set up by the prefecture, often in collaboration with local institutions and NGOs. Like the CASs, these provisional housing facilities have become regular locations for the reception of refugees (Denaro, 2016). The emergency-based nature of the organization of firstline reception facilities which often resulted in a lack of sanitary and socio-economic services, forms a problematic aspect of the Italian asylum system.…”