Governing agricultural migrant workers as an “emergency”: converging approaches in Northern and Southern Italian rural towns

Abstract

Rosarno and Sermide are two small towns in Southern and Northern Italy, which are both part of a manual‐labour circuit of agricultural work. The article presents an analysis of governance structures in these towns and, by bringing together the literature on migrants' agricultural labour and local policy‐making, explores how public actors address migrant seasonal agricultural workers' needs to investigate outcomes of inclusion and exclusion. The article builds on qualitative research, conducted between 2012 and 2015, to propose a North‐South intra‐country comparison of local policy‐making. The findings show the emergency nature of local administrations' approaches and the critical role of civil society. They highlight the extent to which responses diverge or converge in means and scale, while stressing their convergence in scope to limit migrants' visibility.

Fruit production and exploited labor in northern Italy: Redefining urban responsibility toward the agrarian ground

“…For example, the rural ghettos of the southern regions have gradually lost their character of seasonal settlements and have become permanent living solutions of camps and shantytowns occupied mainly by sub-Saharan African migrants (Semprebon et al, 2017).…”

“…These interventions are limited and offer financial support for emergency accommodation without a connection to other services. These are not only insufficient and inadequate measures that do not solve seasonal migrant workers' needs; they may even expose migrants to forms of labor exploitation (Semprebon et al., 2017). Yet, with the PAS approach, the multiactor and multilevel synergy allowed organizers to identify situations of undeclared work and initiate legal action to request regularization.…”

“…Therefore, at the local level, this requires an effort which is more limited in time. For example, the rural ghettos of the southern regions have gradually lost their character of seasonal settlements and have become permanent living solutions of camps and shantytowns occupied mainly by sub‐Saharan African migrants (Semprebon et al., 2017). In Saluzzo, in November most of the migrants move to other producing areas.…”

Labor exploitation in the Italian agricultural sector: the case of vulnerable migrants in Tuscany

“…The use of housing facilities - such as first (CAS) or second reception facilities (SAI) 4 originally put in place to deal with “emergency” situations during migrant arrivals peaks – has become a constitutive component of migrant workers’ exploitation. As shown by Semprebon et al (2017) , the emergency management of seasonal migrant workers is the duty of the wider set of Italian local, regional, and national bodies, with no difference between the North and South.…”