Reception contexts
Giuseppe Faso, Sergio Bontempelli
In retrospect and as a complement to the handbook for reception centre operators published in 2017 by the authors, this contribution reiterates the importance of studying the construction of local meanings within Refugee Reception Centres and it identifies two contexts for understanding the worsening of daily life conditions for internees and the work of operators. The first is historical and social context. With the Democratic predecessor of Matteo Salvini, Marco Minniti, there was a shift between constitutional principles and cultural values, which served to produce an inferiorising image of refugees, who must be disciplined and punished. The acceptance of an alleged perception of insecurity, which has risen to "popular sentiment", has devalued the use of data, which instead recorded a significant decline in crime. Moving from this surrender to an alarmed common sense, the Interior Ministry in 2017 made some changes to reception procedures, discouraging “widespread reception” strategies and introducing a model of a decree with a uniform set of rules for the management of reception centres, which have become places of custody and internment. The second context refers to educated, intellectual thought: we see a lack of a philosophy of migration in the Italian cultural scene; only recently, did Donatella di Cesare follow-up Hannah Arendt’s reflection, restating an estranged, paradoxical contestation to obviousness.
Keywords
Immigration; Migration Policy; Refugees, Asylum Seekers; Social Workers; Reception Centres.
