Second reception services as conflictual spaces and social workers’ skills
Tiziana Tarsia
Teamwork in second reception services for refugees and asylum seekers can be seen as a conflictual space. In such a social environment, intercultural misunderstandings are opportunities for learning because they stress the help relationship between refugees, social workers and organisations, and highlight related frameworks. J. Galtung’s Transcend method and P. Patfoort’s M-m and E-E model offer heuristic perspectives useful for reading intercultural conflicts within the protection system. Many examples are taken from field research (from 2014 onwards) carried out in reception centres in Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia, and from weekly professionals’ meetings observed as part of the Sprar project in Sant’Alessio in Aspromonte, in the Calabrian Apennine mountains. The paper offers viewpoints through which the sociology of conflict can contribute to the intercultural training demands that social workers engaged in the protection system highlight.
Keywords
Sprar; sociology of conflict; teamwork.
