De-bordering activities and citizenship from below of asylum seekers in Italy. Policies, practices, people (ASIT)

The project aims at deepening the understanding of the “battleground” frame of the asylum system in Italy; highlighting the conflict between local policies of exclusion, de-bordering initiatives by civil societies, and practices of “citizenship from below” by asylum seekers and refugees. Virtuous local experiences in which public authorities and civil society cooperate together, and asylum seekers and refugees have been able to exercise practices of active citizenship, will be identified. The proposal is inherently qualitative and comparative, based on selected case studies and in-depth interviews. Each unit (Milan, Genoa, Trento, Venice) will develop twelve case studies of local reception experiences of asylum seekers, and will collect at least forty in-depth interviews to refugees and/or asylum seekers, aimed at exploring various forms of insertion, social participation and “active citizenship” from below. The project aims also at empowering young researchers that will directly collaborate in the research process, and at contributing to the improvement of social policies by producing a “handbook of refugees’ citizenship”. A steering committee, made of international scholars and key actors of the reception system, will supervise the realization of the project.