Restless Cities on the Edge: Collective Actions, Immigration and Populism (Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship) 3030913228, 9783030913229

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MIGRATION, DIASPORAS AND CITIZENSHIP

Restless Cities on the Edge Collective Actions, Immigration and Populism Antimo Luigi Farro Simone Maddanu

Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship Series Editors Olga Jubany Department of Social Anthropology Universitat de Barcelona Barcelona, Spain Saskia Sassen Department of Sociology and Committee on Global Thought Columbia University New York, NY, USA

For over twenty years, the Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship series has contributed to cross-disciplinary empirical and theoretical debates on migration processes, serving as a critical forum for and problematising the main issues around the global movement and circulation of people. Grounded in both local and global accounts, the Series firstly focuses on the conceptualisation and dynamics of complex contemporary national and transnational drivers behind movements and forced displacements. Secondly, it explores the nexus of migration, diversity and identity, incorporating considerations of intersectionality, super-diversity, social polarization and identification processes to examine migration through the various intersections of racialized identities, ethnicity, class, gender, age, disability and other oppressions. Thirdly, the Series critically engages the emerging challenges presented by reconfigured borders and boundaries: state politicization of migration, sovereignty, security, transborder regulations, human trade and ecology, and other imperatives that transgress geopolitical territorial borders to raise dilemmas about contemporary movements and social drivers. Editorial Board: Brenda Yeoh Saw Ai (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Fabio Perocco (Università Ca’Foscari Venezia, Italy) Rita Segato (Universidade de Brasília, Brazil) Carlos Vargas (University of Oxford, UK) Ajmal Hussain (University of Warwick, UK). More information about this series at http://link.springer.com/series/14044

Antimo Luigi Farro • Simone Maddanu

Restless Cities on the Edge Collective Actions, Immigration and Populism

Antimo Luigi Farro Department of Social Sciences and Economics Sapienza University of Rome Rome, Italy

Simone Maddanu Department of Sociology University of South Florida Tampa, FL, USA

ISSN 2662-2602     ISSN 2662-2610 (electronic) Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ISBN 978-3-030-91322-9    ISBN 978-3-030-91323-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021, corrected publication 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

The original version of this book was revised due to incorrect affiliation of Dr. Simone Maddanu. A correction to this book can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_8

Acknowledgements

This book is the outcome of lengthy, sometimes difficult, yet always fascinating work. We would not have been able to finish it without the support of many around us. In particular, we want to thank Romana Andò, Julie Billaud, Francesca Broccia, Alessandra Broccolini, Lucia Cammisuli, Antonio Famiglietti, Alberto Marinelli, Emanuele Toscano, Michela Serra, Gianluca Russo, Francesca Tei, Ahmad Yunus, David Jacobson, and Roger Downey. The authors could count on the intellectual support of members of the Center of Analysis and Sociological Intervention (CADIS/EHESS) of Paris, particularly Yvon Le Bot, Danièle Joly, Alain Touraine, and Michel Wiewiorka. We thank the people we met during our fieldwork. Anonymous in this book but vividly present in our memories, their words, experiences, and reflections contributed to the crafting of new research questions. Our gratitude must also be extended to the schoolteachers and members of parents’ associations in Rome who welcomed us and helped us discover their everyday engagement and acceptance of the challenge of the future of their children and their city. We thank Massimiliano Di Giorgio, Ostia’s reporter for L’Unità, for his contribution in Giornale di Ostia e Metropolit. We thank Daniela Rovati of “Ambiente e territorio”, Cooperative for sharing the archive of Nuova Ostia, and sociologist Cristiano Catalbiano for collecting the related material and interviews.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Last but not least, we owe Gael Ayers for her constant and patient work—throughout many difficulties—to make this book more intelligible to a larger audience. This book present part of the survey “Sustainable practices of everyday life in the context of the crisis: toward the integration of work, consumption and participation”, funded by MIUR-PRIN 2010–2011 and coordinated by Laura Bovone (Università Cattolica di Milano), in collaboration with the Universities of Milano (coord. Luisa Leonini), Bologna (coord. Roberta Paltrinieri), Trieste (coord. Giorgio Osti), Molise (coord. Guido Gili), Roma “La Sapienza” (coord. Antimo Farro), Napoli Federico II (coord. Antonella Spanò).

Contents

1 Introduction  1 1.1 Migrating: Culture, Economy, and Politics  2 1.2 A Restless City  8 1.3 Losing Trust 15 References 18 Part I Extreme Rome  21 2 On the Coast of the Capital 23 2.1 Community Closures 23 2.1.1 Negative Subjectivation and Acts of Violence 23 2.2 Young People and Migrants 30 2.3 Territory and Population 37 2.4 Territorial and Demographic Changes 39 2.5 New Ostia 41 2.6 Migrants in Ostia 43 2.6.1 In the Spaces of Vittorio Emanuele III 43 2.6.2 The Mosque as a Meeting Point 49 2.7 Conclusion 51 References 53

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3 Tor Sapienza 55 3.1 The Revolt at Viale Morandi 55 3.2 Housing Project and Outcome 59 3.3 Crisis, Criticism, and the Will to Act 66 3.4 The Fading of Industrialism 72 3.5 The Institutional Crisis 77 3.6 Occupation, Squat, and Experimental Shared Living Spaces 80 3.7 Conclusions 87 References 89 Part II Out from the Centre, Towards the Centre  93 4 Torpignattara 95 4.1 The Boys at Maranella 95 4.2 Torpignattara 96 4.3 Banglatown100 4.4 Torpignattara Takes Action106 4.4.1 The Discontent of via Filarete106 4.5 Working with the Differences111 4.6 The Example of the Pisacane School113 4.7 Conclusion123 References124 5 A Lesson at Esquilino127 5.1 Esquilino Flares Up127 5.2 Migrants in the Centre of Rome128 5.3 Trade and Commerce129 5.4 Dreaming of a Chinatown131 5.5 Esquilino Speaks Bangla133 5.6 Esquilino’s New Market135 5.7 Ethnography of a Piazza137 5.8 Association Adherence141 5.8.1 Nostalgia142 5.8.2 Participation, Culture, and Shared Living143 5.8.3 Solidarity144 5.9 Dealing with Degradation144 5.10 Rubber Wall149

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5.11 The School Once more to the Fore151 5.12 Conclusions154 References155 Part III From the City to the World 157 6 The Rise of Populism and the “School of Sardines”159 6.1 Migrating159 6.2 From Fear to Hatred161 6.2.1 The Renewal of Xenophobia163 6.3 Local and National Northern League165 6.4 A “School of Sardines”172 6.4.1 The Black Sardines177 6.5 Conclusions181 References181 7 Popular Populism and New Collective Actions185 7.1 Popular Populism185 7.1.1 Understanding Populism Today: Popular Populism185 7.2 Populism and the City191 7.3 Citizens and Action199 7.3.1 A Protocol for Participation200 7.4 School as Part of the Common Good202 7.5 Common Goods204 7.5.1 Starting from the Commons206 7.6 Conclusions210 7.6.1 A Restless City on the Edge214 References215 Correction to: Restless Cities on the EdgeC1 References221 Index249

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 6.1

Illegal settlements: Map elaborated by citizens advisories on Google Map. Source: https://www.google.com/maps/ d/u/0/viewer?mid=z77JB6IL4Of0.kl8ws5rEawNU&hl (accessed on May 30, 2016) 81 Public Garden of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II “Nicola Calipari” (Esquilino, Rome)—Ethnographic Map. (Source: Our elaboration on Google Earth Picture (accessed on January 10, 2017))139 Migrants arriving in Italy by boat from 2013 to 2019. (Source: Home Affairs) 164

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 7.1

Rome and Ostia resident population, from 1951 to 2001a39 Esquilino population by nationality and continents (December 31, 2000, 2007, 2013) 129 Esquilino shops census by nationality (2000 and 2010) 132 ∎191

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Social malaise is first evident in the most disadvantaged areas of society, those most exposed to the dismantling of social-cultural integration, as cities continually expand, and national transposition measures are implemented. Social tension is created by citizens having to deal with political, economic, and cultural upheaval of their spatial context, subject to great transformation on a global scale. Covering the period from the end of the nineteenth century up to the second decade of the 2000s, this book analyses the reasons behind and the implications of the mobilization of individuals, and group efforts or collective actions,1 occurring in Rome. A part of the initiatives analysed concern citizens who reacted, even violently through rioting, against immigrants seen as causing a deterioration and an unravelling of the social and cultural fabric of urban areas, of a whole city, of an entire nation, or indeed, of the West itself. Another part covers initiatives taken by other citizens who, in contrast, have invested in social action and cultural projects to promote greater contact between the different parties involved, and foster integration of the immigrants and their children. Attempts 1  In this book, the term “collective action” should be taken as the carrying out of initiatives by individuals working within a group with the aim of collectively addressing their needs or asserting claims. The action seeks to change the methods and forms of existing interpersonal relations, institutional setups, and of the predominant orientations of society and culture.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_1

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made to set up alternative social areas with the aim of encouraging citizen participation for the common good, are also investigated. Social tension is mainly a manifestation of social crisis and fragmentation. In the absence of institutional integration, an explosive situation can unexpectedly erupt, prompted by, on the one hand, world systems of force (such as that of finance), and, on the other, by individuals or groups who suffer the consequences of these forces on a local level, in all spheres— political, economic, social, and cultural effects felt by Rome and Paris, alike. Collective actions that attempt to halt social degradation frequently come up against ineffectual or half-hearted intervention programming by local and national authorities, as is the case in Rome. Here, collective action has aimed to create opportunities for so-called “citizen participation” in support of schools and neighbourhoods, and to rebuild a solid social fabric, and sustain management of city centres and suburbs, or even to make a claim on public property, in order to run and safeguard it, alongside or even going as far as substituting institutional administration. The seeds of unrest are sown with the continual loss of fixed points of reference, where immigration and a lack of effective political intervention by the institutions lead to a growing uncertainty concerning the future, both on an individual and collective level. Irrespective of place, as each local reality creates its own challenges, a break-up of society is perceived and associated with, on the one hand, economic uncertainty, and on the other, substantial change to several Roman neighbourhoods evident in the last few decades, brought about by the presence of immigrants.

1.1   Migrating: Culture, Economy, and Politics Whereas in Italy immigration is a relatively new phenomenon, in France a post-immigration2 situation exists, with certain urban areas having become effectively ghettos over time. Neighbourhood action groups, and the work of various social and political groups or centres (multicultural 2  The term ‘post-immigration’ is used critically here to underline the problems related to the second and third generations. Indeed, despite being French citizens after the first generation, in some cases, these people are still perceived as immigrants, and fall into some of the categories of study used in sociology of immigration. It is worth noting that, in ever-day use, the term “French citizen of immigrant descent” does not refer to second or third generation descendants of Portuguese immigrants (the largest immigrant group in France), or those of Italian, Spanish or Polish descent: instead, the ambiguous term “immigrant” or “French citizen of immigrant descent” is applied to that section of the population which possesses visibly

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mediators, Social Centres3 and autonomous spaces, social educators), represent an attempt to re-establish a “republican” spirit, for example through campaigns to encourage young people to vote. They also strive to get certain citizens, particularly second or third generation Arab and Sub-­ Saharan individuals, living in disadvantaged areas, to feel less grieved and marginalized. The urban planning of the suburbs of Paris, le banlieue, well-known for the violent 2005 riots, can be seen as representing the history of a type of social housing which was meant to satisfy the needs of lower income groups whose numbers had been swelled by the massive influx of immigrants from the ex-colonies, particularly those of North Africa. Inspired by housing based on principles laid out by Le Corbusier, the Grands Ensembles attempted to fulfil the needs of a working class, which was in rapid expansion during the hasty reconstruction period following the Second World War. The buildings were designed to house a large number of people. In terms of urban planning and architectural design, the housing recalls other European social housing projects, and indeed, is similar to housing built in the Soviet bloc during the mid-fifties onwards (Dufaux et al., 2003). The Grands Ensembles were mainly built in the “new towns”, conceived as self-contained urban areas, which were meant to relieve the pressure of population congestion in and around the big cities, particularly Paris (the Ile de France), or in the so-called ZUP areas (Zones à Urbaniser en Priorité), where the idea was to develop a housing area which could satisfy the needs of an expanding lower income group. In the period from the political design of the Grand Ensembles to the foyers of the SONACOTRA,4 the working-class areas around the French capital suffered a progressive rise in unemployment, leading to a continual different characteristics, that ‘second figure’ of an immigrant analysed by Didier Lapeyronnie, perpetually ‘immigrant’ due to their racial features or name (Lapeyronnie, 1997). 3  The Centre Social in France (today united under the Fedération des Centres sociaux et Socioculturels de France) works in the interest of the public, to provide support for educational and social projects, and the organization and running of recreational activities, in local districts and in the cities. Differently to the Social Centres in Italy today (Famiglietti & Rebughini, 2008; Toscano, 2011), in France these centres constitute public bodies, tied to and financed by local and national government. 4  The SONACOTRA (Société Nationale de Construction logements pour les Travailleurs) was set up in 1956  in response to the needs of thousands of workers living in precarious housing. The name of the organization was initially SONACOTRAL (—AL referring to Algerian), since it first addressed the poor living conditions of Algerian workers, requiring urgent intervention.

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marginalization, and rapidly turning these areas into ghettos, centres of an array of social and cultural problems (Lapeyronnie, 2008). The immigrant inhabitants, especially the younger generation living these areas, felt subject to different types of discrimination—social, economic, and cultural. During this period, a growing awareness against racial discrimination began to arise in the banlieue. The first significant attempt to create a movement in favour of social and cultural emancipation to contrast forms of racism appeared in the eighties, with a political platform to promote full equality for all citizens, particularly the descendants of the immigrants from the former French colonies, specifically Algiers and the Maghreb. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, other action groups or movements began to emerge, which saw the need to “decolonize”5 the citizens originating from the former French colonies, by reinforcing a sense of identity in the work-class areas, in reaction to the perceived systemic racism in French institutions (Khiari, 2006; Bouteldja & Khiari, 2011). Further groups, while still maintaining that racism, and the social and spatial exclusion of people living in the poor suburbs around Paris needed to be challenged, rejected the view that the problem should be seen in mainly racial and post-colonial terms, and looked for other ways to construct a form of “universalism”, based on the social needs of the individual (Maddanu, 2014). Italy, on the other hand, presents a very different situation from France, since the immigration issue is relatively new (Pugliese, 2006; Ambrosini, 2011), with most citizens of immigrant origin being first or, to a lesser degree, second generation (Ambrosini & Molina, 2004; Colombo & Rebughini, 2012; Frisina, 2007). Furthermore, areas of exclusion comparable to those in France have not been created in Italy, and neither have areas with a high concentration of particular ethnic groups. However, there is evidence of a tendency to create ghettos according to national and ethnic grouping (Clough Marinaro, 2015).

5  In particular, the Natives of the Republic (Indigènes de la République) movement, founded in 2005 and later transforming into a political party in 2010, used the term ‘decolonization’ to refer to a process of disillusionment of Western civilization and of the ‘white’ man. In the language used by the movement, to decolonize society meant changing the balance of power in internal relations, through the shake-up of the existing system of cultural and political privileges, enjoyed by a single section of the population (the ‘whites’), with members of the population of ‘immigrant descent’ (the ‘non-whites’) and their cultures, on the other hand, being subjected to a secondary status. See Maddanu (2014).

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Migrants and first-generation immigrants, much greater in numbers compared to the second-generation, have not benefitted from specific housing policies, and they also find it hard to make themselves known to the public through a unified voice. However, community immigrant associations do exist, fulfilling various functions, particularly on a local level, to provide support and to strengthen communities, and to manage conflicts and relations with administrative institutions or with members of the indigenous Italian population outside the group. Global international migration flows involve as many as 270  million people, annually, with migrants moving across borders from their own country to another of the same continent or from less developed countries, mainly situated in the South, to more developed countries, principally in North America or Europe.6 Migration of such large numbers of people can be understood within the context of research examining the change in spatial configurations due to the effects of globalization and the rise of global cities (Sassen, 1998; Wihtol De Wenden, 2012; Amin, 2012). Migration evolves in such a way due to various lines of communication which, on the one hand, stimulate migration from places of origin to another, and on the other, maintain or even increase contact between immigrants housed in the same new country, and between immigrants and their country of origin, as well. These lines of communication are established through direct contact between individuals and groups, utilizing different means, from more traditional methods of communication to new technological means (Castells, 1996, pp. 342–403). Hence, the situation raises cultural, economic, social, and political issues, not only pertaining to the reasons behind immigration and modes of transport, but also to how immigrants are collocated in their host countries and how communications are maintained with their home countries. Migrants set out hoping to find new prospects in life, and better economic circumstances for themselves and their close family. This form of immigration involves the crossing of borders, which may or may not be legal, and is subject to trafficking by organized crime. It is fostered by contacts and relations created through the various means of communication, which may also determine the collocation and distribution of immigrants once in the host country. Immigration from less developed areas, or from emerging countries, such as China and India, gives rise to problems 6  See the United Nations report: UN—General Assembly, July 2013. International Migration and Development. Report by the Secretary-General.

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and disputes on various levels in the host countries. In the European Union, not only are there migrants looking for better economic conditions, there is also a refugee emergency, due to the instability and the conflicts occurring in the Africa and the Middle East, as a whole, and due to the long-drawn-out civil war in Syria, in particular. The phenomenon of immigration in Italy, however, has particular characteristics, which distinguishes itself from others. In contrast to neighbouring France and Great Britain, it is not significantly related to a colonial past. Nevertheless, on a par with other European Union countries, the immigration in Italy has also been the subject of the one of most controversial debates between varying standpoints of public opinion, social actors and political forces, from the end of the last century to the present day. The question of migrants coming to Italy, to flee from extreme poverty, oppressive regimes, wars, political or other forms of discrimination, or simply, to follow a dream, to look for a life with greater opportunities, or to experience another way of life, provokes differing opinions and positions. Indeed, while a part of public opinion is open to welcoming migrants, others are more cautious in accepting them, even rejecting them completely.7 Apart from the friction produced by migrant reception policies, some citizens are critical, silently or openly, of the transformation of cities and society as a whole, caused by immigration. Cultural, religious, and ethnic differences can lead to increased resistance to acceptance by some, nostalgic for past times, and even to feelings of outright xenophobia in others. Such diversities per se are seen as causing social decline, and as indication of social degradation. The expansion of international migrations in the recent decades was accompanied by the raise of right-wing parties that disrupted the political sphere in many European countries. In France, Italy, as well as other Western countries, we observe a resurgent nationalism (Valluvan, 2020) that rejuvenates traditional extreme-right positions. A new populism, based on xenophobic rhetoric, cultural racism (islamophobia included), becomes popular and global in a new economic framework, in which 7  According to a survey conducted by the institute Eumetra Monterosa in May 2016: 39% believed that a prefixed number of immigrants should be accepted into the country, but the rest, refused entry; 33% thought that all immigrants should be refused entry as Italy was not in the condition to welcome them; lastly, 25%, instead, thought that all immigrants should be welcomed since they are often persecuted in their countries of origin (3% came under ‘do not know’). See https: //www.eumetramr.com/it/immigrazione-italiani-sempre-pi%B9-­ divisi-­tra-accoglienza-e-rifiuto-dellospitalit%C3%A0 (accessed on December 10, 2016)

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financial flows and systemic powers take advantage of the lack of political control. Migrants are in search of a political, economic, social, and cultural place or niche of their own in their host country. The prevailing economic, social, cultural and political mechanisms, are, in their turn, subject to the processes of transformation, interpreted as: conflicting expression of the processes of cosmopolitanism (Beck, 2010); or as a rapid “liquefying” or melting down of the solid structures upon which modern industrial society stands (Bauman, 2000); or as the emergence of a post-social set-up (Touraine, 2013), where the interaction of the main social actors (in industry, business and employment), is no longer structured, the situation being somewhat channelled in that direction through the affirmation of on-line communication (Castells, 2009). The actual space or spaces within which people migrate are drawn up by the frontiers of supranational territories, such as the European Union, national territories, such as Italy, city metropolitans, such as Rome, and finally specific local areas—such as the Esquilino in the city centre, in the areas bordering on the city centre in Torpignattura, or even on the outskirts of Tor Sapienza. Focusing on collective action and other forms of participation is a way of recounting the ways social actors are able to renew and bring to centre stage, the need for adequate institutions and measures, and individual commitment to deal with everyday problems, essentially on all levels, but starting from the most local level—one’s neighbourhood, school, and one’s day-to-day happenings. In sociological terms, the analysis of urban areas has been complicated by the particular features of unplanned urbanization (lack of basic services and infrastructure, overcrowding, etc.)— particular on the city outskirts or in areas bordering on the city centre—which is typical of working class suburbs, mainly inhabited by a new post-war urban proletariat, including numerous emigrants from Southern Italy and Central Italy (Pugliese, 2006; Severino, 2005; Ferrarotti, 1979). On the one hand, complaints of urban degradation aimed at requesting greater safety measures and a greater presence of the state are most often overshadowed by calls for greater law enforcement and for priority to be given to the needs of (indigenous) Italian citizens. Accompanying the complaints about urban degradation and the incapacity of authorities to deal effectively with the daily problems of certain districts, is, on the other hand, the self-appropriation of areas by certain groups, representing a form of social rebuilding from the grassroots, in

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opposition to housing speculation and neoliberalism. These actions are intended to be both actively democratic, and essentially inclusive, in view of the future challenges in society that await.

1.2   A Restless City The first part of the book “On the fringes of Rome”, deals with situation of the outskirts and outer suburbs of Rome. Ostia and Tor Sapienza were chosen as case studies following the violence, which broke out in these areas as an outright rejection of the presence of migrants there. The second chapter, which focuses on the coastal area of Ostia, is the result of research carried out during the early Nineties and describes how certain younger members of the population turned to more extreme political views and parties as an answer to foreign immigration which had brought about significant changes to the living space of this area for the first time. Different forms of xenophobia and rejection of immigrants constitute a spontaneous but violent response to an unwanted change to Ostia, an area which already felt a certain right to autonomous economic growth, independently from the capital. For their part, the immigrants in Ostia, seen by the indigenous population as degrading the area and as a threat to its integrity, are attempting to build up communities, based on specific cultural and sometimes religious identities, with the aim of creating a sense of security for themselves, both economically and residentially. The chapter ends with an investigation of the organizational makeup of some of the immigrant groups met while carrying out the research, particularly those occupying the Vittorio Emanuele III building complex. Muslim migrants, for their part, are creating cultural centres in order to foster social and political integration in their local areas. The chapter gives particular attention to the role assumed by the Islamic cultural centre found in the centre of Ostia. The third chapter begins by covering the events of November 2014, which brought the issue of the prevailing changes in the Italian suburbs, to the centre of public attention. Despite the initial urban planning to promote development, these residential areas are essentially marginalized, and suffer a gradual distancing from local institutions. The council housing in the area covering viale Morandi, Tor Sapienza in Rome, had been particularly subject to a rapid degradation, with squatting and high levels of crime. The decision to set up a reception centre for asylum seekers in the area, and the subsequent friction with residents, sparked off a riot by

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the locals, their protest having violent and xenophobic overtones. A feeling of abandonment on the part of the institutions was diffuse. Action undertaken by some citizens, intent on taking the situation into their own hands following the riots of November 2014, can be interpreted as an attempt to restore social harmony, and at the same time, to come to grips with a situation where they feel marginalized. In the second part of the book, “A way back to the centre”, we investigate the problems that arise in areas which have been incorporated into or which have always been a part of the city, but show evident signs of neglect. The fourth chapter looks at the semi-central area of Torpignattara. The area is also known as Banglatown (Pompeo, 2011; Broccolini, 2010, 2014), due to the presence of high numbers of people originating from Bangladesh (though the area is also populated by Chinese, North Africans or Eastern Europeans, from the EU and other, as well). The research throws light on a split in the area between what can be interpreted as two opposing sides: on the one, there are members of the indigenous population—particular those nostalgic for the working-class Torpignattara—who had ambitions about becoming middle-class, and who are strongly resisting change to the area; and, on the other, there are those who see the change as a way to develop a multicultural community and re-launch the area through shared responsibility, and the looking after of public spaces (schools, gardens, and squares), neglected by the local authorities. Hence, the problem of a fragmented reality with different opposing cultures and an ineffective institutional presence is no longer merely confined to the outskirts of the city, but now includes semi-central areas, such as Toripignattara and the V municipal district, as a whole. From our observations and interviews with the residents, there is particular concern over the deterioration of the urban environment, which involves the overcrowding of migrants in housing, urban waste, and the running of retail businesses. As in other districts particularly exposed to a flux of migrants and constantly changing urban makeup, Torpignattara can be seen as a testing ground for the integration of a specific national ethnic group, the Bangladeshi, the description of which can be reproduced and compared with other situations in Europe (Broccolini, 2014), in terms of the workings within a community. Small citizen groups are taking initiatives with a view to encourage a sense of unity to the area, through dialogue and intercultural activities in the schools. The fifth chapter covers the district of Esquilino, which lies in the first municipality of the capital. Often taken as representative of the changing

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multicultural nature of Rome by the media, the area not only sees a significant number of migrants and asylum-seekers, some settling, others only passing through, but also houses a number of commercial activities run by foreign-born citizens, particularly Chinese. The new local market in Esquilino is part of a composite commercial setup in the area. Over the last decade or so, an increasingly high number of foreign-born citizens have started selling at the market, particularly Bangladeshi. Somewhat improvised stores and stalls stand beside others, which, in contrast, aim at a higher-middle class clientele. Through this case study, the chapter provides a spatial overview of the main square (Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II), and gives an ethnographic description of the various ethnic groups passing through the gardens. It also analyses the actions of local committees, and Italian and immigrant social actors, who promote direct participation within institutions. Particular attention is given to action taken by parents in the school called Di Donato, a model of local people cooperating together for the common good, with a view of creating an “open school”.8 It is no accident that this kind of experiment, along with that of another local school in Torpignattare, Pisacane, have become exemplary models for other Roman schools, sparking off citizen participation in both local and national projects around the idea of an “open school”. In the third and last part of the book, “From the City to the World”, we retrace the recent events that led to the rise of right-wing parties and the democratic response of collective actions. In its analysis, Chapter six aims to a show how the findings amply described in the previous chapters relate to the present, and how movements, initiatives, and actions have evolved today. We will trace, on the one hand, the major dynamics that led to the recent success of anti-immigrant parties in Italy (as elsewhere) while, on the other, the rise of a new collective grassroots movement—the Sardines movement, which aims to resist this populist, racist and xenophobic swing in the country. A thorough analysis of public opinion, including mass media, social media discourses, and narratives, will describe the shift occurring in the national electorate. Short communications via Facebook, Twitter or long interviews and statements released and broadcasted on TV, on both public and private channels, negatively influenced the public 8  The idea of an ‘open school’ proposes a new form of participation and collaboration between head of school and teachers, whereby the school space itself is assigned a central role, as a place for urban social and relationship building, to help to shape the new generations and promote civic action or engagement seen as having educational value.

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through a crude anti-immigrant language of fear, sometimes based on local conflicts and controversies between autochthons and migrants. The phenomena of new asylum seekers and migrants arriving on Italian coasts, via makeshift boats or rescue operations by non-governmental organizations (NGO), over the last two years, was particularly open to exploitation and used to incite anti-immigrant feelings. As Minister of Home Affairs, the leader of the xenophobic Northern League was strategically in a position to enforce laws and restrictions against immigrants and asylum seekers, which then, conversely, led to greater problems of instability and security, in some major cities. By using similar tools of communication but with opposite messages, the Sardines have been able to counter these narratives by simply gathering in public squares, in major cities, such as Rome, Bologna, and Milan. With silent occupation of public spaces, devoid of party flags, the Sardines have been challenging populist meetings by demonstrating their numeric and civic superiority. Particularly in Rome, an important splinter movement of the Sardines by immigrants of different origins has led to the creation of the so-called “Black Sardines”, an antiracist minority group vindicating their rights. The fragility and restlessness of the city seem to encourage a political discourse that we can define as populist. It offers simplified political solutions—and explanations—while misconceiving the social and cultural shifts in contemporary societies. In the seventh chapter we propose a more analytical perspective to encompass the empirical observation of Rome as a contemporary restless city. First, we identify populism as a social phenomenon embedding precariousness and economic anxiety, which are both the result of a structural economic shift—magnified by globalization. Closely related to that issue, the perception of an uncontrolled migration process fuels the sense of restlessness. From that point, contemporary populism rises to embrace a general criticism and opposition to “elites”— leading institutions, and their representatives, like politicians, scientists, and members of the media. However, this form of populism does not lead to specific policies or a political project. Sometimes reviving classic nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric, but while also enhancing the narrative with novel conspiracy theories and post-ideological solutions, political leaders are eventually those who make this populism so popular around the world (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018; Lochocki, 2018; Cox & Halpin, 2020; Wagner-Egger et  al., 2018; Bergmann, 2018). By promoting a fictive homogeneous social body, this narrative is absorbed by the citizenry of the

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city, particularly those in its more fragile, economic-stagnant areas. As we observe it, current populism fits best with the views of authoritarian and far-right wing groups. Finally, the chapter provides an empirical as well as theoretical overview of the role played by populist narratives and urban collective actions in the context of migrants’ presence. We consider how the proactive responses of residents in Rome have benefited the community and outlined a protocol for similar participation in other contexts, with emphasis on the importance of the “common good” as a new conceptual tool in regenerating local communities. This updated empirical analysis will help us describe the contradictions between the new urban reality and the imaginary social body that populism claims to re-establish. As a reverse, the chapter retraces an empirical as well as theoretical overview of political and cultural changes that intervened in the urban context. We consider how the proactive responses by local residents in Rome have benefitted the community, and outline a protocol for similar participation in other contexts, with emphasis on importance of the “common good“, to regenerate communities. The updated empirical data (2020) will help us describe the contradictions between the new urban reality and the imaginary social body that populism would re-establish. New collective actions cannot be understood through classical models. From urban squares to national and global protests, a new generation of movements embrace other ideals of change and ethics cognizant of diversity, tolerance, human rights, and the commons. As we observe in Rome, migrants, first generation, and second generation immigrants are distributed in different areas in Italy, in city centres, semi-central areas, outskirts, and in neighbouring boroughs. Their presence is an integral part of the transformation of districts, felt in manufacturing, commerce, and services: these citizens may run a business, act as subordinates, or be in precarious work. Migrants can also sometimes play an active role in radical social action, such as the squatting of abandoned or unused buildings. Extreme left and radical left groups interpret these actions as the assertion of social and cultural rights, and expression of a bottom–up social struggle to transform society, a way to prefigure a self-­ made urbanism (Cellamare, 2014). In view of the problems which emerged during our research and following empirical analysis of differing situations the characteristics of which overlap, we explored the condition of a “restless city” in relation to the institutional and economic crisis. Even though in Italy there are no high concentrations of immigrants on the city

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outskirts, the risk of immigrants being marginalized is still a reality, with right wing groups or citizens openly rejecting changes in habits and culture and viewing immigrants as the cause of local social degradation. Hence, schools like Pisacane in Torpignattara or Di Donato in Esquilino are instrumentally presented, on the one hand, as marginalized areas, while on the other, as illustrating the efforts of citizens to aspire to the worthy action of encouraging integration, interculturalism, and creating common ground (Farro & Maddanu, 2015). Given the social contexts observed in the districts of Torpignattara and Esquilino, the initiatives taken by the parent associations of both the schools should be seen in the backdrop of cultural and social fragmentation, whereby the local institutions and administration appear unable to deal with the flux of migrants. Through direct participation, citizens are trying to create new opportunities for integration, starting from the belief that education (and the local school as a first step) is an integral part of the common good, and a springboard for social development. Conclusions retrace the types of responses to the institutional crisis, and how individuals attempt to create and experiment with a new way of urban living, aiming to renew institutions by mobilizing local participation. Through investigation of the different squats in Rome, some constituting living quarters, others self–run cultural centres, Social Centres, and others again involving the taking over of new spaces, we were able to reconstruct the social action network. This form of urban creativity, both countercultural and alternative, can be seen as part of the urban social movements (Mayer, 1993, 2009; Florida, 2012), which create new spaces—“spaces of hope”, as defined by some (Harvey, 2012, pp. 109–112; Novy & Colomb, 2013)—in so much as they are free (at least temporarily) from private ownership or taken over by citizens to provide a shared social environment (Harvey, 2012, pp. 68–72). Ultimately, by acting in defence of their local district and community, with the promotion of projects aimed at urban renewal or restoring the social fabric given the challenge of immigration, residents demonstrate a strong identify with and attachment to, their local spatial “context”. As observed by Bagnasco and Le Gallès (2000) “the relatively low mobility among Europeans, where and when it exists, is essentially a factor of stability and continuity, favouring the constitution of social groups and public action in cities” (p. 13). Similarly, apart from other factors, the social actors observed in this book are also undoubtedly driven to participate in the running of the city in an attempt fill what they perceive as a void left by the governance, a vacuum acutely felt on a daily basis (Yates, 1977; Crouch et al., 2004).

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Our analysis takes a critical stance towards an essentially positivist approach taken by governance in the running of affairs. The recurring leitmotif throughout the field research carried out in Rome, is, without doubt, the institutional crisis, whereby national and local administration is incapable of running the city, and implementing policies and procedures necessary to ensure social welfare. As observed by many, one of the reasons for this state of affairs is the transformation of the economic system, from a Fordist city to a megalopolis (Amin & Thrift, 2005; Davies, 2006), where neoliberalism prevents political institutions from implementing coherent and sound planning. As with the movement of migrants, the flow of finance capital is difficult to keep under control, and constitutes a determining factor in this complex process, effectively weakening the governability of the city. Bagnasco and Le Galès (2000) foresee the city itself as playing a new role in the process of globalization: Economic globalization signifies the increasing mobility of capital, and therefore, to a degree, the possibility of breaking free of spatial constraints. Paradoxically, this release goes along with an increased awareness of territory, of cities in particular, as potential contexts for investment and for living. This signifies a new phase in the development of capitalism, whereby capitalism itself gains an advantage over national states. (p. 19)

Clearly, not all the cities or the world’s capitals will suffer from a lack of incisive government action, to the same degree: diverse variables—structural, economic, social, and cultural—will weigh differently according to the specific geographical context, whether in the north or south, east or west. Organized crime and political corruption take root in the hiatus left by institutions, widening further the gap between government and its citizens. Social actors, interest groups, business and political representatives, the same individuals who fight daily against precarious working and housing conditions, do make a contribution to rebuilding society and the informal running of a city (Le Galès, 2002). This said, in the case of Rome, these actions seem to be limited to subjective claims, and the experimenting of alternative relations in the here–and–now, shaped by immediate events and the strategies laid out by social actors in response to those events, rather than constituting a real driving force of governance for the city.

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1.3   Losing Trust Some parts of the book describe the findings obtained through a participant observation method and long-term ethnographic study, particularly the study of the Esquilino district, carried out in the public spaces, during committee and association meetings, and of Teatro Valle. In-depth qualitative interviews were carried out in all the observed areas, with the participation of district residents, members of committees, associations, or social groups, or even significant players, chosen on the basis of the particular role they played in the district or area. All the field research was precisely timed with the occurring of main events, whether involving protest or even violent action, moments also emphasized or reported by the media as being particularly significant. Through study of a variety of realities—a generation which turned to the Italian social right wing in Ostia during the early nineties, the anti-government, anti-migrant district riots of Tor Sapienza, on the outskirts of Rome, and finally, the daily lives of the fluid, and fluctuating multi-ethnic groups of Torpignattara and Esquilino, this book gives voice to some of the protagonists involved, proposing interpretations to each reality described, but also making cross-­connections when pertinent. During the period of observation, the situated of Rome presented some intervening variables, which had a decisive impact on citizen-institution relations (real or perceived), both on a local and a national level. Given the institutional and economic crisis, in urban areas, from the city centre to its outskirts, an ever-increasing number of citizens are demanding effective political action to stem the present economic and social decline, corruption and urban degradation. For these reasons, the analysis given here highlights how institutional corruption, clientelism, along with widespread crime in urban areas (Bull & Newell, 2003; Johnson, 2004), define (adding to other systemic factors), and determine how, where, and what kind of relationship is set up between citizen and state, and between citizen and city. From 2014 to 2015, a corruption scandal broke out in Rome following the investigation “Mondo di Mezzo” (literally meaning “the Middle World”) led by the investigating magistrate Flavia Costantini. The name of the scandal made reference to the “mafia-style” network between organized crime and the political institutions, as led by a certain Carminati: “The theory of the Middle World … as the saying goes, the living reside above, and the dead below, and we find ourselves in the middle […] So, this means there is a world … a middle world where everyone meets […]

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a certain type of person … just anyone”.9 Public officials and Rome city councillors came under investigation, or were charged with corruption or open to investigation by the investigating magistrates, to a level that the inquiry was dubbed “Mafia Capitale”10 by the media. In particular, the emergency management of the migrant reception centres for asylum seekers, and the social policies for the Romany ethnic group, among others, had apparently been subject to corruption, kickbacks and criminal activities.11 From what can be gathered from the preliminary investigations, a part of the Capitoline administration had been infiltrated by known “gangsters”, who were clearly blackmailing public officials, with the aim of illegal profiteering at public expense. During our research carried out some time before the Rome magistrates made their findings public, we noted a general lack of trust in government, complaints about a growing distance between citizens and institutions, and a call by citizens for more law enforcement in the capital, on different fronts. A large number of our interlocutors expressed a general distrust of local institutions, giving a general impression that the Capitoline administration was delegitimized in some way. The management of waste12 (or lack of it), 9  “Ordinanza Mondo di Mezzo”, Tribunale di Roma (Tribunal of Rome), Ufficio VI GIP, 30546/10 R.G. Mod. 21, p. 474. 10  The charge of “participation in a criminal (mafia-like) organization” (“associazione di stampo mafioso”) to describe the network of corruption uncovered by the investigation “Mondo di Mezzo”, far from being unfounded, was confirmed by the Italian Supreme Court (Cassazione) in April, 2015 (penal section VI, sentences n° 24,533 and 24,536). Though the defendants did not resort to physical violence, the Court ascertained that they had exercised a form of intimidation, and a system of ‘omertà’ or conspiracy of silence, characteristic of mafia activity in corrupting individuals. 11  According to the reconstruction of the facts by the investigating magistrate, one of the main suspects of the Capitoline scandal “confiding to his accountant, spoke of his ability to the steer the flow of migrants transiting through Mineo, towards migrant reception centres where he had private interests: ‘… omissis … so we need to quantify that … in Rome … I brought them to Rome … I mean I put them … in the centres they have in Rome … eh … structures … buildings made available … I can make them available … (inc.) in other words with my contacts with the government … having direct access to the Ministry … to a certain extent, I’m able to steer the flow of migrants that arrive from down south … thanks also due to them passing through Mineo’ (cit. p. 1136, “Ordinanza Mondo di Mezzo”, op. cit. In particular, the court order underlines how the management of the System of Protection for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (S.P.R.A.R.) was part and parcel of the criminal activities of “Mafia Capitale” (See pp. 1125 and 1131–1133). However, in 2020, the Supreme Court of Cassation ruled out the mafioso character of the organization. 12  The wording “sector of the public administration”, used by the court order “Mondo di Mezzo” to describe one of the spheres of activity of the criminal organization (p. 281, op.

1 INTRODUCTION 

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the presence of illegal street sellers and improvised markets, the unchecked flow of money and migrants, and the openly illegal roundabout running of businesses, were just some of the aspects which were blatantly apparent to the Roman residents interviewed in our research. Furthermore, such a state of affairs appears not to be limited to the capital, but present in other localities (Vannucci, 2012). According to a study13 carried out by the association Avviso Pubblico,14 between 199115 and January 2016, the number of city councils forced to dissolve due to the infiltration of organized crime reached 209 (including 5 local health centres), and 147 administrative provisions had to be prolonged.16 As published by Transparency International,17 in 2015, Italy was ranked 61st in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI),18 and the second most corrupt in the EU.19 Hence, in Italy, the “Mafia Capitale” scandal appears to confirm the worst fears that Italian institutions are indeed vulnerable to organized crime. Given that illicit markets and activities produce a third of the world economy, as has been observed, and considering the parallel relations between corruption and the political system in the global economy (Elliott, 1997; cit.), underlines how waste collection and recycling, similarly to the housing emergency, generate interests and income (See pp. 494, 554–563, 608–630, and 635–689). 13  See also the contribution of Vittorio Mete (2009) on this point. 14  Dissolution procedure foreseen in Article 143 (Consolidated Law Testo Unico on local authorities) published in the Official Journal of the Italian Republic (Gazzetta ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana). 15  The date of the founding of the institution as established by the decree law (DL) 164/1991, laying down “urgent measures for the dissolution of city and provincial councils and organs of local authorities, due to and being subject to infiltration of and conditioning by, mafia-like organized crime”. 16  See in Avviso Pubblico (site visited May 10, 2016) http://www.avvisopubblico.it/home/ wp-content/uploads/2015/11/tabella-eell-sciolti-2015-1.pdf 17  An NGO, founded in 1993, which carries out surveys and calculates statistics in 168 countries every year, drawing up a ranking of perceived level of corruption. 18  The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is based on opinions given by experts and economic actors on the level of corruption in the public sector. For an overview of the methods of analysis to monitor levels of corruption, see Susan Rose-Ackerman (ed.), 2006 (pp. 52–95) and Andrei, Matei and Roșca (2009, pp. 14–21). 19  Since only referring to national levels, the index is unable to highlight any particular regional difference in Italy. Nonetheless, according to Golden and Picci (2005), the level of corruption in the regions of southern Italy—including Lazio—is higher than in the rest of Italy, if taking the index relating public expenditures to infrastructures actually built, “meaning that government expenditures on infrastructure are used to produce fewer units of public capital than the national average in those regions”. See Golden and Pucci, in Rose-Ackerman (2006, p. 468).

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Rose-Ackerman, 1999, 2006), the corruption which permeated the Rome city council may well be typical of other localities, both nationally and internationally.

References Ambrosini, M. (2011). Sociologia delle migrazioni (2nd ed.). Il Mulino. Ambrosini, M., & Molina, S. (Eds.). (2004). Seconde generazioni. Un’introduzione al futuro dell’immigrazione in Italia. Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli. Amin, A. (2012). Land of Strangers. Polity Press. Amin, A., & Thrift, N. (2005). Città. Ripensare la dimensione urbana. Il Mulino. Andrei, T., Matei, A., & Roşca, I. G. (2009). The Corruption. An Economic and Social Analysis. Editura Economică. Bagnasco, A., & Le Gallès, P. (Eds.). (2000). Cities in Contemporary Europe. Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Polity. Beck, U. (2010). Potere e contro potere, nell’età globale. Laterza. Bergmann, E. (2018). Conspiracy & Populism. The Politics of Misinformation. Palgrave Macmillan. Bouteldja, H., & Khiari, S. (2011). Nous sommes les indigènes de la République. Edition Amsterdam. Broccolini, A. (2010). Lavorare a Banglatown. Attività commerciali e relazioni interculturali nella periferia romana di Torpignattara. In M.  R. Carli, G.  Di Cristofaro Longo, & I.  Fusco (Eds.), Identità mediterranea ed Europa. Mobilità, migrazioni, relazioni interculturali (pp.  243–298). Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Studi sulle Società del Mediterraneo. Broccolini, A. (2014). Torpignattara/Banglatown: Process of Reurbanization and Rhetorics of Locality in a Suburb of Rome. In I.  Clough-Marinaro & B.  Thomassen (Eds.), Global Rome. Changing Faces in the Eternal City (pp. 81–98). Indiana University Press. Bull, M. J., & Newell, J. L. (Eds.). (2003). Corruption in Contemporary Politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Castells, M. (1996). The Information Age. Economy, Society and Culture: The Rise of the Network Society (Vol. I). Blackwell. Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power. Oxford University Press. Cellamare, C. (Ed.). (2014). Roma, città autoprodotta. Ricerca urbana e linguaggi artistici. Manifestolibri. S.M.U.R. – Self-Made Urbanism Rome. Clough Marinaro, I. (2015). The Rise of Italy’s Neo-Ghettos. Journal of Urban History, 1–20. Colombo, E., & Rebughini, P. (2012). Children of Immigrants in a Globalized World. A Generational Experience. Basingstoke.

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Crouch, C., Le Galès, P., Trigilia, C., & Voelzkow, H. (2004). Changing Governance of Local Economies: Responses of European Local Production Systems. Oxford Press University. Davies, M. (2006). Planets of Slums. Verso. Dufaux, F., Fourcaut, A., & Skoutelsky, R. (2003). Faire l’histoire des grands ensembles. Bibliographie 1950–1980. ENS Editions. Eatwell, R., & Goodwin, M. (2018). National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Pelican. Elliott, K.  A. (Ed.). (1997). Corruption and the Global Economy. Institute for International Economics. Famiglietti, A., & Rebughini, P. (2008). Un consumo diverso è possibile: la via dei centri sociali. In L. Leonini & R. Sassatelli (Eds.), Il consumo critico. Pratiche, discorsi, reti (pp. 85–112). Laterza. Farro, A. L., & Maddanu, S. (2015). La scuola del mondo in un quartiere. Genitori ed esperienze di rigenerazione della vita sociale. Scuola Democratica, 1, 211–230. Ferrarotti, F. (1979). Roma da capitale a periferia. Laterza. Florida, R. (2012). The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited. Basic Books. Frisina, A. (2007). Giovani musulmani d’Italia. Carocci. Golden, M. A., & Picci, L. (2005). Proposal for a New Measure of Corruption, Illustrated with Italian Data. Economics and Politics, 17, 37–75. Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities. From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Verso. Johnson, R. A. (Ed.). (2004). The Struggle Against Corruption: A Comparative Study. Palgrave Macmillan. Khiari, S. (2006). Pour une politique de la racaille: Immigré-e-s, indigènes et jeunes de banlieues. Textuel. Lapeyronnie, D. (1997). Les deux figures de l’immigré. In Wieviorka, M. (dir.) Une société fragmentée: le multiculturalisme en débat. La Découverte (pp. 251–266). Lapeyronnie, D. (2008). Ghetto Urbain. Ségrégation, violence, pauvreté en France aujourd’hui. Robert Laffont. Le Galès, P. (2002). European Cities. Social Conflicts and Governance. Oxford University Press. Lochocki, T. (2018). The Rise of Populism in Western Europe. A Media Analysis on Failed Political Messaging. Springer. Maddanu, S. (2014). Gli Indigeni della Repubblica: il movimento post-coloniale in Francia e l’Islam. Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa, 2, 305–328. Mayer, M. (1993). The Role of Urban Social Movement Organizations in Innovative Urban Policies and Institutions. Topos Review of Urban and Regional Studies, (Special Issue), 209–226.

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Mayer, M. (2009). The ‘Right to the City’ in the Context of Shifting Mottos of Urban Social Movements. City, 13(2), 262–274. Mete, V. (2019). Italy: Politics, Local Government and Mafias. In F.  Allum & S.  Gilmour (Eds.), Handbook of Organised Crime and Politics (pp. 72–85). Edward Elgar Publishing. Novy, J., & Colomb, C. (2013). Struggling for the Right to the (Creative) City in Berlin and Hamburg: New Urban Social Movements, New ‘Spaces of Hope’? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(5), 1816–1838. Pompeo, F. (Ed.). (2011). Pigneto-Banglatown. Migrazioni e conflitti di cittadinanza in una periferia storica romana. Meti Edizioni. Pugliese, E. (2006). L’Italia tra migrazioni internazionali e migrazioni interne. Il Mulino. Rose-Ackerman, S. (1999). Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences, and Reform. Cambridge University Press. Rose-Ackerman, S. (Ed.). (2006). International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption. Edward Elgar. Sassen, S. (1998). Globalization and Its Discontents. The New Press. Severino, C.  G. (2005). Roma mosaico urbano. Il Pigneto fuori Porta Maggiore. Gangemi. Toscano, E. (2011). L’expérience italienne des Centres sociaux: résistance subjective et convivialité locale. In G.  Pleyers (Ed.), La consommation critique. Mouvements pour une alimentation responsable et solidaire (pp. 229–239). Descléede Brouwer. Touraine, A. (2013). La fin des sociétés. Seuil. Valluvan, S. (2020). The Clamour of Nationalism: Race and Nation in Twenty-­ First-­Century Britain. Manchester University Press. Vannucci, A. (2012). Atlante della corruzione. Edizioni Gruppo Abele. Wagner-Egger, P., Delouvée, S., Gauvrit, N., & Dieguez, S. (2018). Creationism and Conspiracism Share a Common Teleological Bias. Current Biology, 28(16), 867–868. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.072 Wihtol De Wenden, C. (2012). Atlas des migrations. Un équilibre mondial à inventer. Autrement. Yates, D. (1977). The Ungovernable City: The Politics of Urban Problems and Policy Making. The MIT Press.

Reports Cox, D. A., & Halpin, J. (2020, October 13). Conspiracy Theories, Misinformation, COVID-19, and the 2020 Election Findings. The September 2020 American Perspectives Survey. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/ conspiracy-­theories-­misinformation-­covid-­19-­and-­the-­2020-­election

PART I

Extreme Rome

CHAPTER 2

On the Coast of the Capital

2.1   Community Closures 2.1.1  Negative Subjectivation and Acts of Violence At the end of the last century, the presence of migrants arriving in Italy originating from different parts of the world became a significant factor. After the relatively contained number in the seventies, in the decades following, the numbers progressively grew, no least due to closure of frontiers towards international migration put into effect by various countries, such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (Pugliese, 2006), which had historically been the destination of migrants. In the early nineties, how these migrants were welcomed and inserted into Italy varied considerably, resulting in previously unknown issues developing. Essentially, now as then, the country has been subject to economic, social, cultural, and political changes, intertwined with the processes of European integration and challenges of globalization (Ambrosini, 2008). The new issues, which have arisen, and the subsequent challenges in interpreting and dealing with them, need to be considered in order to discern and understand the increasing number of manifestations of hostility and tension, and acts of outright rejection and closure, on the part of national citizens towards immigrants (Bonifazi, 2006; Koopmans et al., 2005, pp. 209–215). Such hostility sometimes has even degenerated into acts of violence. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_2

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In the early nineties, a significant number of outbreaks of violence occurred in different parts of the country. These incidents were officially identified as manifestations of xenophobia: in the first four years of the decade, 199 such episodes were registered in Italy, with 40% in the Lazio Region alone (Eurispes, 1993).1 In the same region, in the Rome City Council Area, extreme manifestations of violence of a xenophobic nature were reported, including assaults on immigrants carried out by Italian citizens. A dozen of these violent episodes were registered between 1992 and 19932 in Ostia, a coastal area under the jurisdiction of the capital, coming under the X Municipal district3 (ex. XIII District and XIII Municipal) of  Eurispes data taken from reports from law enforcement agencies.  Field notes based on information provided by close witnesses and in particular by Massimiliano Di Giorgio, whom we thank here, chronicler of Ostia of L’Unità at the time and analyst of the local periodicals Giornale di Ostia and Metropolis. 3  The territory of the Municipality of Rome consists of an historical, urban and administrative subdivision. The historical subdivision is toponymic, whereby the Municipality of Rome includes 22 central districts of the city, 35 outer districts, 32 urban districts around the Aurelian walls, 3 marine areas, 6 suburbs and 53 areas which, together with another 7 belonging to the municipal area of Fiumicino, make up the Agro Romano. The urban subdivision established in 1977 consists of 155 homogeneous urban zones, each with a numerical code that designates the Municipality to which they belong, and by a letter that specifies the territorial portion. The administrative subdivision concerns the Municipalities established in 2001 to replace the Circumscriptions, the previous municipal divisions. In 1969, there were 12 Circumscriptions, and 20 by 1972. Their institutional bodies were appointed by the Municipal Council until 1981, when they were open to election through universal suffrage (Seronde Babonaux, 1983, p. 425). In 1992 the Circumscriptions were reduced to 19: following a popular referendum, the XIV District detached itself from the Municipality of Rome and constituted the Municipality of Fiumicino. The remaining Circumscriptions that followed the XIV district kept the original numbering—XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX and XX Circumscription. The 19 districts remaining in the Municipality of Rome took the name of Municipi in 2001.In 2013, the number of Municipalities was reduced to 15, with territories being unified through the Statute of the Municipality of Rome approved by the Capitoline Assembly (Resolution no. 8 of 7 March 2013) and ratified by the Capitoline Assembly itself. (Resolution no.11 of 11 March 2013). The new structure of the 15 Municipalities of Rome constituted were as follows: I from the pre-existing territories of I and XVII Municipalities; II from the pre-existing ones of II and III; III from the pre-existing IV; IV from the pre-­ existing V; V from the pre-existing VI and VII; VI from the pre-existing VIII; VII from the pre-existing IX and X; VIII from the pre-existing XI; IX from the pre-existing XII; X from the pre-existing XIII; XI from the pre-existing XV; XII from the pre-existing XVI; XIII from the pre-existing XVIII; XIV from the pre-existing XIX; XV from the pre-existing XX. XVII from the pre-existing XVIII; XIV from the pre-existing XIX; XV from the pre-existing XX. Following the toponymic or historical delimitation of the Territory of the Municipality 1 2

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Rome, essentially made up of three districts, Quartieri di Lido di Ostia Levante, Lido di Ostia Ponente, and Lido di Castel Fusano.4 As we shall see, the area is sociologically composite, characterized by varying cultural contexts, social situations and individual or group action (see Sect. 2.1). One particular episode, which happened a little after the end of 1993, in February 1994, culminated in the stabbing of a Tunisian migrant—the event received national media coverage.5 The assault occurred during the night between 19th and 20th of February, the assailants being a group of eighty youths just back from a night at a discotheque on the lido, a club to which they were frequent visitors. Furthermore, these young people themselves defined themselves politically and culturally on the far-right, promoters and supporters of fascism and Nazi world visions, so they were well coached, as it were, to manifest their hostility towards immigrants. The assault occurred on the route of the bus line from Ostia to Fiumicino (a city council created in 1992 with the separation of the XIX Municipal district from the administrative jurisdiction of the Rome City Council). The young Tunisian suffered fractures, severe bruising, and wounds in various parts of his body. A knife was also used in the assault. Ten youths were identified as being responsible for the attack and were stopped by the police. Nine of them were then actually arrested. Among these, one was identified as being responsible for the stabbing during the assault, a boy called Paolo,6 who was barely twenty. After some not particularly brilliant of Rome, the XIII District included the XXXIII Lido di Ostia neighborhood, Ponente, Q. XXXIV Lido di Ostia Levante and XXXV Lido di Castel Fusano along with Areas XXVIII Tor de ‘Cenci, XXIX Castel Porziano, XXX Castello Fusano, XXXII Acilia Nord, Z. XXXIII Acilia Sud, Z. XXXIV Casal Palocco and XXXV Ostia Antica. In 2001, the Circumscriptions took the name of Municipality: the XIII District became the XIII Municipality. In 2013, following changes in the administrative subdivision of Roma Capitale, the territory of the XIII Municipality took the name of X Municipality. 4  Following the toponymic or historical delimitation of the Territory of the Municipality of Rome, XIII District includes, XXXIII Lido di Ostia Ponente, Q.  XXXIV Lido di Ostia Levante and XXXV Lido di Castel Fusano districts, along with XXVIII Tor de ‘Cenci, XXIX Zones Castel Porziano, XXX Castle Fusano, XXXII Acilia Nord, Z.  XXXIII Acilia Sud, Z. XXXIV Casal Pasco and XXXV Ostia Antica. In 2001 the Circumscriptions took the name of Town Hall: XIII District became Municipality XIII., Following changes in the administrative subdivision of Roma Capitale, Municipality XIII became Municipality X, in 2013. 5   See for example, Chianura (1994) http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/enforcement/repubblica/1994/02/21/terror-razzista-ostia-in-80-linciano-un.html (accessed on April 1, 2016). 6  Field notes and notes from an interview carried out in the summer of 1994, with Paolo, a pseudonym to safeguard the anonymity of the interviewee, as in all cases included in this book.

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school results, He had been trying to build a life for himself while remaining in his family home. We met Paolo near his home a few months later, following his release during the period of his trial. He was quite aware of the worry he was causing his family, his mother in particular, especially after the events concerning the assault. Paolo explained what happened to us, as follows: I was in the company of a girl on a bus, and I was feeling tensed up…I saw him (the assaulted Tunisian), and I recognized him…he’s a drug pusher …I lost my head…I wanted to hit him…I hit him—I couldn’t stand looking at him anymore… Q (Question). But is that a good enough reason for assaulting him in the way you did? I told you. I was wound up, there was the girl, there were the others…People like him ruin us…he’s a drug dealer…he comes to us here and pushes drugs… Where you high? Who knows?…people like him ruin us…they push drugs…they come to us here and drug push. You’re hardly obliged to take drugs… Ok, but they are an annoyance for everyone here…the foreigners in Ostia…they bother the girls…the women…they work for next to nothing. Do your friends think the same way? P.  More or less…everyone’s watching these migrants…nobody can stand them. The press says the attackers were fascists. I’m against this, all this mess…I don’t see the point of studying…then I can’t find a job…you meet up…be together with others…there are girls…you want to feel good…but you get angry against this society which makes you feel bad…the foreigners are the last straw…order is the answer. Are you a fascist? I don’t know how to answer that. My grandfather talked of Mussolini…he had a bust of Il Duce…I liked what he told me about fascism…that people lived well…there was order…Italians were well respected…you found work. Do you think things would be better if fascism returned? I don’t know…but I want to think that things can be better than they are…to be respected…to find work…not to have foreigners who take away things from Italians…who push drugs.7

7  It should also be added that at the goodbyes at the end of the interview, my interlocutor asked me whether I would be driving past Termini station, at the Centre of Rome, where, he related, I could easily buy some “stuff” from drug dealers.

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Paolo is struggling to construct an identity for himself, a role in a social context where he feels invisible forces are working against him, keeping him at arms’ distance, denying him an adequate position in society. He finds it impossible to assert himself, and to make his own life choices, which he would like to make in a culturally homogenous community. He feels there is no escape from the political, cultural, or social dominion he feels subjected to, and from the disorder in which he maintains he finds himself overwhelmed by, and for which he blames the same forces of domination. He vents his frustration and hostility on the figure of the immigrant, to his mind, guilty of subtracting work from Italians, of occupying spaces, which should be his by right, but which are denied to him and other young people in Ostia or Italians in general. In this way, Paolo is attempting to assert himself by pursuing a negative subjectivation—he aims to assert himself as an individual, negating others the chance of asserting themselves, in their turn, as individuals, negating immigrants, viewed as foreign bodies, injurious to his vital space and community, where he would like to live out his own existence. Hence, he is looking for a utopian order to impose on others. The act of physical aggression represents the extreme expression of his rejection of the “foreign body”, seen in the figure of the immigrant. The emergence of this negative subjectivation contributed to the formation of Paolo’s group of friends. As individuals, they share the need to assert themselves in a context perceived as hostile and characterized by the existence of sterile powers, incapable of creating future prospects for young people and guaranteeing a social order to safeguard the continuation of the community. The community should be so organized as to protect the interests of those who have a right to be protected, a right held according to the natural order of things, due to their nationality and cultural origins. The group sees itself as working for a form of exclusive communitarianism for individuals who naturally belong to it, with the aim of creating a new, cohesive society, where individual identity is merged with that of the community. The difficulties related to immigration have become part of a political and public agenda in a profoundly changed context: the global nature of migration is intertwined with the decline of a society based on identification with the Nation state. In the early nineties, its actors, meanwhile, and their relationship to the institutions, and the organization of same, were exposed to important political changes and their repercussions on a planetary scale, essentially due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the start

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of globalization and its subsequent effects (Sassen, 1998; Findlay & O’Rourke, 2007, pp. 473–546; Piketty, 2013, pp. 481–748). The Italian political parties themselves had to reorganize after the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Bloc.8 Faced with the unfolding of the new planetary context, some were induced to redefine their party’s name and identity, others, even to dissolve, owing to national events. Meanwhile, new political forces emerged, which were destined to cover important government roles in the forthcoming decades.9 In terms of agenda, politicians had to reinvent their approach to traditional issues of confrontation, such as work, employment and the welfare system, areas (interpreted differently, as was the case) seen by the main political parties as progressively requiring adaptation to the new national and international economic and social context (Paci, 2005; Paci & Pugliese, 2011). This was accompanied by the emergence of global migration as one of the new crucial issues that political forces had to face and one which created further tension between the various parties, as diverse approaches were adopted, the Northern League (Lega Nord (NL) and the National Alliance (NA) expressing greater apprehension at the phenomena of migrants and how they might affect the country.

8  The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a liberal-style globalization process are part of an overall picture, with its effect being felt at national and local levels, as well. On the national political level, the main opposition party of the left, the Italian Communist Party (PCI), transformed into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), aiming to lead to country. The most important governing parties, the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Socialist Party, disappeared from the national political arena, being replaced by the centre-right grouping made up of Forza Italia (FI), The Northern League (Lega Nord, NL) and the National Alliance party (Alleanza Nazionale, AN), the latter largely made up by former leaders and members of the dissolved far-right Italian Social Movement. 9  Interventions by the Judiciary denouncing major episodes of corruption also contributed to the break up of important governmental political forces, such as the Christian Democratic party (DC) and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), with their members joining other formations. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the majority of the Italian Communist Party, PCI, constituted a new political force—the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), while a minority founded the Communist Refoundation Party. The neo-fascist far-right, essentially from the Italian Social Movement, constituted the National Alliance party (Alleanza Nazionale, AN), making an open play to participate in the democratic process. Finally, other important forces on the centre-right were founded—Forza Italia (FI) and Lega Nord (LN). An AN-FI-LN alliance was to go on to govern Italy for the best part of the next twenty years, characterizing the evolution of the political system in this period (Sartori, 1992; Grilli di Cortona, 2007; Damilano, 2012).

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On a local level, in Rome and in Ostia, particularly, NA entered the political debate, denouncing the increasing numbers of migrants, and taking on the role as “political defender” of the real interests, identity and culture of the Italians. In Ostia, the party presented itself as mainly defending the working classes, a section of the population considered most affected by the presence of migrants. In particular, as migrants were prepared to accept lower payments, they became competitive on the job market. Moreover, members of the working classes saw the migrants as responsible for the rise in anti-social behaviour and an overall deterioration of the area as a living space. The exponents of the party distanced themselves, however, from the acts of violence suffered by immigrants, and officially condemned the assault on the Tunisian in February, 1994, while refusing, it should be added, to see this act of aggression as motivated by xenophobia and racism. According to these exponents, the assault was the result of other factors—mainly that the migrant was a drug-pusher, with the result that the figure of a drug dealer was superimposed onto that of a migrant. Though the act was not taken to be as justified, there was no recognition of the racist and xenophobic dimension of the attack. In actual fact, following the assault, the same Tunisian was repeatedly stopped by the police for drug dealing. As a result, exponents of the NA even made parliamentary interpellations, asking the government to clarify why a news story, at the moment of its unfolding, was presented as an act of racial aggression.10 With this institutional intervention, the NA wanted to ­present itself on a local level as the party capable of acting on an institutional level on behalf of a section of the population in Ostia (including its 10  The National Alliance member of Parliament Teodoro Buontempo was among the main supporters of this position. In this regard, he would also present a written parliamentary question to the Minister of the Interior requiring a written response: “Given that: three days ago the Tunisian citizen Ali Sadaani was arrested in Ostia for the third time for drug dealing; this gentleman became famous in February 1994 for being beaten up near the bus line 02 by a group of skinheads, interpreted by politicians and press as an act of racist aggression; the undersigned, left unheeded, hypothesized that perhaps rather than racially motivated, the attack could well be a settling of accounts between drug dealers; in September 1994 Sadaani was arrested for drug dealing, why then have the authorities in charge not yet taken steps to expel this Tunisian citizen from Italy, given his proven danger to society and his recidivism for the same type of crime, and, if the aforementioned Alì Sadaani is by any chance still at large, what restrictive measures are being envisaged for this individual?”. Written question 4/12603 presented by Buontempo Teodoro (AN) on 28 July 1995: http://dati.camera.it/ ocd/aic.rdf/aic4_12603_12 (accessed on June 6, 2016).

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young people), which saw itself as being particularly exposed to the negative impact of immigration. In this way, defence of the community from the effects of immigration found institutional implementation.

2.2   Young People and Migrants During the research in Ostia, we wanted to study in greater depth the themes and topics connected to immigration by setting up a focus group11 and inviting some young people, including some of those involved in the reported xenophobic incident occurring in the area, to take part. Some of the participants, while not actually implicated in the attack on the Tunisian, were sympathetic towards the aggressors, or even approved of the action. During the focus group, referring to events concerning the assault on the Tunisian, first Adolfo—a name he chose himself—made the following comment: I don’t beat up Communists and immigrants, only if they cause me trouble or someone that I know: For example, the Tunisian they beat up, was push11  Antimo L.  Farro and Francesca Tei conducted a focus group (two meetings, one on 09-04-1994 and the second, on 04-26-1994) involving a total of 13 young people residing in the working-class district of the Ostia coastal area called Nuova Ostia (see Sect. 2.3). Indicated with pseudonyms to safeguard anonymity, the participants were: (1) Andrea, 17, third year accountancy student, father traffic warden and mother teacher, one of his brothers, tire dealer (currently in the army) and another student of ISEF; (2) Buciolo, 17 years old, bartender, eighth grade, father, ticket agent for Acotral and mother cleaner, his brother, studying accountancy; (3) Boys, 17 years old, third year accountancy student, father policeman and mother teacher, a sister in elementary school; (4) Daniele, 17, third year accountancy student, father employee and mother housewife, a sister in middle school; (5) Benito, 17, third year accountancy student, father employee and mother housewife, a university student sister; (6) Francesco, 19 years old, final year at linguistic high school, the parents PE teachers, a younger brother at the linguistic high school; (7) Adolfo, 18, fourth year accountancy student, father restaurant manager and mother owner of a flower shop, a brother, first year accountancy; (8) Gabriele, 19, fourth year accountancy student, father furniture restorer and mother housewife, a sister studying languages in ​​ England; (9) Gigi, 18, a third year accountancy student, parents running a bar, a sister with a diploma attending the supplementary/foundation year to enter the University, and a brother in middle school; (10) Girl from the Front, 15 years old, third grade, parents running a bar and siblings in elementary school; (11) Secco, 18, third year accountancy student, father employee and mother housewife, brother with a scientific high school diploma employed at the Vatican; (12) Simone, 17 years old, student, employee parents, a graduate sister and another in middle school; (13) Svimpello, 15 years old, second year accountancy student, father a policeman and mother a housewife, a policeman brother.

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ing drugs and had some drug deal going on with one of the group which beat him up. Of course, there has to be a good reason for beating up a foreigner.

These young people look around in search of some affinity among the institutional political agendas and proposals. The corruption of national and local politicians, highlighted by judicial inquiries, has also damaged democratic institutions and parliament, in particular, as well as the principles which inspired the antifascist Constitution of 1948. The attention given to the working classes by some NA representatives in Lazio wanted to latch onto the needs of young people such as them in the metropolitan outskirts, for example Ostia. With integration being delegated to the forces of the free market, these youths are, in actually fact, relegated to precarious and marginalized conditions, in a context characterized by, in terms of the Central-South economy, structural employment conditions whereby a percentage of young people are unable to find even their first employment, even when employment conditions are at their highest. The themes of the “social right” were particularly supported in Rome by high profile advocators (people seen, at least in Rome, as figures of a certain standing by the general populace) of the NA, such as Teodoro Buontempo, elected as Member of Parliament in the spring elections of 1994, precisely in the constituency of Ostia. Exponents like Buontempo, recalling the traditions and position of the former Italian Social Movement (MSI) political party, contested the liberal-democratic transformation of the right, once openly neo-fascist, within the new political party of the NA. However, some of the young people involved in the research did not consider the NA and its exponents as fully supporting their acts of protest. Gabriele and Francesco, for example, were critical of some of the national and local exponents of the NA: I don’t like Fini12 because he’s a turncoat. Er Pecora [Roman dialect nickname of Teodoro Buontempo of the NA] has disappointed me because in the electoral campaign he criticized the lads who duffed up Ali Sadaan [the Tunisian]: they did the right thing. [Gabriele]. Even though the right has won, not a fucking thing will change. Fini is no longer a fascist and Buontempo counts for nothing. They’re both just

 Gianfranco Fini was the main leader of the party at that time.

12

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idiots. The Fronte della Gioventù13 is not what it used to be. For a handful of votes, Fini has effectively swiped out years and years of history. [Francesco].

The increasing access to a more global cultural consumption and a more fudged definition of national entity, in terms of cultural homogeneity and identity, constitute a threat to how these young people define themselves as part of a history and a common, unified present. The presence of immigrants, who bring other lifestyles and cultures, are seen, essentially due to the colour of their skin, as a visible representation of an unwanted transformation of an imaginary community or society, which is founded, among others, on racial characteristics. During the focus group, Francesco stated: The French are a great people, who know how to be nationalistic in a way we don’t. They have a strong national identity, while the Italian kid sees himself as American. They only remember they’re Italian when they go and see the national football team at the stadium. Nowadays, people see themselves as Genovese, Milanese, some are ‘surfers’.14 Growing up, a boy has contact now with too many cultures, especially with the American culture, bombarded through television by the mass media and billboards. We’re no more than an American fiefdom: this is destroying our nation.

In Rome, NA opposed the policy of the central-left Rome City Council, headed by the mayor of that time, Francesco Rutelli, on the question of the nomads. The policy, contested for the way it was implemented with the help of catholic and lay volunteers and charity workers, but above all, for how it diametrically opposed the thinking and logic of the right, foresaw the creation of well-equipped camps on the furthest outskirts of the city, together with a system of identifying individuals and regulating the flow of entry, all with the aim of integrating the nomad population into the prevailing one. In the spring of 1994, Domenico Gramazio, an NA MP, championed groups of citizens living in the districts on the periphery where the camps were set to be located. For example, on June 14th, he held a meeting in Tor de Cenci, in the far south of the city, against the transfer of 35 Romani families into a neighbouring area, as foreseen by the city council’s project. Some high-profile exponents of the extra  The AN Youth Organization.  Name attributed to groups of young people distinguishable by their clothing and particular behaviour. 13 14

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parliamentary far-right, openly violent and racist, were also participating in the protest. The question of the Romani people and immigration was central to the political rhetoric of the new right, both on a local and national level. The everyday life of young people who collocate themselves on the far-right is particularly susceptible to the increasing presence of immigrants, both on a national and on local level, the specific context where these young people live on a daily basis. The XIII Municipal district of Rome City Council,15 which includes the Ostia area, had been affected by the presence of foreign citizens well before the last ten years of the twentieth century. In the early sixties, Jewish Soviets fleeing the USSR and the constant repression to which they were subject, took refuge and temporarily settled in the area. Once they had left to reach their preferred destinations, North America or Australia, these refugees were subsequently replaced by others, this time from Vietnam, in the early eighties. At about the same time, approximately 4000 other refugees arrived, including Christian Iraqis, fleeing from persecution in their own country, and Palestinians, leaving the decades-long conflict persisting in their territories. From the second half of the eighties up to the early nineties, in the same area, Polish refugees also embarked, along with Somali refugees. In the eighties, Ostia was also home to Iranian university students, and seasonal Tunisian migrants.16 In 1991, in the XIII Municipal district as it was then, out of the 161,252 residents, 2397 were foreign residents (ISTAT).17 In the early nineties, significant numbers of foreign citizens were registered, when international migration was affected by the reality of planetary globalization, migratory movements being triggered, as noted (See Sect. 2.1), at the fall of the Soviet Union, and upon the assertion of an economic development determined by the liberal matrix, characterized by a predominance of free market forces and an increasing social disparity. The presence of foreign citizens in Ostia can be understood in the context of migrating populations existing on a planetary scale, involving an ever-increasing number of people, with international migrants leaving their country of origin to find 15  The XIII District, like the other 18 districts of the Capital, took the name of Municipality in 2001. In 2013 there was an administrative reorganization which reduced the number of Rome Municipalities from 19 to 15. The territory of Ostia remained within the 10th Municipality. 16  Information on the presences of foreigners in Ostia was taken from daily and periodical press reports published by Corriere della sera (30-12-1981) and L’Espresso (N. 20-04-1984). 17  13th General Population Census, October 1991. Source: ISTAT, Rome, 1995.

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refuge in other countries.18 Hence, the presence of foreign citizens in Ostia from the early nineties onwards should be set against a context characterized by previously unknown problems, which had arisen from political, social, economic, and cultural issues originating from a new global setup. This new world arrangement, producing international migration, has appeared due to planetary imbalances and the new dominant forces which shape them (Arrighi & Silver, 2003; Stiglitz, 2002). The hostility shown towards migrants on the part of some young people in Ostia can be considered as an expression of a more overall rejection of this new global social, economic, cultural, and political setup, as they see their own living space being caught up in this unprecedented state of affairs. The young people of Ostia met in this research resented how things were going on a world basis, and hoped to extrapolate themselves from this reality by constructing a way of life based on a closed community. Their understanding of a community was based on the exclusion of those not sharing the same origins and culture. A single action or a single word which expresses hostility and rejection of migrants in Ostia can be seen in terms of an affirmation of negative subjectivation, that is, the construction of self-involving the negation of the subjectivity and dignity of another. Through imagining a reality—an integral community—which forbids inconsistencies, this affirmation of subjectivity simultaneously asserts the existence of the individual and also their rebellion against social, economic, cultural, and political exclusion. So, an act of violence gives expression to the rejection of a cultural compromise and any action going against their view of an integral community, that “vision of a community”. This view does not necessarily entail maintaining traditional lifestyles, where women, for instance, are seen in traditional social and cultural roles. Instead, a community is envisaged whereby both men and women close ranks to protect the integrity of their community from what is seen as a punitive social structuring of which migrants are a direct manifestation. One girl in the focus group, the “Ragazza del Fronte” (the nickname she gave herself) saw being a fascist as belonging to a group, which gave 18  The United Nations designates persons who live outside their country of birth or citizenship as international migrants. Hence, citizens who migrate for economic and social reasons are included among international migrants, as well as others forced to leave their country to escape wars or to escape political, cultural, religious or racial persecution, to seek asylum and be recognized as refugees in host countries (UN, General Assembly, July 2013, International Migration and Development. Report of Secretary-General).

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concrete expression and actively promoted this exclusive community. As she stated: I am a fascist, I joined the Fronte Della Gioventù to understand what it was about and now I agree with their ideals. I don’t see myself as a Nazi, I agree with the ideas of the Right concerning immigration. We can’t welcome these migrants, give them work and other things—we suffer, and so do they. I’m particularly against the Poles: I had a bad experience with some of them, which I don’t want to talk about. They cause trouble, you see them on the sidewalks, drinking, they’re responsible for many things.

Migrants are also attacked for some factors, which are seen as intrinsic to them, such as the belonging to a particular racial group, as put by Svimpello: Immigrants are a source of degradation, they stink. I’m against a multiracial society. Italy for the Italians! I’m against the immigrants who are tramps, not those who work.

Some positions are more radical, which on verbal level at least, express a cultural, social, and political rejection of immigrants tout court. The rejection of immigration also involves issues of social and cultural discrimination. As Francesco stated: Work has certainly nothing to do with it. The point is this—I belong to a certain race and culture: I have certain origins. I was born in a European culture, an Italian culture, and I don’t see why I have to live with people who don’t belong to my own culture.

In their talk, their reference to community had historical connotations with the fascist regime. Gabriele defined himself as fascist and openly racist: In this precise moment [to be fascist] means having a certain way of life. First and foremost I’m undercover as it’s illegal to be a fascist in Italy. Instead, the democratic Right is in the government. […] I believe fascism to be a deeply engrained ideology—it was the greatest movement in the last hundred years. I like il Duce as an individual, someone who knew how to gain respect. He took power by himself. He did many things: he reclaimed Ostia as an area. He built l’EUR…[…] I’m a racist, I believe in protecting one’s race. The white race to which I belong: I’ve checked the last four

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generations of my family and I have no Jewish ancestors. I’d be upset if I learnt I had Jewish ancestors. I’m not ashamed of being a racist. People in Africa are certainly inferior in terms of potential. The only place which is developed there is South Africa, and that’s because the whites developed it […] I can’t see any black man who’s my equal. Besides the fact, I shouldn’t even have to see one, unless in some kind of folklore setting, as a tourist.

For some of the participants, migrants constitute a threat to the job market, altering the balance of demand and supply. The purely racial issue was overlooked by some in favour of the need to give preference to nationals in terms of employment: I wouldn’t have problems in having a child with a Senegalese woman rather than with a Swiss woman or an Italian. I have it in for those who steal our jobs, that steal and who push drugs. If they don’t compete with my on the job front, I have no complaints. So, it’s not a question of race, but of work and public order safety. (Daniele).

This issue was particularly felt by those who feared economic difficulties and precarious employment. For Gabriele, If the darkies are kicked out, this won’t up our chances of us finding work. We can’t find work due to the present crisis. I’m not up on economic problems, but it’s true foreigners are doing all the undeclared work. I’ve realized that: if you look for a job as a labourer on the beach, you see that all the jobs are in the hands of the Poles, because they’re prepared to accept 50,000 lire a day, while you can’t give less than 70–80,000 lire a day to an Italian lad.

The presence of migrants in Italy follows the migratory movements occurring on a global scale and would certainly not have left untouched localities, such as Ostia, already a traditional destination for migrants. Whether having arrived before or after the early nineties, as newly arrived or children of the same, as individuals or as a group, these migrants are attempting to find a niche for themselves in the surrounding cultural and social context, which itself is undergoing important modifications, creating a state of uncertainly for the domestic population, on an individual and collective basis. The right-wing young people met in the research responded to these changes by turning against what they perceived as an unacceptable systemic context—socially, economically, culturally, and politically. They appealed to social, economic, cultural, and political

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factors to give a raison d’être to this rejection, while the fascist ideals they pursued provided, in turn, the basis onto which to ground their beliefs. These ideals gave form to their revolt, rather than indicating a feasible project to implement following the footsteps of past fascism, seen as a violent but anachronistic phenomenon, out-of-date in relation to the present times. On this point, Francesco commented: Fascism will never return to Italy: fascism is history. When someone today declares themselves to be fascist, as I do myself, these are only words, and an adherence to an ideology. Why do we feel this ideology is worth adhering to? The word fascist refers to those who died defending the Italian Social Republic and the Bunker in Berlin. Today the world has changed. People involved in politics today, someone who is militant or an activist, like me, on the far-right or on the far left, no longer believes in the struggle to take power: politics is for the politicians. Instead, we act to have our voices heard, to let others know that we exist, as well, that there are people not only concerned with eating and sleeping. We want a better life, not this false democracy.

The revolt is expressed through the rejection of a situation which is seen to be unacceptable, due to the presence of migrants in Ostia itself (but not only), where these young people of the far-right live together with their families, an area considered to be highly degraded by all, residents and non-residents, alike: New Ostia (see Sect. 2.3.) e its piazza Gasparri which symbolizes the centre, has become symbolic of the urban decay on the Roman coastal area.

2.3   Territory and Population In the nineties, Ostia was part of the then existing XIII Municipal district of the city council of Rome. Ostia, situated in the territory where the city of the marine port of ancient Rome used to exist, had been reduced to mere swamps through centuries of abandonment, until the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s, when the area was reclaimed through government intervention, and initiatives taken by farm labourer cooperatives and businesspeople interested in its development (Josia, 1986, pp.  15–17). The construction of modern Ostia began between 1915 and 1928 with urban, infrastructure, and housing projects being implemented, following a coastal development and a connection to the

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capital via a road juncture and a railway. The area took form in mainly two ways. In one direction there were edifices destined for services, infrastructures, and institutions, such as school buildings, the large structure of the naval residence of Vittorio Emanuele III, the central station, the main post office, barracks, and the government building. Instead, in the other direction, small villas and housing were built along the seaside, for the fascist hierarchy or the upper middle classes, mainly to be used as holiday homes, and housing destined for the working classes in the more inner areas. The coastal area, however, mainly took on the character of a seaside resort, acquiring the name Ostia Lido di Roma. From Rome, the resort was easily accessed by various groups of people—those who had second homes there, those who had the means for periodic or temporary stays, and those involved in organizations promoted by the fascist regime, such as marine recreational clubs or workmen’s clubs (De Nisi, 1983). The Second World War caused significant destruction of infrastructures, public spaces, and housing in Ostia. The post-war reconstruction saw new infrastructures being built, such as various railway lines and connections, as well as buildings destined for public use or housing. As a result, the whole area of Ostia underwent significant urban expansion. The change undergone by Ostia was part of a more complex expansion and development of a large part of the Roman territory, characterized by very little urban planning, and which continued into the following decades (Seronde Babonaux, 1983, pp. 339–369). The Ostia urban expansion mainly entailed three forms of settlement. The first consisted of residential complexes, facilities to welcome tourists, and beach clubs. The second constituted working-class areas, similar to those appearing in other parts of Rome.19 The third type of settlement was the spontaneously built housing, that is, constructions which were put up illegally, without planning permission, carried out primarily by people originating from Lazio and southern areas of Italy: the containers were makeshift, essentially slums built in brick and corrugated iron (Ferrarotti, 19  Ferrarotti distinguishes two types of “borgate” or peripheric areas: one made up of the so-called “official boroughs”, built from the Fascist era onwards, through the interventions of entities such as the Autonomous Institute for Popular Houses (IACP) developed from Istituto Case Popolari (ICP) established in 1903, INA casa (see next chapter), Gescal (House Management for Workers, developed from the INA-Casa), and the Municipality of Rome. The other type of “borgata” is made up of “aggregates of illegal constructions that have arisen on the far outskirts of the city or in the Roman Agro-Roman area on illegally parcelled land, that is, parcelled out outside the regulatory plan” (Ferrarotti, 1979, p. 49).

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1979, p. 49). Older settlements, such as the fishing village at Canale and the Agricolo village in Ostia Antica, ended up incorporated into this process of urban expansion. The urban coastal area of Ostia, continued to expand, as did the area of the capital, during the 2000s. In this period the growth of urbanization and expansion extended beyond the symbolic boundary traced along the route of the Grande Raccordo Anulare (Great Ring Road) (Pietrolucci, 2012), stretching beyond the administrative border of the Rome City Council and meeting the urban development of other city councils, provinces and metropolitans, and regions bordering on Lazio (Crisci, 2010).

2.4   Territorial and Demographic Changes In the decades following the Second World War, a significant increase in the size of the population of Rome City Council, including the areas of Agro romana and Ostia, was registered (Seronde Babonaux, 1983, pp. 239–322). This demographic growth steadily continued up until the nineties, when it slowed down and began to decline. The most significant increase was registered in Ostia: in the decades following 1951, the resident population increase was remarkable, with an increase of 600%, from 1951 to 1981, more than doubling between 1961 (more than 25,000 residents) and 1971 (see Table 2.1). Following this notable increase in the number of its residents, Ostia was no longer just a tourist resort, attracting holiday makers or day commuters from the capital during the summer months. During the sixties and seventies, a significant amount of housing was built, changing the character of Ostia into an important residential area. New urban areas, some legal, others not, were built on the outskirts where Ostia met other areas of the Rome metropolitan in expansion (see Sect. 2.1.).

Table 2.1  Rome and Ostia resident population, from 1951 to 2001a

Rome Ostia

1951

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

1,653,161 13,777

2,188,160 25,007

2,781,993 59,650

2,896,407 82,846

2,775,250 79,613

2,546,804 76,572

Source: ISTAT Rome, population Census The Ostia data shown in the table refer to the Lido di Ostia Levante and Lido di Ostia Ponente districts

a

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Individual citizens and families were attracted to settling in these areas due to the low-cost housing, or for being assigned council houses or flats. Besides the economical aspect, people were encouraged to the move to the area for two other reasons. First of all, a section of these people moved to be nearer their place of work, particularly civil aviation personnel, Ostia being in close proximity to Fiumicino Airport, opened in 1961. Then, in more general terms, Ostia was in easy access to the centre and other areas of Rome on the side of Ostia, due to roadways and the railway (see Sect. 2.1). The population growth and urban expansion of Ostia resulted in the development of a large residential area, with infrastructures and services, becoming as such a conspicuous part of Rome City Council. According to the criteria of the Campidoglio toponymic subdivision, the two coastal districts of Lido di Ostia Levante and Lido di Ostia Ponente define the extension of Ostia, which, in turn, together with other areas, comes under the administrative area of the then existing XIII Municipal district. Ostia covered a huge area, and this, together with it being 20  km from the Centre of Rome, caused many Ostia inhabitants, in the late eighties, to call for the area to become an independent city council. However, such a move was defeated in a referendum20 held in 1989, and Ostia remained under the jurisdiction of the Rome-City Council.21 Apart from being relatively distant from the centre of the capital, it manifested its own cultural and social peculiarities: at the beginning of 2000, it presented strong contrasts between some residential areas situated in Casalpalocco, and others, such as the working–class areas in the coastal districts.

20  The referendum was held in June 1989, but the outcome was negative, since the quorum was not reached, only 32.75% of valid votes being cast. However, the distribution by territorial area shows that the sum of the votes of Lido Ostia Levante, Lido Castelfusano and Lido Ostia Ponente indicates a slight prevalence in favor and the vote of the inland areas closest to Rome (Acilia, Casal Palocco, Castel Porziano, Castel Fusano and Ostia Antica) would be decisive in overturning the outcome of the referendum. 21  Between the late eighties and early nineties, citizens and organizations of Fiumicino and nearby areas, XIV district of the administrative territory of the Municipality of Rome, faced similar problems. Unlike the outcome of XIII Circumscription referendum, here citizens voted to separate from Rome in a referendum, so leading to the creation of the Municipality of Fiumicino in 1992.

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2.5   New Ostia In the late sixties, in the district of Lido di Ostia Ponente a new area called New Ostia was built by private enterprises. The area is situated behind Piazza Gasparri, the same piazza where the young people participating in the 1994 research lived and hung out. The project originally foresaw the building of housing meant for the middle classes. The private enterprises aimed to provide sufficiently adequate homes to satisfy the needs of people working at the nearby airport of Fiumicino. Afterwards, however, the project changed, with other different kinds of housing being planned, not without several complaints and reports of speculation being laid at the door of the builders (see Josia, 1986). The project was put into effect between 1968 and 1969 with apartments in the form of council houses, being built. Its principal objective was to meet the demand of such housing on the part of Rome City Council. Indeed, the council wanted to acquire such lodging as quickly as possible to house homeless citizens or those in precarious living conditions, as in the working-class areas on the outskirts of Rome, including the sheds and shacks which had sprung up in various parts of the city council area, following the war (see Sect. 2.1.). The building enterprise was rewarded when the Rome City Council bought up most of the area of New Ostia between 1969 and 1979, or rented apartments within it. From the early seventies, families originating from the working-class peripheral areas or similar, began to officially move into the area, and sometimes, even before official assigning of the lodging. By 1974, 2000 families had transferred to New Ostia, some of them even occupying unfinished apartments in the hope of being assigned them (Josia, 1986). Many of the newly installed inhabitants of New Ostia were unemployed or in precarious employment, and the general level of education was low. The situation was not helped by the fact that the new building complexes were a fair distance away from where the schools were.22 Notably, the instalment of 10,000 inhabitants in the area on the part of the city council had not been accompanied by the setting up of infrastructures and 22  According to the results of a 1973 survey carried out in the area, 20% of the inhabitants of Nuova Ostia were unemployed (according to ISTAT data, national unemployment stood, in contrast, between 3.5% and 7.5%, 1973–1978). Major problems identified were a significant amount of non-continuous employment, low levels of education among adults, and the difficulty of accessing education by small and older girls and boys. This information was provided by a degree thesis G. Russo (2001).

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services, New Ostia lacking basic amenities: schools, tarred roads, public lighting, a drainage system, and health facilities. Outcries against the situation came through local committees set up at the community centre at the parish of S. Vincenzo. On a wider scale, the protest also involved political parties, such as the Christian Democrats (CD), the Communist Party (CP), and Socialist Party (SP), and the Republican Party (RP), as well as unions, including the trade union Italian General Confederation of Labour (Confederazione generale italiana del lavoro: Cgil), and the tenants and renters’ union Sunia (Sindacato unitario nazionale inquiline e assegnatari). Pressure on the Rome City Council resulted in an ordinance being passed in 1973 for the instalment of infrastructures and services, but some of these were not put into effect until the late 1970s.23 This problematic situation of housing, infrastructures and services led the media, as early as the seventies, to portray New Ostia as a disadvantaged area, subject to unemployment and precarious work, where residents were still working through the ordeal of having lived on the margins of society, in shanty towns and heavily degraded working-class areas. The level of education for young children and teenagers was well below the national average. The general image projected of New Ostia was one of an unsafe area, characterized by delinquency, and local criminal activity, which involved drug dealing24, with the police having to implement repressive measures to bring order into the area. In spite of the media’s reporting of the area, a very different image was, in actual fact, related by some: […] to say this is area only consists of thugs and delinquents is offensive and profoundly untrue. The majority of people are hard working, honest people just trying to make a living, despite the hardships they have to face. (Bianco, 1976). 23  Between the end of 1972 and the beginning of 1973, demands for the building of infrastructures and services in Nuova Ostia were resumed in Rome Municipal Council by the committee. As a result, a lighting system for Nuova Ostia was approved in 1973 and plans prepared for a sewer network. However, with a three—year delay (Josia, 1986, pp. 15–17 and 27–28), these projects were only put into effect in 1978. 24  See e.g. the press articles by Osmani (1974) and Petrica (1974). Documentaries (“Why drug”, 1976) and feature films by Claudio Caligari are well known in Italian cinema: the film “Amore Tossico” (1983) is set in Ostia and Centocelle and features young drug addicts struggling with their daily addiction.

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The levels of unemployment and casual labour were still significant at the end of the century, aggravated by a structural unemployment and the economic crisis which had hit the building industry, a sector relied upon by New Ostia inhabitants for work. An employment situation had been created whereby few worker legal rights and guarantees were respected. The new more educated generations also had to deal with the perennial problems New Ostia was characterized by young people having to come to terms with the local state of affairs, intrinsically tied to changes occurring on a global scale, all of which influenced their schooling and working lives, and their attempts to find a niche for themselves, both socially and politically.

2.6   Migrants in Ostia 2.6.1  In the Spaces of Vittorio Emanuele III Added to an increasing number of resident foreign citizens, in the nineties numerous encampments of undocumented migrants were registered in the XIII Rome Municipal district (XIII Municipal district from 2001, and X Municipal district from 2013)25. Despite no official register for undocumented foreigners existing for the XIII district, numerous spontaneous encampments of migrants in occupied spaces were noted. From 1993 onwards, migrants occupied three buildings owned by Federimmobiliare situated in urban Ostia, near the Pine Wood and extensive protected park areas. Around 220 families of 24 different nationalities were involved, including Egyptians, Iranians, and Moroccans, many of which were illegally working in the local restaurants.26 The building complex of the ex-naval residence Vittorio Emanuele III is also in this same urban area, along the shoreline Paolo Toscanelli. The first building of this complex goes back to 1916, the project being designed by Marcello Piacentini. Initially, the spaces were used as a navy residence, but then the building was extended to 160,000 mq, and from 1927, it housed the hospice “Navy Hospice and Sanatorium” (Ospizio Marino e 25  For the evolution of legislation regarding the legal and non-legal situations of migrants in Italy, see Bonifazi (1998, pp. 90–104). 26  These observations on migrants without permission in Castel Fusano and Ostia were provided by close witnesses, interviewed by the researchers during fieldwork, in the early months of 1994. There were also newspaper reports on the subject (see articles with retrospective information in La Repubblica, 21-07-1996).

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Colonia di Profilassi) for the treatment of people suffering from tuberculosis. It was half destroyed during the war, but during the fifties the complex was restored and from 1983, it acted as a boarding house for the children of needy Roman families. By the mid-nineties, a library, a senior citizens’ centre, and a seat of the charitable organization Caritas,27 had all been set up. The undocumented migrants took over a part of the complex. They became part of the present research in the spring of 1994: 50 people were involved, including citizens from the Ivory Coast, Pakistanis, Somalis, and Moroccans,28 and they lived in the underground halls. The occupation had been mainly due to the mobilisation of the activists of the Vittorio Occupation, which had taken over a deconsecrated church and its spaces in the same building complex of Vittorio Emanuele III, where they held events related to political, cultural, and social issues.29 The action of these militants allowed the access and encampment of the migrant families in the spaces of Vittorio Emanuele III, still occupied, in part, even today, in 2016. Moreover, the occupied social centre also helped the migrants to have access to services, such as health assistance, with the help of lay and catholic charitable organizations, their aid being extended to undocumented immigrants. The majority of the Ivorian migrants occupying Vittorio Emanuele III come from Abidjan, the economic capital of the country,30 and are aged between twenty and twenty-five. They all hold a secondary school certificate or general education certificate, from extended study at middle 27  Caritas is a Catholic organization, operating in Italy and internationally. In Italy its local offices come under the Catholic Church, the Rome organization being connected to the Vicariate. In Rome, it mainly supports people affected by precarious employment or social exclusion and, more generally, by various types of physical, psychological or material hardship. Particular attention is paid to migrants, Caritas providing canteens, health facilities, dormitories and reception centres. The organization also collects, processes and analyses information on the migratory phenomena, publishing an annual immigration dossier. 28  In that period, the research group made up of Antonio Famiglietti, Antimo L. Farro and Francesca Tei carried out daily and evening visits to the occupied area on several occasions, observing the places and participation in discussions and meetings, including tea or mealtimes, with residing citizens of different nationalities. Interviews were conducted, lasting from 30 to 60 minutes, with 17 Ivorians, 12 Pakistanis, 3 Somalis and 2 Moroccans housed in this area of Vittorio Emanuele III. What is reported in Sects. 2.6.1 and 2.6.2. is the result of these interviews and direct observations carried out in the spring of 1994. 29  For an analytical overview of the initiatives carried out in Italy by the social centres in the late twentieth century and early 2000s, see Farro (2006). 30  While Abidjan, the country’s most populated urban area, is a port city overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the official capital, Yamoussoukro, is located inland.

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school. The reasons behind their decision to leave their country and venture to migrate are varied. Some claim they were forced to flee from political persecution from the Ivorian regime, which, since the early nineties, has seen students as a political threat (Vidal, 2008, pp. 169–173). This was confirmed by Richard, 25 yo: The situation in the Ivory Coast has become insufferable. There is no freedom, the government is oppressive, there’s too much violence and repression has also been used against students. I left to escape from this violence and repression.

Others, instead, left to follow their dream of a better life in the West, to live in a modern society, which can provide opportunities for an improved quality of life and material benefit. For instance, Jean, 21 yo, recounted: I saw in the newspapers, on TV, and at the cinema what life was like in the West…I listened to stories from my family and friends who had been to France, or in another European country, or in America. I thought that even though making a better life wouldn’t be easy, it was worth trying…So, I decided to come to Europe, beginning with Italy, as it’s the easiest to reach.

Others express a desire to discover the world beyond Africa, motivated by a curiosity and desire to experience different realities. As young people, the undertaking of a journey is seen as enriching, and imbued with excitement and expectation. Italy is not always the final destination: Etienne, 20 yo, for example, saw Italy as only the first stop in his journey: I came out of a desire to explore, to see what the rest of the world was like outside the Ivory Coast. I want to see how young people here live and live like them for a while. I want to move around and understand where I can stay for a bit, to find and learn a job I’d like to do. I also like meeting people from my own country who have already experienced living abroad, to understand how they find it. I’d like to meet girls from the Ivory Coast who live here or in other places and see how they live.

Those we interviewed were also hopeful of going on to study at university, some wanting to study Law in Italy, France or some other Western country, while others, wishing to finish studies started elsewhere. On this point, Jean-Michel, 21, commented: “I came to Italy to get new experiences, to better my knowledge…I want to study Law, and hopefully

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graduate in Law”. In same way, François, 24, added, though, “I started my studies Law in Ivory Coast and would like to finish them…Perhaps I could do a doctorate and start working as a lawyer”. While awaiting for things to work out, these young people kept themselves going through small off the books jobs, and casual labour in the restaurants, in discos and other similar localities in the area. Richard commented: I was employed for my build [Richard is over 1.80  m tall and well built: NDA]. I get paid by the hour…the money barely allows me to get by… It doesn’t allow me to live decently, and I can’t think about going to France to finish my studies, yet.

This working state of affairs is certainly not what these young people from the Ivory Coast aspire to, hoping to obtain a certain professional stability, ideally connected to their study objectives. However, these ambitions they hold are strongly offset by the context they find themselves in, characterized by insecurity and casual labour. Believing in a positive outcome to their study aims balances out the precarious situation they find themselves in, viewing the present moment as intermediary, necessary for survival. What they most desire was to find a good professional situation, in Italy or somewhere in the West. At Vittorio Emanuele III, an ex-­ boarding house, the Ivorians met by the research did not have to pay for their lodging: here, they attempted to create a dignified daily living space, using the hygiene facilities available, and creating a makeshift cooking area to make hot meals, sharing out costs of food or drink and generally experimenting living together. Clearly, the precarious working and living situation impeded realizing their aims for betterment, both personally and professionally, particularly as things stood the life they knew in Italy. Jean-­ Michel stated ”I’m trying to sign onto university…but I can’t get my diploma from Ivory Coast recognized…and without that, I can’t sign on.” François, too (a bouncer, like Richard, in a club), noted problems in getting his diploma recognized: I can’t sign onto the Law Faculty here in Italy…Perhaps it would be easier in France…where they may accept me more easily…the language would help, as well.

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Apart from these uncertainties and difficulties, relations with other people, both Italian and their co-nationals, were apparently also a problem, particularly with women present in Rome. According to Philippe, 22 […] the girls from our country are not interested in us, here in Italy they prefer to be with Italians, who can bring them greater advantages, so they can feel more integrated into Italian society […] Italian girls are only interested in superficial relationships, they might once or twice, but want nothing more…perhaps driven by sexual curiosity…but that’s it.

In their social and relational life, in the construction of a personal and professional project, in the management of economic difficulties and meeting primary needs, the undocumented migrants met at Vittorio Emanuele III felt the weight of an “adventure” as a migrant, generally improvised and sorely tested in the Roman context where they found themselves, a reality which they had to face on a daily basis. While acknowledging the potential for opportunity in the West and appreciating its modern society, these young Ivorians were generally critical of their Italian experience—and the West as a whole—as social and cultural contradictions affected their lives. Some of their hardships could be put down to differences in lifestyles between the West and Africa, as Richard noted: […] the excessive individualism, the lack of solidarity between generations and the overall lack of community warmth…makes us nostalgic for home, and the African lifestyle.

Jean-Michel, on the other hand, commented how: “life here is too stressful”. Compared to the Ivorians, the 20 Pakistanis housed at Vittorio Emanuele III, constituted a more heterogeneous group in terms of age (ranging from 20 to 40), and education. Of the graduates among them, 4 said they forced to leave their country for political reasons, as political opponents to the military regime installed after the 1997 coup d’etat.31 31  The military regime started with a coup led by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haqche, a senior officer who remained head of the Pakistani state until 1988, the year of his death. His regime took social and political control of the country, the military character of power combining with a recourse to legal systems inspired by Sharia. Internationally, however, the country sided with Western powers, the USA in particular, in the confrontation between the West with the Soviet bloc: See Haqqani (2005).

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Hussein said: “I fled because my life was in danger, along with other co-­ nationals here with me”. There are few occupational opportunities for these young graduates, who are forced to look for work in the building sites or in agriculture as farmhands. Their older less educated co-nationals have even greater problems finding work, of any type. The migrants were not in Vittorio Emanuele III out of choice, but out of necessity. Caritas found nearby on the premises, offering assistance, including a canteen, they see as a necessary but temporary solution to their needs. Even though these Pakistani were caught in their most vulnerable state, economically and in terms of housing, those met in this research aimed, nonetheless, to integrate themselves permanently into Italian society or somewhere else in the West, being ready to accept West modern society, while combining it as far as possible with their own cultural background, including the religious beliefs they hold. They were also convinced that they would eventually have a dignified occupation, thus freeing themselves from the present state of insecurity. Furthermore, in contrast to the Ivorians, the Pakistanis were living a forced separation from their families, who they had had to leave behind in Pakistan. Once having established satisfactorily in the West, they intended bringing their families over to live with them. Hence, their main objective was to find a well-paid occupation, essential for a dignified way of life, not to be reliant on assistance, and to be able to welcome their families in a worthy lodging. Within Vittorio Emanuele III, the occupants wished to develop a form of communal running of things, based on some rules of living together, deemed necessary to maintain a climate of mutual respect, so avoiding conflicts and acts of abuse, intimidation or harassment. The rules were meant to allow these temporary living conditions to be tolerable and viable, while the occupants awaited to obtain the means to find better lodging for themselves and their families. Consequently, the occupants shared out the cleaning of the complex, and the running of the various spaces, so preventing any criminal activity to take a grip on the area, particularly drug dealing or other criminal activity. The regulation of the living space at Vittorio Emanuele III on the part of the occupants, clearly did not legitimate the occupation from a legal point of view but prevented repressive police intervention. In this way, despite moves by committees and associations formed by citizens to contest the occupation and promote an eviction of the

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occupants to reclaim the complex for general use, the occupants themselves tried to keep a low profile and be a tolerable presence. Yet again in 2015, there were several initiatives on the part of citizens aimed at putting an end to the illegal occupation of Vittorio Emanuele. The occupants who used the complex as a living space, then asked the local administration to assign them cheap lodging.32 2.6.2  The Mosque as a Meeting Point In the early nineties, the Muslim migrants who lived on the coastal areas of Rome, in the centre of Ostia Levante, came together at the Islamic Cultural Centre. It was mainly built through the initiative of immigrants who had previously arrived it Italy and who were now Italian citizens. Their aim was to provide an easy access to a place of worship for the Muslims in the area, without them having to reach the faraway Monte Antenne, where The Great Mosque of Rome stands. As with most of similar places set up in Italy (Allievi, 2003), the Centre was taken to be a full-scale mosque, the Friday pray being well attended and involving 400 to 500 people, with 50 Italians converted to Islam. Few women, on the other hand, took part.33 Most of the people who regularly attended and visited the mosque were Egyptian. However, other nationals were also present, such as Moroccans, Tunisians, Libyans, Afghans, Bangladeshi, and Somalis. In the early nineties, the largest group of non-European citizens in Ostia, were officially reported to be the Egyptians.34 Some of these migrants were employees of some sort and/or ran small businesses, particularly restaurants and bars. The head of the Centre was an Egyptian who had immigrated many years before and had managed to set up his own business: he had also married an Italian and had children who were Italian citizens. Besides being a place of worship, the Centre also held lessons on the Koran for Muslim children (around 20, according to our interlocutors). The Centre also acted as a point of reference for the informal network of 32  For the image that news reports give of the situation in this period, see: AdnKronos (2015), Costantini (2015), La Repubblica (2015), Savelli (2015). 33  It should be noted that the logistics of the Centre did not allow separate access for men and women, nor a separate prayer room, as required by Islamic tradition. 34  In the XIII District, from 31/12/1990 the residents of foreign origin were 4235 (out of 174,894). Of these, 11.9% were Egyptians, 16.7% Poles, 14.8% Iranians, 9.9% Sri Lankans, and 8.7% Tunisians.) Source: USPE from CEU source.

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Muslim immigrants, particularly those just arrived. At the Centre, they received economic help and information concerning Italian legislation on immigration, as well as aid in finding lodging and work. Hence, the Centre fostered a social networking between individuals, who shared, at least in part, not only the social conditions in which they found themselves, but religious and cultural values, as well. It also provided a meeting place, devoid of the selling of alcohol and other activities deviant from Muslim practice. The founders also aimed to create a meeting place, which gave solace to migrants, helping to keep them away from moral and economic degradation. The imam of the Centre worked at the general market as a goods transporter. He had come to Europe for economic reasons, but also “to see the world”. He had chosen Italy because of the greater religious calling of people here, compared to other countries, but also complained about the lack of general knowledge concerning Islam among the populace, Islam frequently being confused with fundamentalism. He saw that this lack of knowledge creating both misunderstandings concerning the presence of Muslim migrants in Italy and particularly in Rome, as well as influencing how these migrants were received in the West. The imam also saw that migrants, coming from a culturally cohesive but repressive society, suddenly finding themselves in a Western cultural context, more open and secular, risked going “off the rails” with this newfound freedom. He believed that forms of social exclusion, created by a lack of integration, not only results in a form of deconstruction of an individual, but exposes them to the more degenerate aspects of modern life. Therefore, the imam urged the faithful to be dedicated to their work and respect punctuality, to refrain from delinquent behaviour, and Western vices. He saw the mosque playing a moral role, to discourage lax or non-Muslim lifestyle or even criminal activity. This religious and moral guidance should consolidate a sense of belonging and community, so preventing social isolation and a loss of identity. Hence, the Islamic Cultural Centre creates a sense of community among people with a similar socioeconomic situation and provides the moral base for social and cultural integration. For the newly arrived migrant, the Centre provides support, information, and encourages mutual help among its members, particularly concerning everyday needs, first and foremost, lodgings and work. It is also, however, meant to prevent Muslims from forgoing their cultural and religious heritage and daily practice. While maintaining their religious and cultural integrity, the

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immigrants met in the research still intended to integrate themselves into Italian society, through work and social activity. The Mosque community, as conceived by the imam and those who are part of it, constitutes a relational network to encourage integration and support of migrants, while maintaining at the same time, the specific cultural and religious tradition of the community and its members.

2.7   Conclusion Through examination of the on-site research carried out during the 1990s, the chapter traces the transformation of the coastal area of the capital, focusing on the experiences of young people in Ostia and migrants who had arrived there. The tension and unease felt by the young people emerged from an economic uncertainty, and the fear of drugs, which they saw as invading their lives. Meanwhile, their reduced access to adequate education, what they managed to obtain in terms of schooling and university instruction, very often haphazard, greatly contrasted with their professional and economic aspirations. Given the present hardships in terms of social integration and insecurities, it was even harder for these young people to come to terms with and deal with new local problems, triggered off by the processes of globalization. These new problems arising were felt by the young Ostia people through the arrival of migrants from different parts and cultures of the world. They saw the significant economic, social, and cultural issues, related to global migratory processes (Sassen, 1998), as being another contributory factor to the degradation of the area, and they, as inhabitants of that area, were further subject to. Consequently, they saw the need to fight against immigration, no least to prevent further degradation of their living space, already sorely tested and in need of revival. The negative state of affairs was the reason these young people gave for pursuing the ideal of an imaginary community, based on a new social order, which they saw as the most viable way to revive the country. They saw the presence of migrants as threatening and contaminating the realization of this project for the future. These young people attempted to assert themselves as autonomous beings, capable of controlling their own lives, particularly within the local and national confines of an imaginary community—an exclusive community, rejecting perceived outsiders. Hence, the individual subjective affirmed in this way, would negate the subjectivation of the other, in this case, the migrant. Pursuing the affirmation of a negative subjectivation,

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these young people looked for and found a particular political programme and agenda, which both justified and ratified their thinking and action. They saw themselves as radicals, fascists, and activists against the powerful institutions, held responsible for the degradation of their area and the presence of migrants, guilty, in the mind of these young people, of merely contributing to this state of social disintegration. The young people met in this research felt part of an imaginary closed community, which for them, did not only exist on a local level. Most migrants met in the research, the occupants at Vittorio Emanuele II and at the Islamic Cultural Centre, left their countries of origin to escape from political oppression, scarce opportunities for economic benefits and the development of a dignified existence. However, since arriving in Italy, they had faced various problems on different levels, socioeconomic, political, and cultural, but attempted to deal with deal, as they best they could. The young Africans at Vittorio Emanuele were attempting to cope with the situation by adopting a certain behaviour, which they believed was more likely to obtain and keep, some form of work, albeit short-term and off the books. With this in mind, they accepted living in an occupied building, and tried to get along with their co-nationals and migrants of other nationalities, with the other occupants of the building complex, and with the Italians, as well. At the same time, they had individual ambitions to move up the social ladder, either here in the West or back in Africa. The Afghans occupying Vittorio Emanuele III considered that, for them at least, there was no going back. For economic or political reasons, or both, they could see themselves returning to Afghanistan. The graduates of this group, and the older members, some of whom hold a primary school certificate, were all having difficulty in finding work and alternative housing. Despite the hardships, they too, had ambitions to find stable employment or occupation, which would allow them to find suitable accommodation for their families. They believe that these ambitions could be fulfilled, in spite of the present disadvantaged socioeconomic situation they found themselves in, and the hostility and racism they faced living in Ostia. The migrants met at the Islamic Cultural Centre were actively trying to build a relational network, based on shared religious beliefs and cultural background. It gave support to newcomers, and helped them find work and suitable lodging, and aimed to maintain their specific religious and political identity and obtain political rights.

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References Allievi, S. (2003). Islam italiano. Viaggio nella seconda religione del paese. Einaudi. Arrighi, G., & Silver, B.  J. (2003). Caos e governo del mondo: come cambiano le egemonie e gli equilibri planetari. Mondadori. Bonifazi, C. (1998). L’immigrazione straniera in Italia. Il Mulino. Bonifazi, C. (Ed.). (2006). Le opinioni degli italiani sull’immigrazione straniera. Demotrends Quaderni-Irpps-Cnr. Crisci, M. (2010). Italiani e stranieri nello spazio urbano. Dinamiche della popolazione di Roma. Franco Angeli. Damilano, M. (2012). Eutanasia di un potere: storia politica d’Italia da tangentopoli alla seconda Repubblica. Laterza. De Nisi, G. (1983). Ostia Lido di Roma. Sintesi storica dal 630 a.C. al 1982. S.G.S. Farro, A. L. (Ed.). (2006). Italia alterglobal. Movimento, culture e spazi di vita di altre globalizzazioni. Franco Angeli. Ferrarotti, F. (1979). Roma da capitale a periferia. Laterza. Findlay, R., & O’Rourke, K. H. (2007). Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton University Press. Grilli di Cortona, P. (2007). Il cambiamento politico in Italia. Dalla Prima alla Seconda Repubblica. Carocci. Haqqani, H. (2005). Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military; From Islamic Republic to Islamic State. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Josia, V. (1986). Nuova Ostia (1969–1984): ‘Come fare pastorale’. Libreria editrice della Pontificia Università Lateranense. Koopmans, R., Stat, P., Giugni, M., & Passy, F. (2005). Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe. University of Minnesota Press. Paci, M. (2005). Nuovi lavori, nuovo welfare. Il Mulino. Paci, M., & Pugliese, E. (Eds.). (2011). Welfare e promozione delle capacità. Il Mulino. Pietrolucci, M. (2012). La città del Grande Raccordo Anulare. Gangemi. Piketty, T. (2013). Le capital au XXIe siècle. Seuil. Pugliese, E. (2006). L’Italia tra migrazioni internazionali e migrazioni interne. Il Mulino. Russo, G. (2001). I giovani di nuova Ostia, tra derive e progetti difficili. Tesi di Laurea, Facoltà di Sociologia, Università degli Studi La Sapienza. Sartori, G. (1992). Seconda Repubblica?: Si, ma bene. Rizzoli. Sassen, S. (1998). Globalization and Its Discontents. The New Press. Seronde Babonaux, A. M. (1983). Dalla città alla metropoli. Roma. Stiglitz, J. E. (2002). Globalization and Its Discontents. Norton and Company. Vidal, C. (2008). La brutalisation du champ politique ivoirien, 1990–2003. In J. B. Ouédraogo & E. Sall (dir.). Frontière de la citoyenneté et violence politique en Côte d’Ivoire (pp. 160–181). Codesria.

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Reports Ambrosini, M. (2008). La sfida più ardua: costruire politiche di integrazione per (e con) le minoranze rom e sinte (pp.  199–222). Osservatorio regionale per l’integrazione e la multietnicità, Gli immigrati in Lombardia. Rapporto 2007. ISMU. Eurispes. (1993). Blood and Honour. Koinè Edizioni.

Newspaper Articles AdnKronos. (2015, June 22). Ostia, blitz in ex colonia Vittorio Emanuele III: panetti di droga e dosi pronte per spaccio. Bianco, P. (1976, January 15). I figli della violenza. Paese Sera. Chianura, C. (1994, February 21). Terrore razzista a Ostia in 80 linciano un tunisino. In L a Repubblica. Costantini, V. (2015, June 23). Ostia, blitz nell’ex colonia marina del re Identificati 110 stranieri, 40 minori. Corriere della Sera. La Repubblica. (2015, June 17). Idea recupero ex colonia Vittorio Emanuele. Osmani, C. (1974, November 21). Per ottenere le scuole a Ostia fanno lo sciopero della fame. Il Momento Sera. Petrica, D. (1974, October 29). La realtà amara della N. Ostia. Il Giornale d’Italia. Savelli, F. (2015, June 22). Ostia, blitz all’ex colonia Vittorio Emanuele: al suo posto la caserma dei vigili. La Repubblica.

CHAPTER 3

Tor Sapienza

3.1   The Revolt at Viale Morandi As reported in the national news,1 on November 10th 2014 about 200 people took to the streets to protest against the presence of 66 refugees and asylum seekers (all males, 36 of them, minors) lodged at the Refugee Welcome Centre run by the social cooperative Un Sorriso,2 and situated in viale Morandi, in the Morandi-Cremona complex, a working-class building block in the Zona di Tor Sapienza.3 The demonstrators held up banners denouncing the overall degradation of the area, fallen foul to theft, violence, and acts of barbarism, pointing the finger in the general direction of the migrants and the Romani. The residents also denounced an attempt of rape, widely reported by the local and national press, and stated that they were subject to acts of nudity, 1  To construct events, we relied on direct information gathered from inhabitants. During observation and in interviews. It provided a subjective picture of the actors encountered, then compared with the representations disseminated by local and national media. 2  The centre houses the CPA, First Reception Centre for unaccompanied minors, SPAR, the Protection System for Refugees and Asylum Seekers; a family home and the offices of the cooperative. Founded in 2011 following the “North African emergency” plan, the centre is managed under contract by the Interior Ministry. 90 users were reported during the night of the clashes. 3  Tor Sapienza is the eighth Zone of Rome, located in the V Municipality of the capital (formerly VII).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_3

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molestation, and were generally being deprived of going about their daily business in safety. The demonstrations continued into the following days, with police officers now present at the entrance of the Refugee Welcome Centre, to guarantee the safety of the asylum seekers. Clashes between demonstrators and guests of the Centre went on for some days. According to the press covering the event, some demonstrators, who were not only local residents, attacked the Centre by throwing stones, the tirade against the temporary residents assuming an ever increasing xenophobic and racist tone. As the protest continued, individuals belonging to the neo fascist organization Casa Pound4 were identified at the scene, as well as Borghezio,5 an MEP belonging to the Northern League, as they were conversing with the protestors, to understand their grievances, and to give their solidarity to the demonstrators’ outcry against immigrants and the Romani. The media and national press tended to emphasize this particular aspect, somewhat aligning the neighbourhood protest to the rhetoric of the far-right in Rome.6 However, a citizen residing at the Morandi-Cremona complex, spokesperson for the namesake Committee, which had been set up following the disorders, gave a very different version of how they saw things, compared to the portrayal by the main Italian press: All this tension at Tor Sapienza began with the attempted rape on [a local resident] …the day before the attack there had been an attempted rape in a playground and two days before that, there had been two cases of burglary in the apartments in via Cremona[…]. …What no-one is saying is that what 4  This far-right group started in Rome, originally based in an occupied building in via Napoleone III, next to Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, in the centre of Rome, a symbolic place for immigration to the capital (see Chap. 5). A main aim is to fight financial and real estate speculation, particularly in line with fascist social policies inspired by the Verona charter of 1943, during the Italian Social Republic. At the same time, the group is part of the political logic of occupations, generally more associated with the antagonist left and anarchists, especially in Italy. In this regard, see Di Nunzio and Toscano (2012). 5  Familiar figure in the news as a radical exponent of the Northern League Party, a right-­ wing regionalist group. Since 2014, through its new secretary Matteo Salvini, the League has tried to reposition the party in the national, Eurosceptic context, aligning itself with the Front National (FN), a French far-right party. 6  For media representations of the event, see in particular: Tor Sapienza, Cars and bins on fire, anti-immigrant protest. Corriere della Sera (2014, November 11), and see reportage http://www.la7.it/video/la-rabbia-di -tor-sapienza-17-11-2014-141179 (accessed on 08 November 2014).

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happened in Morandi all started from these two events in via Tranquillo Cremona7 […]. These events have nothing to do with [the attack on the refugee Centre]. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the only place where people meet together is in front of bar Lory. So, when these two things happened, everyone got together in front of bar Lory. And who happened to go to bar Lory for a coffee? The migrants, who were coming out of [the Refugee Welcome Centre]. At that moment, people were exasperated, these events had happened, they were all in front of bar Lory, some of the lads [from the Centre] who had come out to the bar…arguments broke out, and set off the first clashes, but for petty reasons. Because people were exasperated, they were there…as things were, you were just looking for trouble. The lads [migrants] who were at the bar—who were also exasperated, but for other reasons—picked a fight with the people in the piazza in front of bar Lory. Scuffles broke out and the police were called: a police patrol car turned up and this set off the fights. So everything was then put down to the presence of the immigrants, but that’s not the case. It’s only because the Refugee Welcome Centre is exactly in front of the main square in Tor Sapienza—the position chosen by the Home Office to house these lads is totally unsuitable, given the explosive situation of the area. […] There were clashes between police and demonstrators. In a degraded area, like Morandi, where 45 to 50% of the people are unemployed, the residents are obviously frustrated and exasperated, and it’s only natural that someone will be on the far-right, someone else on the far left, someone else again, like myself, a moderate. Exasperated people will definitely pick up the phone and call a handful of friends who cause trouble at the football ground, and bring them over. [Marco, 50, spokesperson for the Morandi-Cremona committee]

Some of the local residents had grouped together in the area near the bar, and had clashed with the police who were guarding the Refugee Centre. The Sunday after the troubles, through direct observation, we were able to register the mood of some of the residents who were in the piazza in front of the bar, or nearby. The place represents a central point of reference, where the differing feelings of the various residents can be set side by side, from those who are intolerant, to others who are looking for a peaceful solution. 7  Street adjacent to Viale Morandi, part of the Morandi quadrant, where the houses of the I.SV.E.UR are located. (Institute for Building and Urban Development), public housing owned by the municipality. Citizens had been complaining for years about the instability of the structure and the need for maintenance work (hydraulic leaks, recurring electrical and heating failures).

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During our observations, we met individuals whose sole purpose for being there was to clash with the police, manifesting total desperation on a personal level, and anger against the establishment and the police, in general. A man, around 35 (who said he was temporarily unemployed and lodging at the dormitory at Ponte Mammolo, an area of Rome, about 5 km far from the Morandi-Cremona complex) seemed intent on provoking the policemen at the bar who were talking and having a bite to eat and a drink. He told us: “Nothing ever happens here…I’d heard that there was trouble […]. I’d come to duff up someone…” (field notes, November 16, 2014). The citizens of the block who spend time at the bar were suspicious and were feeling intolerant towards the migrants. They were taken by surprise by all the attention the events at viale Morandi had provoked in terms of interest by the newspapers and journalists, and the arrival of the police and politicians, on the scene. Our presence as observers was put into doubt, so limiting our chance of inserting ourselves into the field unobtrusively: “Are you journalists or are you part of the police?”, was a frequent delegitimizing question put to us by the people we met at the bar or in proximity of same at that time. Nonetheless, the difficulties we faced in obtaining information during those troubled days is clear indication of the palpable levels of distrust and suspicion felt by many.8 From an obscure area on the outskirts of Rome, the block had been thrown into the limelight following the troubles and had become a point of interest and debate for the media, politicians, and the institutions, alike. This attention can be summed up in the deployment of the police force to protect the migrants, which had only led to reinforce feelings of resentment among the indigenous population, who perceived that their needs were being taken as of secondary importance: the locals expressed their “exasperation”—a term often used by the citizens of Tor Sapienza in their interviews to the media, and again by those interviewed in our research on more than one occasion. The word almost became a justification for the events occurring in November, and, as observed during our research, on other occasions it represented a cry for help, a need to draw attention to the difficult daily living conditions of the speaker. Bar Lory, the only bar on the block, cannot exactly be described as a sort of agora, a meeting point for citizens to exchange ideas. Rather, it 8  Our presence was perceived as annoying and indiscreet, only accepted when we showed documented proof we were university researchers and not journalists in search of a scoop.

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comes across as expressing the gap between opposing sides in a fragmented area, an area on the outskirts in search of integration and social interaction, though compact in itself and self-contained, as an urban unit. During those days, the toing and froing of the police, the usual clients and other citizens, journalists, and their troupes, all added to attract attention to the place, and so, the bar acquired a certain importance. Indeed, the announcement of the impending meeting between citizens and the mayor came to be fixed on the bar counter, to let as many people know as possible. Tensions only started to ease up after the arrival of the mayor, Ignazio Marino, who met citizens and district committees on more than one occasion in different circumstances. The meetings with the mayor drew considerable media attention on a national level, then and in the months to come.9

3.2   Housing Project and Outcome Begun in the early seventies and completed in 1979, the construction of the housing complex ATER10 in viale Giorgio Morandi-Via Tranquillo Cremona had involved architects and urban planners, who had envisaged a user-friendly and congenial urban area, well supplied with amenities. Despite their project vision foreseeing a form of co-existence among nuclear families with different social conditions being set up in modern residential complexes (Benevolo, 1960; Di Biagi, 2001; Di Giorgio, 2011), the policies which subsequently determined how the housing was assigned often resulted in a concentration of lower-income citizens, subject to precarious employment, so giving way to the creation an area in continual degradation (Tosi, 2004). The complex in viale Morandi was built on the wave of experimentation in new forms of social housing during the sixties and seventies, related to political programmes favouring the assignment of accommodation for lower-income families. From 1949 onwards (plan INA-casa),11 a series of 9  The broadcast “In mezz’ora” broadcast on Raitre on 11/16/2014 hosted the mayor and representatives of the Morandi-Cremona Committee and the Tor Sapienza Committee, committee of the historic central area of Tor Sapienza. 10  Azienda Territoriale per l’Edilizia (ResidenzialeTerritorial Company for Residential Construction), founded in Rome in 2002, is an institution that replaced the Autonomous Institute of Popular Housing (IACP). 11  Also known as “Piano Fanfani”, named after the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Amintore Fanfani. For further information see Di Biagi (2001).

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urban interventions went hand in hand with the architectural design of post-war Italian rationalism. The underlying idea was to create shared living spaces. This urban planning put the creation of areas fostering solidarity and communal life as its central aim (Pace, 1993). In a certain way, it was thought that this kind of housing could and would improve the social conditions of those who had come from precariousness living conditions and circumstances of social exclusion: in other words, the aim was not only to create adequate living spaces, but to enable people to socialize and integrate further (Catelani & Trevisan, 1961). In Italy, a country in full economic expansion at the time, social housing developed on a reasonable scale and at a certain rate, in response to pressures for urban intervention in semi-central and peripheral areas of the capital. With the n. 167 1962 law and subsequently the PEEP (plans for economical and social housing), the lines of intervention were traced to identify the zones—hence the name, “zone 167—areas which were allotted to the building of social housing”.12 On the one hand, the urban planning attempted to provide adequate lodging for needy families, while, on the other, to map out a form of rationalization of the urban areas (Capomolla & Vittorini, 2003). The ATER housing complex in viale Giorgio Morandi is made up of 4 blocks, subdivided into 504 apartments of different sizes. In the central part there are spaces, which originally were meant as places where the residents could meet up, such as the building of the Social Centre or the Centre for the Elderly. The area was also equipped with spaces, which, in the original plan, were destined for shops and other commercial activities. Up until today, these spaces, both those designed for shops, parking, or garages—some used as depositaries and others, as actual living spaces true and proper—have been illegally occupied. In the same complex, a place had been set aside for a local health clinic with medical surgeries, now all closed: today there is only one GP remaining and only the Centre for the Elderly still maintains its original function. Similarly, the public spaces earmarked for the social centre have been occupied, as has another nearby place, today used as a Christian orthodox place of worship. Adjacent to this, there are also two other important religious centres—one protestant, 12  “Municipalities with populations exceeding 50,000 inhabitants or are provincial heads are required to designate areas intended for the construction of cheap or social housing, as well as accompanying urban and social services, including public green areas.”, cit. art. 1, Law n. 167 April 1962.

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the other catholic. Close by, there are some closed off areas equipped for outdoor sports, as well as a semi-abandoned garden. The illegal occupation of spaces, both by immigrants from Eastern Europe, and Italians, make up a general picture of degradation of the complex, and prevent intervention aimed at recovery of parts of the complex, and implementation of safety measures.13 A part of the residents of the complex had originally been living in basements in some of the buildings at Quarticciolo,14 taken over as a medical care area during the Second World War (Villani, 2012, pp.  256–259). Then, in the late seventies, when the urban area of Quarticciolo was recovered, these families were assigned lodgings in the Morandi complex, in apartments running off staircases A to T (Cianfarani & Porqueddu, 2012). Families from other sites of occupation in Rome were assigned to apartments running off staircases AA to TT, on the other side of the housing complex. According to the reconstruction given to us by our interviewees of the Committee (among the first inhabitants of Morandi), the tenants were originally mainly working people, particularly those employed in the building industry, but also Acotral employees, labourers, carpenters, and their large families. At that time, being assigned one of these apartments represented an opportunity for social advancement, and the crowning of a life’s work. Getting out of precarious living conditions, often illegal and uncertain, to actually be assigned a decent living space was a life changing event. During the construction of the building (1974–1975), the people who had been assigned the apartments took turns in staking out the building,15 fearing the housing might be occupied by someone else. We couldn’t believe it, because anyone not having a home and then…[…] the garden and beds were tended to. There weren’t any of those buildings you can see now. There was this hillside, there was a farm with animals where we went to buy milk and sheep ricotta. The only drawback was that there was just this one bus, and that’s how things have stayed [laughs]. Now it comes by every fifteen minutes, before every 50 minutes. [Serena, resident in viale Morandi] 13  As reported in La Repubblica of 6/10/2009, the then president of Ater Petrucci affirmed that the occupation would make “any intervention” impossible: See http://roma. repubblica.it/dettaglio/ater-ecco-il-racket-delle-occupazioni/1740410. 14  A working class area of the Quartiere Alessandrino, presently part of the V Municipality of Rome. 15  The housing was definitively assigned in 1979–1980.

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[It was clean], in those days everyone cared about it, because we’d all dreamt about having such a place for so long, do you see? [Bianca, resident viale Morandi]

In 2016, according to an ATER census, 1264 people altogether were living in the 504 apartments in the entire complex. Forty-seven of the apartments were illegally occupied by 90 people, and as many as 111 lodgings (286 tenants) needed to be regularized. Of the tenants renting 338 apartments under contract, 52.87% were in arrears in rent (amounting to 11 million euros for the whole of the ATER complex). Nearly all the tenants were Italian. In the apartments occupied illegally, some of the occupants had “paid” entry16 into their lodging, and other had “inherited” theirs, without having the ATER contractual prerequisites. As related by the residents of the viale Morandi block, there were another 150 people occupying the other areas, which had not been destined as living spaces. Instead, they had been taken over and generally made into actual apartments, extended by covering up terraces: according to the Morandi-Cremona Committee, these “new” apartments were occupied by 43 families, of which 2 were Italian, 2 Romani, some Egyptians and most of the others, Rumanian, totalling 125 adults and 21 children. The numbers were further swelled by the temporary residents—40 families—lodged at the Refugee Centre (the object of protest in the media limelight in November 2014), utilized by Rome City Council as emergency housing; then there were the people occupying the ex-church of San Cirillo. There were no figures for the number of people permanently or temporarily residing or as guests in the lower basements of the Orthodox church.17 In the 1970 original plan, the viale Morandi complex was first conceived as a densely inhabited living space, with a lively set of shops, commercial activities and other activities to foster social relations and interaction. The aim of the experiment was to develop a form of community tied to the living space. Today, the area appears to be an isolated entity, cut off from the rest of the city, and indeed, from the traditional Tor Sapienza district itself. Transport links to the centre and the rest of 16  According to our interlocutors, entry to a flat was possible by paying a sum of money to the legitimate assignee or illegal occupant/s. 17  According to the testimonies collected among the residents of the Morandi complex, the basement of the Orthodox church accommodated a large number of immigrants, and was also used by prostitutes from Eastern Europe.

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Rome are few and far between (with only a single bus). This isolation naturally contributes to the feelings of abandonment and marginalization on the part of the residents, with the buildings falling into further decay, plagued by inadequate infrastructures and public lighting. The market and the tobacco bar are the only services still operating, sometimes acting as a meeting place, besides the Centre for the Elderly. The local market, situated outside the complex, seems to have few customers, and the number of stalls is steadily decreasing. This can be put down to the presence of new more attractive supermarket and shopping centres not far from the block. […] when you see the authorities have abandoned the area, you pick up your kid and you take him to a gym outside the area…it has turned into a dormitory, where you go out in the morning and come back at night. […] nobody lives here anymore and the authorities are to blame for the area not prospering, because if you take away the bus, the free family clinic…to go to the post office, I have go to Tor Sapienza. […] but the shops were never many, about 4 or 5, but there were plenty of city council offices […] the shops went bust almost immediately. With the shopping centres opening up here nearby, the shops didn’t stand a chance. But, we did have the local council library, the council-run pharmacy, so there were different facilities here. [Serena, Morandi-Cremona Committee, Ater resident in viale Morandi]

On 18th February 2015, the Morandi-Cremona Committee organized a “Citizen Referendum” among the residents of the complex, on what they thought should happen to the spaces presently occupied without authorization. There were three possible answers: first, that the spaces be restructured to house various facilities; the second, that half the spaces be restructured for commercial activities, but the other half, be restructured as living spaces, (so changing the original purpose of those spaces);18 third, that the whole of that part of the building be demolished to put an end to the problem of unauthorized occupation. The third option obtained 90% consensus, according to the Committee. The difficult co-existence between the ATER residents and the unauthorized occupants of the other spaces in the complex, given the daily contact between families, appears a

18  The intended use was already partly (temporarily) changed with the jubilee, to receive pilgrims. The premises, however, remained occupied and converted into homes much later on, once surveillance of the places was put into place.

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perennial problem, difficult to overcome. Most of the residents see no possible benefit deriving from these presently occupied spaces. The rot began to set in at the end of eighties, up until the moment the IACP left, it was here for about ten years. Maintenance of the housing has always been left to us. But, there was still the cleaning lady who cleaned the courtyards and the stairwells […] We are only abandoning this place because we have been abandoned. […] it all began when the shops closed. As they pulled down the shutters, people looked the other way, and those others went and occupied the places. [Bianca, Ater resident in viale Morandi]

If we try to analyse things a bit more in depth, [the degradation] really began when we ourselves started abandoning the area. A situation degenerates when those who live in an area, choose to abandon it. When you physically abandon an area […] That’s when an area dies…we’re talking about the late nineties [Mario, Presidente Morandi-Cremona Committee]. The perception of deterioration on the part of the citizens was further heightened by the presence of two semi-equipped Romani camps in via Salviati, in the district of Tor Sapienza. The first was started in 1994 when Francesco Rutelli was in office as mayor of the capital, with the setting up of the first equipped Romani Camp promoted by the Rome City Council (Associazione 21st July). In 1995, 72 Romani19 were recorded at the via Salviati camp and in 2008, 69 people of the ethnic group Rudari (Rumania and Serbia). In 2008, at the second camp (Salvini 2),20 the same source records the presence of 336 nomads of the ethnic group Khorakané (Bosnia), some of which had previously been installed at the Casilino 900 and 700 camps, after fleeing from the Balkan war. In 2009, after the eviction and relocation of groups of Romani by the city council administration under the new mayor Gianni Alemanno, the number of Romani in the camps changed, according to the Associazione 21st July (at the forefront in terms of monitoring and giving assistance to the question of the Romani in Rome): in 2015, there were 400 people at the first camp, and more than 135,21 in the second. The camps are strongly contested by some citizens, who have been complaining for years about the overspill of the  Department of the Municipality of Rome, Romani Office, data updated to 1995.  Romani Office, data updated to 2008. 21  According to a representative of the Tor Sapienza committee, the number of people today in the two camps is estimated to be 800 to 900. 19 20

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camps, the traffic around them and in the surrounding areas, mainly related to the trafficking and recovery of scrap metal or recyclable waste.22 Much criticism has been targeted at the practice of setting fire to plastic materials, deemed toxic, involving the burning of plastic covering of copper to get to the metal.23 According to studies on the subject, the Romani camps under the jurisdiction of the capital, and in Italy as a whole, function differently, and are particularly subject to wasteful spending and corruption, compared to other areas of Europe (Belli et  al., 2015). The “camp policy” based on ethnic grouping, essentially enacted as an emergency measure (Clough Marinaro & Daniele, 2014) but devoid of clear objectives, has only encouraged the creation of semi-ghettoes (Clough Marinaro, 2015) in peripheral urban areas, already subject to marginalization. The local residents not only contest the presence of the Romani camps in the area, but also interpret these settlements as further proof of the total disinterest on the part of the authorities to the plight of the citizens in Tor Sapienza and at Morandi-Cremona, in particular. We have the ex-church of Sab Cirillo (occupied by the migrants), then on via Prenestina there’s another huge refugee centre which is situated above bar Jolly. Then if you go along via Collatina and in the direction out of Rome, in front of Bricofer, there’s another building full of immigrants. And then there’s the Romani camp in via Salviati. Then there’s via Pino Pascali with its sex trafficking. If you go all the way round, you’ll see that Tor Sapienza is completely surrounded by these degraded areas. [Q]: And how does this concern the Morandi complex? This concerns us because all these people, when they move…they converge onto the public transport which passes by via Prenestina, and Collatina. And so the people here at Morandi are under continual siege… let’s say…by a series of different people who make “free” use of public service, compared to citizens who pay their dues. If we’re doing something social, we first have to understand the social context. [Marco, spokesperson for the Morandi-­ Cremona Committee]

22  A media representation of these events, particularly concerning citizen complaints and judiciary interventions, can be found in the article by Repubblica Rome “Roma camp alarm: ‘Qui Tor Sapienza new Terra dei Fuochi’”, consulted online on 2 March online 2015 http:// roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/11/26/news/allarme_campo_rom_qui_tor_sapienza_ nuova_terra_dei_fuochi-101424241. 23  Ibid.

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3.3   Crisis, Criticism, and the Will to Act The events occurring in the Morandi-Cremona complex resulted in two different types of mobilization in Tor Sapienza. The first consisted in the clashes with the police, which was manifestation of the rejection of the presence of migrants and asylum seekers, merely seen as an unwelcome addition to the general continual deterioration of the area. The protest was also aimed at the national and local authorities, guilty, as the protestors saw it, of the urban, social, and cultural degradation of their living space. Moreover, far from acting to alleviate and improve the state of affairs, the authorities had merely aggravated the situation, not only by bringing migrants into the area, such as the young people housed in the Morandi-Cremona complex itself, but also encouraging, or at the very least, doing very little to limit, the settlements of other immigrants, whether they be Romani, European citizens (for example, Rumanians) or asylum seekers in the Tor Sapienza district or in surrounding areas. The protest can be interpreted as being a collective action of closure (Farro, 2000) by individuals intent on asserting, through extreme means, control of territorial spaces, which they consider should be limited to national citizens. In doing so, they negate the presence of others in these spaces: immigrants are seen as an invasive presence, an affront, if not a threat, to the local population, who see their living spaces being further subject to degradation. The protest in November of 2014 even degenerated into violence, so bearing witness to the distance which had been created between the protestors and the authorities, felt to be absent, if not downright antagonistic, as evident in the lack of governmental intervention and maintenance of the complex itself and of surrounding areas. In more general terms, this institutional absence is particularly evident in the high unemployment level, particularly in the uncertain future faced by young people, the crisis in the National Health Service, and welfare state, as a whole. These citizens see confirmation of an unfeeling, cold-hearted approach by the authorities in the sending of foreigners, usually young people of other cultures, also in need, economically and socially, but probably receiving benefits in some form, to an area and living space already so depressed and degraded, as the Morandi-Cremona block. On the contrary, in their view there are Italian citizens, both young and old, facing great hardship, without sufficient support coming from the institutions.

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A situation prevails where individuals protest against the lack of order and security, while at the same time, clash with the police sent to protect the migrants. The request for greater order and security can result in merely repressive measures being taken, so avoiding important issues which need tackling on different levels—social, cultural, and political, involving the whole system of governing. Local events, such as those occurring in the Morandi-Cremona complex, bring up wider issues, of integration, social relations, and cultural differences. In contrast to the sixties and seventies, of the last century, today issues of integration cannot be tackled through programmed rationalism, nor through finding solutions to urban conflicts, as such. In the twentieth century, tensions in the urban areas were seen as expressing the structural contradictions of a fully developed capitalist system (Castells, 1977 [1972]). As we shall below, in the Tor Sapienza district, issues of integration not only gave rise to violent protest, but also to other quite different forms of citizen mobilization. This second form of mobilization constituted an attempt on the part of some citizens to restore a sense of community through collective action aimed at setting up new forms of social interaction, to stem the social fragmentation they find themselves overcome by, even though these efforts risked being contradictory in themselves. The goal was to rescue an area suffering from degradation and abandonment to recreate a decent living space. This collective action can be seen in the two citizen committees set up in the district of Tor Sapienza. The first committee (whose actions are presented in this section, while those of the second, are presented in the next) was constituted in the Morandi-Cremona complex following the events of November 2014. Members meet to deal with three main issues. The first concerns what it means to live on the very outskirts of the Capital. The residents themselves see it as part of an urban expansion characterized by an increase in both urban and social deterioration and marginalization. The Committee members have the view that the situation has been further aggravated by degraded forms of settlement being set up migrants, seen as being due to a lack of control by the authorities on the movement of migrants, with people arriving in Rome who have problems integrating (both socially and culturally), finding adequate housing, and coping with what amounts to poverty. In an effort to compensate their needs, these migrants put together makeshift accommodation, which only adds to the degradation of the area.

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According to the Committee, the rapid increase in the number of these settlements can be put down to the rapid increase of migrants entering the country over the last decade, visibly transforming the profile of the inhabitants of the area, as in other areas of the city. The Committee members assert that they are witnessing a progressive deterioration of their residential area and other surrounding areas. They also perceive a growing loss of unity or homogeneity, which had characterized their living space up until a few decades ago, due to the arrival of new citizens from other nations and different cultures. What emerges from this is a collective closure towards the Other: Us (the legitimate Italian citizens) as opposed to Them (immigrants, Romani, migrants), with either a distance being taken, or even going as far as outright rejection being expressed. The second issue concerns the perceived total abandonment of the area on the part of the authorities, in the lack of intervention to regulate the flux of migrants and to equally distribute those arriving throughout the territory. The Morandi-Cremoni complex is particularly aware of the absence of the State, an absence provoking an implicit call for governmental intervention, to give priority to “nationals”, the local population, over the migrants.24 The third issue centres on the need expressed by the Committee to encourage and stimulate the inhabitants of the Morandi-Cremona complex to take the “fate” of their own living space into their own hands, as it were, participating in the definition and direction of the social and cultural policies to be taken and acted upon. A fixed point of reference was the distance felt between the inhabitants and the authorities, necessitating a restoring of a social fabric capable of reacting and democratically formulating a plan of action (defence) and promoting the periphery, starting from the bottom and the daily lives of the residents. In a certain way, there is the idea that the institutions will no longer return to cover that social role expected in the past. In the absence of sure political or institutional points of reference, the main the course of action to follow remains the direct intervention and participation of those directly involved, that is, the citizens.

24  According to a survey carried out involving 325 individuals in the Tor Sapienza area, in terms of integration of immigrants, 68.6% believed that priority should be given to Italians with regard to access to social services, while only 7% was agreement with the statement “guaranteeing equal access opportunities” (Battistelli et al., 2016, p. 18).

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It’s not that we’re different from the others: we were also barricaded up behind closed doors with little hope of being seen […]. You let things slip because you don’t believe anything can change. Then, when we saw the rage in the eyes of these young people, who are also our own children, friends of our children, we said to ourselves that we had to do something. We’re grownups: we have to give hope to these children; we have to pick ourselves up and get moving, and them, as well, because we can’t do everything on our own. We’re hoping to recover that lost sense of community, so that we can give the message that we are together, that we are many…[…] They only come here if the elections are on. You see these people […] They only need a slight push and then they’re off again. A boost in their trust and belief in themselves. I see it, every time there’s a meeting of the committee, more people come. [Serena, member of the Committee Morandi Cremona district]

The main objective is to reaffirm the will to recover a lost sense of community, to develop new social relations, not necessarily excluding the migrants, but to contrast the social fragmentation evident in their territories, also due to the geographical distance existing between the complex and other human grouping. The Committee considers centres for cultural exchange and recreation as useful for fostering social relations, but the distance between the nearest ones and the complex, means that, at the end of day, the residents are cut off from them. The residents manifest their own distinctiveness, which has been accentuated through the feeling of isolation, and the objective reality that the “Morandi Block” is a district apart. In urban terms, the sense of fragmentation is evident. As observed by Michel de Certeau, how an urban area is configured will determine or strongly influence the pathways taken and will attribute a particular flavour or meaning to a place (de Certeau, 1990, p. 149): the empty spaces that exist between one part of Tor Sapienza and another makes going on foot unlikely, favouring certain types of parking, certain movements and not others (de Certeau, 1990, p. 90). These distances contribute to the feeling of a patchy territory, with few lines of communication. This sense of isolation forces people who do not feel at ease in the Morandi complex to physically transport themselves elsewhere, such as a young university student who told us he was forced to use the car to go elsewhere: he had also built up groups of friends and chosen places where he socialized, not only far from the ATER complex, but far from Tor Sapienza, as a whole. What emerges from the interviews is that the older residents of Morandi see the area in full social crisis, with feelings of nostalgia on their part for

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how it was in the beginning, when the complex was seen and experienced as a new opportunity for a better life. At that time, they felt they were gaining in social status, in an area which was characterized by relatively straightforward social relations, where people believed that a better future could be built and had by all the residents, rather than visualizing the possibility of a backward trend. For this reason, according to the president of the Committee, the problem of the area’s abandonment on the part of the authorities, goes hand in hand with the “breakup of the community”. In the eighties, 85-86, we used to go and play in front of the windows of this elderly gentleman (and elderly man responsible for the centre who allowed us to use the spaces of the centre to conduct the interview to Morandi: NdA] to play football in what wasn’t exactly a football pitch, actually it wasn’t clear what it was…we always played there, betting on Coke, we bet 100-200 lire, all through our school years up to when we were about 16. That’s something which today…[…] hasn’t been repeated, there’s been no new generation to replace us in that play…[…] Mothers have begun to be afraid, seeing the goings-on and all these things…they tell their children to stay away from [the complex]. They’re afraid of the Black Man: in our day [when we were young] nobody was afraid.

For the Committee members, the area created for the Morandi complex, the area of the block, has failed in its effort to create a sense of community, a sharing, between the residents. They perceive this failure through their loss of the belief in a better future, both as a group and as individuals, a belief, which had been felt when they had first arrived at the complex. The residential complex was part of the programming of intervention on a national scale implemented according to concepts of urban rationalism and the social progress advocated in Italy in the years following the Second World War and, more decisively, during the sixties.25 In this period, economic expansion combined with industrial growth, gave rise to the implementation of policies based on rational planning, but also resulted in social and cultural conflicts. These conflicts involved factory floor labour relations (Pizzorno et al., 1978), the social setup, and urban planning and its implementation in the territory, of which council housing blocks constituted an important component (Ginatempo, 1975). The social conflicts over the control of this development involved the inhabitants of these housing blocks themselves (Della Pergola, 1974). The issues involving the  See report of the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning (1969).

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control over the urban planning, access to the housing, the infrastructures, and facilities, were considered (and not only in Italy), part of what was at stake in the struggle against capitalist dominion, and as involving efforts to establish alternative models of development in the industrial society (Castells, 1977 [1972]). However, as time went by, these views lost their meaning. Though the rational planning model had been used to envisage the creation of new urban spaces with civic housing for the population, for the large part destined for upward social mobility, with the implementation of infrastructures, facilities, and commercial activities, in reality, there were later obvious signs of social degradation or that projects had not actually been fully put into effect. In this regard, the older residents of the Committee claim that after the inauguration of the housing block, the shops closed in rapid succession or never actually opened. They also see that the progressive structural decay of the buildings and infrastructures went hand in hand with an impoverishment of the area, with a high concentration of families in precarious living conditions, on the margins of society or in unapproved circumstances, imposed or set up as an alternative way of living. Today the housing complex is seen as one where permanent unauthorized occupation of the various spaces is run-of-the-mill, providing temporary refuge for homeless families and individuals with little by the way of an income. The three fronts taken up by the Committee in terms of collective action appear, thus, contradictory. In one sense, they are related to a reaction against the failure of an economic, social, and cultural development project, both due to a lack of follow-through on the part of project managers, and also due to the conflicts inherent to an industrialized society. In Italy, the thrust of this social model ran out of steam during the seventies, exactly when there were some attempts to complete and remodel its full development. As the industrial society lost its impetus, the result was a fragmentation of social relations, with the deconstruction of previous social, cultural, and political integrations, which had already manifested internal struggles. Those directly involved in this social fragmentation saw themselves as having to face cultural and social difficulties mainly concerning, to their mind, issues of maintaining security caused by the perennial disinterest on the part of the authorities, rather than due to changes in the social structure, closely related to the present day processes of globalization which, in turn were behind the international migration. Hence, the Committee of the Morandi-Cremona complex asked the institutions

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which they saw directly responsible for the state of affairs—the local and national institutions—to solve the problems, by guaranteeing order and safety for the benefit of the citizens of the area. They called for the stop and repression of the illegal activities caused by the migrants, seen as threatening the order and safety of the areas and so its residents (affected both on an individual and group level).26 In another way, the Committee was also trying to find solutions to the social fragmentation of contemporary life. The action they undertook was attempting to face the new issues that had arisen. They were attempting to reconstruct circuits of intersubjective communication among the inhabitants of the area, with the aim of regenerating a local community. This involves dealing with economic, social, and cultural questions to contrast, and find alternatives to, the integration crisis that particularly beset the daily lives of inhabitants of areas, such as the Morandi-Cremona complex.

3.4   The Fading of Industrialism The second Committee, the Tor Sapienza Committee, a management committee, consists of members voted in by 200 citizens, the inhabitants of the first urban settlement to be built in the area, in the centre of Tor Sapienza. According to the Morandi-Cremona Committee, in this area inhabitants own their homes. This fact is emblematic of the gap existing between the two areas, both geographically, and in terms of interests and needs. On the one side, we have an isolated building complex where the original plan to set up a new urban area characterized by social upward mobility and new interrelating autonomous space (churches, shops, health services, social centre, and grocery stores), independent in many ways from the rest of the city, has faded beyond recall. On the other side, there is the older, more established urban community, with its own much more dynamic civic vitality (commercial activity, road network, transport services, and facilities). This representation of the central area of Tor Sapienza by the Morandi-­ Cremona Committee, more or less meets the nostalgic imagine the 26  Other sociological studies conducted in Tor Sapienza and around have, in turn, highlighted the importance of the appeal to authorities for greater security by local inhabitants, who perceive themselves undertreat or in an unsafe situation due to the hosting of migrants— as seen earlier in this book—in a building of the Quadrante Morandi-Cremona (Battistelli et al., 2016).

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members of the Tor Sapienza Committee have themselves of their area. Building began in the late sixties and the early seventies, the area extending to an urban settlement, in the context of industrial development. Those who settled in the area at that time look back upon it with nostalgia, when the industrial boom, (and the consequent growth of the area), was yet to show signs of tailing off. A member of the present Committee had been attracted to the rationalism of the urban area and its housing, when industrial plants, infrastructures and services had not excluded the presence of green areas. According to this citizen, the centre of Tor Sapienza was a welcoming, green area, where one could imagine having a pleasant life, removed from the city chaos. The idea was to be near the big city but out of the hubbub, in a quiet suburb on the outskirts. I fell in love with the house where I lived, which was actually a 90 sqm flat, I mean, it’s not a huge space. I took out a small mortgage, I had begun working on all these things…I remember my mother saying to me “But where on earth are you going? There are only kilometres and kilometres of grass out there!” I told myself that was just fine, just what I needed. And so I brought this top floor flat, which also had a terrace. I could even see San Peter’s dome and Monte Mario from my place. I could still see Monte Mario, but then they put up that concrete wall at Colli Anieni, blocking my view […] The buildings at Verde Rocca block my view of the dome. On the other side, I could see a little of the Castelli,27 but unfortunately, they then built the Giorgio Morandi complex, a little up the side of the hill […] When they dismantled the Tor Sapienza station, I said to myself “They’ve taken away our history”, because when Tor Sapienza was first established, there were only four houses built by a railway man […] So I was really in love with Tor Sapienza. Besides being a beautiful place, it was also a well-to-do area: there was a lot of industry. Industry was making progress…I mean… enterprises were free to pursue their business, and they thrived. [Rosario, member of the Tor Sapienza Committee]

Today, those days appear a long way off, looked back upon with nostalgia by the original inhabitants of the area. The residents are critical of the authorities for their lack of intervention to stem the urban, economic, social, and cultural degradation which afflicts Tor Sapienza, the situation being exasperated by the crisis beset the industries and enterprises in the area. The Committee are particularly damning of how public construction  The Castelli Romani area groups 16 municipalities located in the hills near Rome.

27

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projects were carried out without any consideration of the tradition of the place, and without sufficiently considering the environmental impact such building would have. Complaints particularly revolve around the building of the Rome-Naples highway (TAV),28 constructed with no thought of the history of the area, nor of its identity, sweeping away the historic train station of Tor Sapienza, which had marked the beginning of the whole area. The first settlement in Tor Sapienza goes back to the early twenties: it started with the construction of 25 small country houses in the East of the Capital in a rural area which was part of a urban development plan of areas around Rome, including Tor Cervara, where a housing nucleus was established, later to be known as Tor Sapienza.29 The National Railway built a station in 1923, connecting the area to Rome, and consolidating the settlement as part of a larger area, which then saw the beginnings of industrial development. This development grew in the following decades, during the Second World War and in the postwar period.30 The industrial expansion of the territory East of Rome in the early forties was part of that growth, when enterprises of various dimensions, small, medium, and large, were set up, directly involving Tor Sapienza itself (Pietrangeli, 2014). This development saw an ever increasing number of factories and manufacturing plants, which was accompanied by, on the one hand, an increase in the local population, and on the other, a considerable number of plant workers, along with employees of the local branches of various industries. In 1951, the residents numbered around 10,000, growing to 21,000 in 1971, when the workers employed locally were more than 5000. In that period, the local enterprises numbered 56631 173 of which were artisans, with 6676 employees,32 and 166 local manufacturing companies33 with around 5400 employees. This industrial growth bears witness to how  High-speed highway connecting Rome to Naples.   The original settlement inaugurated in 1923 was founded by the Tor Sapienza Cooperative as part of the colonization of the Agro Romano, through the initiative of a group of citizens led by Michele Testa, a surveyor and farmer, railway employee and socialist activist. 30  See Rita Mattei, “Ecco chi era Michele Testa”, consultato online il 20/08/2016, http:// www.abitarearoma.net/ecco-chi-era-michele-testa/. 31  Population census ISTAT (The Italian National Institute of Statistics), 1971, Industry and Commerce. 32  6908 were professionals, according to population census data ISTAT, 1971. 33  Population census ISTAT, 1971, Industry and Commerce. 28 29

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dynamic the economic situation was at that time, with industries such as La Farret/Voxson, Peroni and Fioriucci, all setting up production plants in the Tor Sapienza area in the postwar period, as was initially foreseen by the urban planning, assigning the area as one of the new industrial areas in the territory East of Rome (Vendittelli, 1984; Pietrangeli, 2014, pp. 222–224). Hence, Tor Sapienza has clearly been strongly shaped by industrialism. The number of working plants of different dimensions, and employees of the manufacturing industry indicate the relative importance of the area in industrial terms, a position it maintained until the early eighties. In 1981, the number of inhabitants was registered at being 23,748. In the census, 8,217 residents were professional, and 2,534, employees. The local plants numbered 884 in total (173 of these being artisanal), with the manufacturing units numbering 172 with 5,058 employees.34

However, the growth of the industrial area was to go into decline. This was partly due to local changes whereby the moving of industrial plants to other areas outside Rome had previously been foreseen by industrial planning. The East area was to lose its importance as an industrial area, with production being directed towards the North of the capital, but particularly towards the South, due to the Fund for the South (Cassa del mezzogiorno), which foresaw particular advantages and concessions for industries setting up plants in the south, in a territory extending to Pomezia. Tor Sapienza found itself caught up in the general economic crisis, with a reduction in production, and consequently, in the number of employees (Pietrangeli, 2014, pp. 225–227). The decline in the industrial sector was acute at the end of the century. In 1991, in Tor Sapienza, the resident inhabitants numbered 23,597. Of these, 4386 were employees.35 There were 8133 residents employed ­altogether, with 1425 working in the manufacturing industry, and 1820 in commerce, car repairs and consumer goods. The industrial decline was marked by the closure of numerous plants, particularly those of Voxon and

 Population census ISTAT, 1981; Census ISTAT 1981, Industry and Commerce.  There were 3048 managers, middle managers, and employees; 1471 self-employed workers and assistants; 83 cooperative members; 347 executives entrepreneurs and freelancers. Active population by position in the profession and toponymic subdivision, 1991. Source: ISTAT, Rome 1995. 34 35

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The Fatme, as well as smaller ones. A fall in both the numbers of plants and employees continued until the beginning of the new century. The downsizing of the industry is implicit of a more complex process of an industrial crisis, its social integration, and its inherent cultural leanings, and its structural conflicts in terms of labour relations, set on controlling the organization of labour while controlling the directions taken in the development of social life. It results in the breakup of social life and sociality, as evident on a local level, in Tor Sapienza, as well. The decline, however, is related more directly to the loss in the meaning of a society focused on industry and industrialization and subsequent labour relations, and on its integration and sociality. In the later sixties and early seventies of the last century, the decline was marked by the structuration of a new society, termed by different sociological analyses as the postindustrial society, which overtook or replaced the industrial society (Touraine, 1969; Bell, 1973). This did not make industrial production redundant or lessen its economic importance, but only repositioned it in the context of the changes connected to the processes of globalization (Findlay & O’Rourke, 2007, pp.  496–546). However, the decline was perceived, on a local level, as a crisis of industrialism, particularly in certain territories where there had been a significant presence of industrial plants and related workers, such as in Tor Sapienza. It was accompanied by a modification in a part of the population at the beginning of the present century, which coincided with the influx of migrants. Notably, their presence at Tor Sapienza was not a consequence of trends in the industrial labour market, or due to demand and supply of labour in the building sector or the manufacturing industry, as it had been in the past. This had happened in the fifties and in the following years, due to the industrial expansion, particularly in the industrialized North of Italy, with the movement up north of Italian workers mainly originating from less developed areas in the southern regions (Pugliese, 2006). Neither were the migrants part of that population principally from the southern and central regions, which, in the same period, arrived in Rome (the capital itself undergoing a significant economic expansion), in search of work opportunities and betterment in life. This immigration (as discussed in the previous chapter) would be partly responsible for the phenomena of the self-construction of housing and non-authorized urban expansion (Ferrarotti, 1979). Nor were the migrants part of that internal immigration attracted by the chance of cultural, social, and economic integration in a place bound to the initial

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process of industrialization, such as Tor Sapienza (see above), which took hold in the early postwar period. The migrants present in Tor Sapienza in the twenty-first century are part of the migratory processes of this century, and these people were certainly not drawn to the area due to likely employment from industry. The political, cultural, social, and economic transformations experienced by the members of the Tor Sapienza Committee are seen as the dissolution of social relations, integration, and sociality, which had had meaning for them during the period of main industrialization. At that time, they had also felt involved in institutional welfare activities and the urban policies or even participant in the related social and political conflicts. As seen by the Committee members, a change in the makeup of the local population due to the presence of migrants in the area is connected to the perceived social demise at Tor Sapienza, though their presence is not taken as a necessarily determining factor in the degradation of the area.

3.5   The Institutional Crisis A resident of the historic area of Tor Sapienza, a Committee member, gave us his own picture of life there, in which he considers the limits of social policy and the institutions themselves, in the light of the new emerging issues related to co-habitation: […] the outskirts which have become difficult to manage: the crisis came, and so did the landings…for that reason I say that integration doesn’t mean you let them in and then just abandon them. Because many asylum seekers, with a legal right to be here for political reasons, have been abandoned, and so forced to invent a living, they live day by day. So this “system of integration” lacks serious implementation[…] I don’t think there’s a link between immigrants and degradation as such. I’d say it lies in the desperation people feel and what happens next, as a consequence. We see what happens here: a couple of bars stay open in the evening. These people gather here […] They drink, they get drunk, perhaps to forget…a joint. It’s a struggle to survive, and so now and again a brawl breaks out. Then glass bottles are smashed. [Rosario, Tor Sapienza Committee, house owner, resident of the historic centre of Tor Sapienza]

The various episodes seen as exemplary of a deteriorating situation are taken to be connected to the presence of the migrants, a presence not dictated by the workings of the industrial labour market or urban

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planning, but which, according to our interlocutor, appears unchecked or lacking in an effective integration policy on the part of the institutions: I’m not even relating these problems to the question of paying my taxes, but I mention it because if I have to pay my council tax…and the streets are as they are, security is what it is, and added to this I have to put up with the toxic bonfires…Then this means the toxic bonfires are part of the public services…But it’s a service we don’t really want…[laughter]. [Rosario]

The presence of the migrants perceived as unchecked and generally out of control, totally lacking in planning and logistics, is seen, instead, as connected to issues of job opportunities in areas abandoned and forgotten by the local authorities, rather than being related to a real intent on the part of the governance to welcome and effectively integrate migrants. To be in an area where there are numerous migrants in precarious conditions— whether asylum seekers or people subject to an expulsion warrant, with their papers or permits in order or not, their presence in Italy being legal or not—represents for some Tor Sapienza residents a factor which degrades their district. It means that the national and local authorities have failed in their role as regulator, have abandoned the area to its own devices, and allowed lawful or unlawful spontaneous settlements, without enacting a real development plan or urban regeneration policy. Hence, the presence of the migrants and Romani is seen as a downgrading of the whole area, an impoverishment of the living space and its economy. The lack of intervention on the part of the authorities to improve or even alleviate the situation is indicative of their total disinterest in the fate of the local residents, or quite simply, due to a total inability or powerlessness to deal with difficult areas, such as Tor Sapienza, or even worse, a result of corruption.36 […] Out of the 300-400 who should be here, there are about a thousand [migrants] in the same building, here in Collatina. Because if I emigrate and

36  According to a survey carried out involving 324 individuals in Tor Sapienza and around, among the problems that most worried residents of Tor Sapienza were the inefficiency of politics / corruption (20.3%), and immigration (18.5%). The most worrying issue, however, was the socio-economic situation, particularly regarding unemployment (over 55%) (Battistelli et al., 2016, p. 18). In the same survey, the two main problems for the quality of life in the neighbourhood were the presence of nomad camps (45.5%), and the degradation of public spaces (maintenance of roads, sidewalks, public green care, lighting) (45.2%) (ibid., p. 19).

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then my relative comes, the person I know comes to me, what do I do? Shouldn’t I put them up? So, this is why I say… […] I don’t think it’s a problem of immigration. It’s a problem of implementing the law and dealing effectively with problems, because the immigrants aren’t entirely to blame. How can we simply say “go ahead and integrate” to someone who comes from a completely different culture from your own? But then again, if you come, you should behave properly. So given there’s no certainty concerning the penalty, whether misdemeanours will be punished, here are no checks, there isn’t anything, here it’s become the norm to drink a bottle and then throw it in the middle of the street, that’s OK, too…So for people to queue up at the post office and pay TASI,37 to pay for all these small goings-on, it’s obvious that people will be resentful. And what worries me most [is that] it all seems more like a well-orchestrated business, almost political, because I rebel in the end as a person, don’t I? It’s no good, it’s no good…Then someone begins to say “You’re racist”. I’m not a racist: when I was a child I thought passports weren’t necessary […] But you should behave well. And here, to behave well…the first ones to behave badly are the institutions. So we shouldn’t really be surprised. That’s to say, when your child is born…you hope they’ll grow up as a good citizen. But if you’re child is born into a Nomad camp—one of God’s creatures, who has neither blame nor sin—but in that environment, how can they evolve? It’s as if you took them and put them in the middle of the African jungle, perhaps in the end they’d talk to the monkeys but they’ll never be able to talk to us. So that’s why I say, it’s not up to us ‘you have to integrate’, ‘nobody wants to take away your culture’. But your culture doesn’t mean you can come here and destroy or harm mine. It’s all very serious. It’s a problem the politicians have never really wanted to face, probably because they’re too busy lining their pockets as much as they can, and can’t think of anything else. Mare Nostrum38 cost 9 million a month. Now there are about 1600, who need providing for: where are you going to put them? Here, we are full up, really we are, more than we should be. [Rosario] 37  Indivisible Services Tax, is a municipal tax relating to the holding of buildings and building areas, except agricultural land and the main residence. 38  Lasting just over a year, from October 2013 to November 2014, Mare Nostrum was a monitoring and rescue sea operation coordinated by the Italian and Maltese authorities. Created as the result of the umpteenth tragedy of migrants at sea trying to reach the shores of the island of Lampedusa in makeshift crafts, this humanitarian mission sought to bridge the limits of intervention of Frontex (European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union). According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, Mare Nostrum rescued 100,250 people and carried out 558 interventions. See http://www.interno.gov.it/it/notizie/conclude-mare-­ nostrum-triton visited on 12 March 2015.

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What emerges from the Tor Sapienza Committee is a call for order and control, to reverse a worsening situation of degradation, mainly caused by a lack of intervention on the part of the authorities. The absence of services and maintenance of the living spaces, the lack of intervention to reclaim the urban areas are all put down to the inability to put a stop to the commonplace state of unlawfulness, which the residents have to endure. The local authorities are mainly blamed for the degraded state of affairs, a degradation heightened by an unchecked presence of migrants and Romani. The theme of security comes across as resolute rhetoric against the cultural and social problems in the area. It is seen as a framework within which fragmentation and change are determined (aggravated or solved according to its implementation), while in actual fact, such factors are related to more global issues. For their part, the political institutions of the City Council appear submerged by proven corruption, which only further leads the administration into a state of helplessness. The criticism, now on a national scale, is mainly directed towards the mounting inability to integrate new groups of immigration, to control the international arrivals of new migrants, and to act on the causes of these influxes. As a result, there is the real risk that residents will resist the changes affecting the area, and reject the new people who enter it. That people may be susceptible to rhetoric exhorting exclusion and receptive to calls for greater security might represent an opening for parties or groups to take root through populist rhetoric, and the offer of their own forms of right-wing socialism.

3.6   Occupation, Squat, and Experimental Shared Living Spaces The reported cases of peripheral areas in a state of degradation, as with the case of Tor Sapienza, are akin to other situations existing in Italy. Social tensions and protests combine to generate different forms of mobilization, both old and new, such as the occupation of houses, and the resistance to eviction or forced clearance. In particular, in Milan 3263 Aler lodgings were reported as illegally occupied, up until 2016, with an increase of 250 in the last year alone.39 No official figures exist concerning the number of illegal occupations in Rome. However, according to an online map 39  Data Aler-Azienda Lombarda Edilizia Residenziale (Lombard Residential Building Company) taken from Corriere della Sera di Milano (visitato online il 15//2016), See

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updated through citizen notifications, over 140 buildings are apparently occupied in Rome, with over 70 settlements being reportedly unauthorized (see Fig. 3.1).40 A lack of houses or apartments in the Council area is not apparently at the root of the Rome housing emergency; instead, high rents are being asked, which are beyond people’s reach. According to a report by Giulia Agostini (2011, p. 3), on the housing issue in Rome: The most serious factor is that the housing emergency in Rome is not tied to a lack of housing because according to the calculations by Suna in 2010, there are 245,256 empty houses or unrented apartments in Rome, all of

Fig. 3.1  Illegal settlements: Map elaborated by citizens advisories on Google Map. Source: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=z77JB6IL4 Of0.kl8ws5rEawNU&hl (accessed on May 30, 2016)

http://milano.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/17_gennaio_16/periferie-case-popolari-ripartel-­assedio-abusivi-aler-emergenza-san-siro-b30bf0ca-dbc6-11e6-8880-ab80bbeec765.shtml. 40  Among the buildings occupied, there were former schools, former factories, former public buildings, former customs offices, farmhouses, former police headquarters and municipal offices, sports centres, commercial premises, hotels or former hotels, garages and social housing.

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which could give lodging to about 500,000 people. So what emerges from this brief analysis is not a problem of a lack of housing as such, but a lack of low cost housing. The poorest and most vulnerable sections of the population are consequently forced to live in slums.

In this context, the occupations are a direct answer to urgent material needs, and constitute what has been termed deprivation based squatting (Pruijt, 2013), an alternative solution to the desperate situation of the homeless or those living in makeshift shelters. Hence, the occupying of spaces can occur spontaneously, but more often, it is organized through groups, even criminal ones, who enact real campaigns of illegal occupations in exchange for money for the living spaces. In other cases, the occupation is run by collectives who wish to render the occupation a political act, claiming a basic right (the right to housing) as part of their objectives to transform the city bottom-up in opposition to housing speculation, to gentrification, to the real estate market, and to neoliberalism as the leading force of development of present day cities (Mayer, 2009; Martinez, 2013). The events we are observing are not new. In Italy during the seventies, there were significant moves to occupy housing, which underlined the crisis of the enactment of territorial planning in the sixties and seventies. This occupation movement essentially constituted a political act motivated by radical opposition to capitalism, specifically that structurally involved in upping urban revenue and exercising control over the working classes (Della Pergola, 1974; Daolio, 1974; Comitato di Quartiere, 1977). These struggles not only pushed urban issue to the forefront in Italy, but also renewed criticism of the current planning processes, which were seen as structural forms of control, involving speculation and resulting in social degradation. On the one hand, an anti-capitalist struggle over housing is evident from the sixties to the eighties, with the assertion of the fundamental right to a home and a right to the city by the working classes, and which also involved workers’ struggles on the shop floor. On the other, though today there is the continuing struggle for lodging as part of the right to the city, in actual fact, the focus is now on the occupation of living spaces due to the lack of council housing, and in response to rising house prices and building speculation. The occupations in Rome have continued in the same vein as before, but have principally regenerated by, on the one hand, finding inspiration from intellectual conceptions of city development working from the bottom—Self-made urbanism (Cellamare, 2014), and on the other, moulding new concepts of the common good in the context

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of urban development in a form of “urban rebellion”, the idea of the Rebel City (Harvey, 2012; Mattei, 2011; Negri, 2012). The facts concerning Tor Sapienza underline the continuing strong connection between housing issues and the territorial setup, and the construction of sociality, when authorities face significant challenges, such as with the migratory process. Social policy needs to be re-directed to find answers to, the presence of migrants and asylum seekers,41 the management of migratory flows (legal or otherwise), and the insertion of migrants in the territory and their subsequent integration in urban areas. In some cases, the experience of the occupation of a place can sometimes take on different meanings, according to the social tendencies and political vision of occupiers who, while not intending to sweep aside past experiences, propose new models of cohabitation in a socially and demographically changed context. Such an example can be found in the former Fiorucci factory, situated in the area of Tor Sapienza, in via Prenestina. It was occupied by the collective Blocchi Precari Metropolitani,42 which, according to some of the organizers, apparently houses about 200 families, originating from different places across the globe, from Perù to Maghreb, to the Ukraine. This space was taken over as a living space and took the name Metropoliz. Part of the space is also used for contemporary art exhibitions, and in particular, houses the contemporary art museum MAAM (“Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere of the Metropoliz”). Advancing a new form of urban sociality, Metrpoliz is a pioneering force in its inclusion of the integration of Romani people43 into its programme of self-managed cohabitation. As in the other cases of organized occupation, agendas and criteria for action are decided in assembly, with regards to division of roles and responsibilities, and the establishing of rules for communal living (Broccia, 2012, pp. 35–36). The sharing of the occupied living space is not without conflicts and inter-community problems, as has been observed (Broccia, 2012, p. 197). How the occupation is organized, from who takes the floor at meetings to the division of roles, and the decisions taken, are subject to power struggles across distinct national or ethnic groups. The daily lives of the immigrant families carry  See Gibney (2004).  This is a splinter group of Action, a very active political movement for housing and the right to housing in Rome. Other housing action groups operating in Rome are the Citizen Coordination Action Group for housing, the Popular Committee Action Group for housing and the Obiettivo Casa Committee. 43  On this subject, see Ambrosini (2008) and Vitale (2009). 41 42

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on independently, both in terms of involvement and the importance given, from the political collective action, and the visitors and producers of cultural and artistic events put on by Metropoliz. The different uses of space and what it means to belong to specific place (de Certeau, 1990), is determined by one’s life experience, and how that place is lived. People from different ethnic and national groups share the occupied living space. The living spaces border on each other and interflow with the exhibitions and experiences of contemporary art housed by MAAM.  The atelier has housed cultural and artistic events on more than one occasion. The activists, artists and militants, experienced in social centres and occupied spaces in Rome, are attempting to build a solid bridge for dialogue and understanding with universities (particularly Rome 3), focusing on the practical application of the concept of what it means to cohabit, in an effort to challenge the prevailing urban dynamics.44 In a certain way, the avant-­ garde element of producing art (installation art and plastic arts) tied to social themes, is an attempt to create a “social glue”, and justify the existence and legitimize this type of occupation by opening up to a diversified public, and not just involve the artists themselves (Valli, 2015; Satta & Scandurra, 2014). The Metropoliz is attempting to set itself up as a focal point for the production of contemporary art on the outskirts of the city, without support or aid from the institutions. Such independence is the underlying logic when informal institutions of welfare, art, and culture are created, going from the production, and management of space and programming, to even include financing through public involvement, as has already happened in other squatting experiences in Europe (Mudu, 2004; Holm & Kuhn, 2010; Martinez, 2013; Famiglietti & Rebughini, 2008; Pruijt, 2013). The theme of the right to a home permeates the discourse accompanying the action, so reinforcing the rhetoric of urban regeneration as a force arising from the people at the bottom. Referring to the categorization of squats as formulated by Pruijt, the Metropoliz represents a union of two: first, an occupation occurring as an answer to a housing emergency, particularly the migrants—deprivation based squatting—and; second, an occupation working in the direction of constructing alternative, 44  At the end of October 2014, the Metropoliz housed the Self Master Urbanism Rome (SMUR) event, which discussed possible new forms of urban self-organization and self-­ production. SMUR is an international research project, bringing together architects, urban planners, researchers, artists and political activists. See Cellamare (2014).

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counter-culture spaces, defined as entrepreneurial squatting, not normally associated with the function of a living space (Pruijt, 2013). The occupation of a space as a living area by a disadvantaged section of the population who has no access to other lodgings, is accompanied by other forms of social struggle which, instead, focus on the access and right to the city and its resources of every citizen. In this political logic, the city is seen as a public asset, in direct contrast to its privatization and gentrification induced by the real estate market (Smith, 2002; Katz & Mayer, 1985; Mayer, 2009). The occupation appears to be more of an experiment, an attempt at sharing a living space in a peaceful coexistence in a degraded area, its organizers being politically and socially motivated. These forms of collective action try to construct social structures and to restore the dignity of people deprived, up until that moment, of an accessible living space. As we have seen, the temptation to close ranks on the part of a community and exclude others can present itself in contexts troubled by controversies over issues of legality, degradation and problems related to immigration. Since the Metrolpoliz is also in an area on the outskirts of the city, this occupation underlines how an alternative and radically different solution is possible, which also involves the placing of members of the Romani ethnic group in a self-managed shared living space. Continually experimenting new forms of sociality and alternative ways of shared living in the contemporary city, activists are occupying buildings to create living spaces or put on cultural events, such the Metrolpoliz, and are also involved in other forms of social action in Rome, more generically defined as occupied social centres or simply occupied spaces. Such action puts forward the idea of symbolically bringing the outskirts to the city centre. Starting from the outskirts assumes a political significance—effort is made to present the action as a legitimate one, aimed at encouraging social development, and enacting emergency measures the national and local authorities are incapable of carrying out. In actual fact, these occupations run under self-management and set up in the vacuum left by the authorities with regard to rights and welfare (Membretti, 2007), particularly the issue of housing, are not entirely legal. Every now and then the authorities attempt to reinforce “law and order” through forced evacuation of the occupied spaces. In the words of the militants, the theme of lawfulness and legitimacy intermingles with citizen needs and the call for social justice:

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The law, legitimacy, this is what I think: first of all, all rights have been fought for (they’ve never been just given away), on the edge of the law, which means going beyond prevailing regulations…Because that’s the only way you can push the rule forward and change it for the better. […] concerning the occupation of the houses, you need to make a distinction: there are moves to occupy housing, and then there are the moves by criminal organizations. They are two completely different things, and there’s much confusion over these phenomena. Concerning crime, where people are forced to pay and where in most cases, people go and occupy places which are already housing other people, that is, they deprive people who are just as poor as they are, just as in need of that living space. That kind of thing just needs condemning, as its depriving people of their living space, and they have nowhere else to go…it’s a battle of the have-nots. [On the other hand] when occupying a house…and we’re not talking about private housing because they know it would be a problem…let me think now, they’ve gone and occupied an old unused school earmarked for private sale in via dell’Acacie; the occupation of Santa Croce [in Gerusalemme], the former building of Inpdap, where, apart from anything, state-owned assets were first sold off…so, how can I put it?, we’ve come a full circle. You took me off the list for being assigned a lodging; the State is completely absent. Citizens, in some way, need somewhere to live, don’t they? Do you know how much it costs to carry out things legally? That is, to free up a school which was about to be sold off to private buyers? It’s costly, those people there have virtually been put there, in residences very often run by criminals…and in any case, all these things cost. Instead, these people [the occupiers] not only have they asked nothing from the State, they have taken over an abandoned state-owned building, put in their own money to make it livable, and now live there. When you, State, kick these people out of a place which they consider their home or you throw them into a residence in the most unlikely places, the back of beyond…you break up a community…since a sense of community has been created there, with reciprocal support for the elderly and for the children…without burdening the State, which isn’t there in any case[…] if the State doesn’t provide the services, it’s the State we need to think of as not respecting the law […] if the State leaves us to the mercy of private entities, then really social order will come to an end. [Valeria, 39, militant of the collective Valle Occupato]

As the right to a home is negated, buildings are illegally taken over in response. In the case of the Morandi complex, we are dealing with a disadvantaged social context where some families are occupying places in the

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absence of alternative lodging. There is no data confirming the existence of “a market of unauthorized occupations”, an illegal business which monitors which apartments are free to then go and sell them to renting families. Nonetheless, some inhabitants (who obtained their housing through regular means) talk of organized occupations. In some cases, some of those who are assigned the lodgings are without any means: the Morandi Committee has the view that the law needs to be restored and enforced, but members are willing to show a degree of tolerance towards those who are unable to pay; each case should be assessed on its own. They share a general view of justice, demanding the enforcement of the law, but also expressing solidarity and understanding for those in an obvious state of precariousness, for whom exceptions can be made, and who require adequate support.

3.7   Conclusions In some areas of the Italian capital a process of gentrification is taking place (Rinaldi, 2012), while in others, both central and on the outskirts, immigration flows of non-EU migrants are the main factor bringing about change in the city’s profile. With the authorities withdrawing from areas such as Tor Sapienza, which have become marginalized, both economically and in terms of production, there is also an evident lack of investment in structures or in projects aimed at social development and growth. Tor Sapienza no longer appears a place of sociality, offering opportunity and sharing, as it may have appeared to those who managed to obtain a safe housing for themselves and their families for the first time, back in the days when industry was thriving there. Today, the social cohesion appears to be sorely strained under an increasingly problematic situation, whereby degradation of the complex itself and the closure of commercial activities and services within it, add to the difficulties of an area, already hindered by its geographical isolation. In the case of the Viale Morandi block and of Tor Sapienza, projects and activities of collaboration have been set up involving local universities as agents of intervention and transformation. An example can be found in the project Re-Block—an acronym of Reviving high-rise Blocks for cohesive

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and green neighbourhoods.45 These projects attempt to promote the processes of social and economic renewal through ad hoc urban planning. The post-Fordist city, as it appears in the peripheral and working-class areas, has become impoverished, an increasing number of people having little or no means (Harvey, 1994, pp.  372–374; Le Galès, 2002, pp. 115–123), with the settlement of immigrants in precariousness conditions, and a concentration of illegal goings on. The present situation in Tor Sapienza shows a transformation of the demographic profile, not only due to the presence (as in other parts of the city) of economic migrants who are settling in urban areas, with or without authorization, in occupied spaces or makeshift shelters, but also due to the refugee welcome centres and Romani camps, which are not due to spontaneous settling, but wanted and programmed by the authorities themselves. This choice in policy is seen by some Tor Sapienza citizens as both proof of how little the authorities consider the real needs of the autochthonous population, and also how the State has left the area to fend for itself. The militant groups, which work against precarious housing and for the right to a home, are caught up in local struggles, but those struggles are part of a wider national network. Through occupation and reclaiming of abandoned or unused spaces and entrusting them to both Italian and foreign homeless families, these collective actions attempt to put the idea of community living among the most vulnerable individuals, without care or assistance, into practice. Pursuing the idea of welcoming migrants irrespective of provenance and based on the respect and collectivization of spaces and resources, the occupying collectives (politically on the far left) are experimenting in offering cohabitation to multiethnic, multinational and multicultural groups, and put themselves forward as autonomous promoters of an alternative view of the city, by working from the bottom. Hence, the idea of Self-made urbanism becomes, rhetorically speaking, an active response and a form of resistance, to social and urban fragmentation, with reference to a gentrification characteristic of globalization (Smith, 2002; Mayer, 2009). The immediate counterpart is often seen as private property and building speculation, which the local authorities are apparently involved in. Nonetheless, that occupations exist is proof of the weakness of 45  The University of Tor Vergata was the actor / partner of this urban project. On this subject, see the document relating to the project: Elisei et  al. 2014 (accessed online on January 5, 2015) http://docplayer.net/2578167-2-the-morandi-tor-sapienza-regeneration-­ project-­the-case-description.html.

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local authorities, which can only choose between a hard-line intervention to “restore law and order” or a tacit consent which does not legitimize the occupants, but which allows urban experiments to be carried.

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Ambrosini, M. (2008). La sfida più ardua: costruire politiche di integrazione per (e con) le minoranze rom e sinte (pp.  199–222). Osservatorio regionale per l’integrazione e la multietnicità, Gli immigrati in Lombardia. Rapporto 2007. ISMU. Ministero del Bilancio e della Programmazione economica. (1969). Progetto 80. Rapporto preliminare al programma economico nazionale 1971–75. Libreria Feltrinelli.

PART II

Out from the Centre, Towards the Centre

CHAPTER 4

Torpignattara

4.1   The Boys at Maranella On 19th September 2014, a twenty-eight-year-old Pakistani was beaten to death by a seventeen-year-old Roman youth at the instigation of his father, in via Ludovico Pavone, in Torpignattara, in the V Municipal of Rome. According to eye-witnesses, the attack was apparently unprovoked but carried out in cold blood. The young Pakistani was evidently drunk and was reciting a few verses of a surah from the Koran. From an initial reconstruction of the facts, it had looked as if the minor had overreacted after being provoked by the Pakistani who had apparently spat at him, and a single but fatal blow had followed. The eyewitness accounts, however, told another story. The minor ended up in prison, along with his father, accused of inciting his son to commit voluntary manslaughter. A few weeks later, some of the residents and friends of the young Roman began protesting and calling for the youth’s release, regarding him as a victim of an unhappy event which, given the present degradation of districts such as Torpignattara, is to be considered almost inevitable. On some of the banners1 held up by the protestors were written the words “Forever on your side, forever against them all”, “Forsaken before birth”, “Left to their fate 1   From the Messaggero 16 October 2014, http://www.ilmessaggero.it/ROMA/ CRONACA/torpignattara_pakistano_ucciso_daniel_gip/notizie/958807.shtml (accessed online on December 10 2014).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_4

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at birth! Born in Marranella: abandoned as adolescents”.2 As can be understood from the media reports, there was widespread sympathy for the younger generation (the aggressor’s friends) in the district, with local residents identifying with their predicament. The authorities were accused of abandoning the area, widely steeped in social and urban problems. Some citizens of the district, through the Torpignattara Committee, and the parent association of the Pisacane School, organized a counter protest in solidarity with the young man who was killed, with part of the Bangladeshi and Pakistani community in Rome participating in the manifestation.

4.2   Torpignattara Torpignattara is in the urban district of 6A, presently part of the V Municipal (formerly the VI). The district (also known as Tor Pignattara) was founded in the twenties, originally housing immigrants from Lazio and the South in unsanitary conditions in shacks (Ficacci, 2007). Following the reclaiming of the area by the Governate of Rome, some of these settlements were turned into simple two-storied houses with two rooms, and a small garden. Another big influx of migrants arrived in the area in the period 1924 to 1929. Most of these migrants had little means, and many set up makeshift lodgings in shacks, which were labelled the Abyssinian villages, due to their flimsy, make-do structure, as the fascist colonies had seen in Eritrea during the same period (Severino, 2005, p.  75). Torpignattara was mainly made up of a population looking for a better life and eager to settle down. They were generally people with small savings who built two-roomed housing on two floors on small lots (without town-­ planning permission)—a liveable space to satisfy family needs. Over time, however, these very same people became owners of small lodgings, which were subsequently rented to the new wave of immigrants (Ficacci, 2007, p. 11). 2  Via della Marranella, in Torpignattara, takes its name from the river Marrana (which flows into the river Aniene), stretching across the Roman countryside as far as the city. The land in the area was reclaimed in the 1930s through the building of the so-called Marrana duct or channel. Previously an unhealthy place, populated only by slum dwellers, the hamlet of Marranella—the corner of via Casilina and via dell’Acqua Bullicante—was historically considered a working-class area, with local people and immigrants from some Italian regions beginning to arrive after World War II, in particular from Abruzzo, Puglia and the Lazio countryside (Severino, 2005). At the end of the eighties and during the nineties, the name of the street was associated with the Marranella gang, a criminal group derived from the Magliana gang, and known through the Rome chronicles (Camuso, 2014).

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As in other areas of Rome where unauthorized and spontaneous building took place, Torpignattara is a working-class area populated by national immigrants, further arrivals coming in the wake of the Second World War (Ficacci, 2007, p. 65). Within the same urban area, the district of Pigneto can be found. In recent years, this particular area has become increasing popular with some middle-class citizens, attracted by the accessible prices and the relatively easy access to the centre of Rome. It is also place to a dynamic nightlife with numerous fashionable clubs and bars, attracting a good number of young people, street art events and exhibitions, and other meeting points (Della Queva, 2010, p. 21). The district was traditionally working-class, populated by national immigrants and, from the fascist period onward, large numbers of public transport (railway and tram) employees and their families, installed in small houses or villas constructed by the “Compagnia Termini per i Ferrovieri” (Severino, 2005, p. 85). Today, it is also home to university students, artists, and a young middle class (Scandurra, 2007). In Torpignattara, the population registered at the general register office on 31st December 2014 was around 48,000 inhabitants.3 The number of people over 65 was above average, even compared to the average in the capital. The presence of foreigners was significant. Bangladeshi citizens are one of the largest ethnic groups present. The number of Bangladeshi registered at the general register office in all the V Municipal was nearly 6000, out of a total of 36,000 foreigners.4 In the Torpignattara urban area alone, there were 8861 foreigners registered at the general register office, over 51% of whom originated from Asia.5 Up until today, Torpignattara is one of the most densely populated areas of Rome with a density of more tna 20 mila ab/km2.6 Though high, the area density is no more than other

3  In total, the number of registered inhabitants in the V Municipality came to 246,471 (registry records 31 December 2014), the Municipality being divided into the following urban areas: 6A Torpignattara, 6B Casilino, 6C Quadraro, 6D Gordiani, 7A Centocelle, 7B Alessandrina, 7C Tor Sapienza, 7D La Rustica, 7E Tor Tre Teste, 7F Casetta Mistica, 7G Centocelle Directional Centre, 7H Omo. The urban area of Torpignattara included the Tiburtino and Prenestino-Labicano districts. 4  Foreign population according to citizenship and Municipality of residence, 31 December 2014. Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale, registry data. 5  Source: Roma Capitale data, Registry Office, 2014. 6  Urban surface area, population and population density, 31 December 2014. Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale, registry data.

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areas of Rome,7 but the citizens encountered during the research had the impression that the area was extremely crowded. They were of the opinion that the official figures did not take into account the real situation, which included unauthorized occupations, and overcrowded apartments illicitly subleased, with “rent-a-mattress” arrangements, and a widespread network of transitory migrants. Nonetheless, careful examination of the related data in other urban areas, including the V Municipal, showed that the foreign population in Torpignattara was not actually the most significant or the largest. Here at Torpignattara we have population which is literally overflowing, much more than in other areas of Rome. They say that we have the same population density here as in Naples or in a city with skyscrapers, but here there are no parks or gardens, there just aren’t any…And all those people who live in Torpigattara produce urban solid waste which gets put into dumpsters, which can’t contain the quantity that’s put in them. Then the rubbish ends up on the ground, putting the health and hygiene of the area in jeopardy. […] Some of the apartments get rented to one person and then another ten end up living there… and the condominium…once one resident called the building administrator to ask for an explanation, and they were accused of racism by the police!! That’s vox populi, and apparently, in other cases, it’s been very easy to hide the real number of people living in the apartment. [Luca, member of the Filarete Comitato at Torpignattara] It’s not that immigrants in themselves are unwelcome. It’s the number of them, the comings and goings. People are making money out of “rent-a-­ mattress” arrangements.8 In the buildings of these streets, such as via Della Marranella,, via Ludovica, via Eratostene…if you go there…So why does TV7 put on a broadcast showing people queuing up to go to pray? It stands to reason that if there are 150-200 of them living in a single building, there’s not room for all of them in a mosque. The mosques exist, but there are so many of them. [Marina, Torpignattara shopkeeper]

7  For example, central but not very extensive areas, such as Eroi (I Municipality), or non-­ central urban areas, such as Gordiani (V Municipality), Don Bosco (VII Municipality) and Sacco Pastore (III Municipality). Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale, registry data. 8  This phenomenon—slumlord or slum landlord, or marchand de sommeil in French, is a type of camp-bed/mattress black market where a campbed or simply a mattress is rented out in rotation, night and day.

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With a depopulation of the area in the mid-nineties, there was a change in the demographic makeup of the district, due to the arrival of numerous immigrants9—North Africans, Albanese, Philippines, Chinese, Bangladeshis, and Romanians10 (these last two representing the largest ethnic groups in the area). There was no letup in the numbers of immigrants settling in the V Municipal during the years 2009 to 2014 (31st December), their percentages going up by 25 points. Nonetheless, this growth seems to have levelled out at the end of 2013. In the following year, a drop was recorded for the first time, albeit a slight one (23 units),11 in the number of foreign citizens living in the V Municipal registered in the general register office (Annuario Statistico, Roma Capitale 2015). This data, however, does not refer to the Bangladeshis, who, instead, continued to settle in the capital, going from 25,646 to 28,473 residents, in the year 2013–2014. The numbers of shops and artisan ateliers have fallen sharply, spaces being taken over by commercial activities run by foreigners, mainly Bangladeshis, Chinese, and Egyptians. The Bangladeshis are mainly involved in selling food stuffs and fruit (Broccolini, 2014, p. 87). Though most of them are male (around two thirds of the Bangladeshi population registered at the general register office at the V Municipal are male12), in the last few years there has been a significant rise in the number of nuclear families (particularly involving family reunions), which indicates these people intend to settle down in Italy, at least in the long-term.13 The immigrant population in the V Municipal plays a significant role in the commercial and economic life of the area, with a high number of them (2777 in total) holding a commercial activity or being a partner in one. 9  In 2014 foreign births in the V Municipality alone marked the highest share of the entire capital, at 32% of the total. Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale, registry data. 10  There were 7546 Romanians registered in the whole V municipality. Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale: registry data, 31 December 2014. 11  Territorial distribution of foreigners residing in the 15 Municipalities (2009–2014). Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale, registry data. 12  Out of a total population of over 5800 Bangladeshi citizens, only 2000 were women. The Bangladeshi male/female ratio in the V Municipality, however, was more even than the figure for the whole municipality (22,213 males vs. 6260 females). Foreign citizens registered in the registry by municipality, sex and country of origin, 31 December 2014: Source: Roma Capitale. 13  Over 7 thousand minors were registered at the V municipality, the highest figure after the more populous VI Municipality. “Minors by Municipality”, 31 December 2015. Source: Roma Capitale.

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The most commercially active are by far the Bangladeshis (652 units), followed by the Chinese (389), the Egyptians (216) and the Romanians (200).14 Indeed, the same V Municipal is the first municipal in terms of the number of business holders and active partners (325)15 in a sector broadly considered industrial. More foreign entrepreneurs are active in this area (up to 2007, former VI and VII Municipal) than in any other municipal of the capital, including the former I Municipal.16 Nonetheless, the V Municipal, along with the VI Municipal, has the highest values in the Social Deprivation Index (SDI),17 according to the statistics of the Rome City Council. Further negative data comes from the figures concerning the average income,18 both that of the Italian citizens (less than 20,000  euros), and that of foreign citizens (less than 11,000 euros), which are some of the worst in the capital.

4.3   Banglatown Torpignattara should not only be seen as a place of residence in the capital for many Bangladeshis, living alone or in a family. It is also a place of intense commercial activity—very clearly and visibly present. The name 14  Owners and partners according to municipality and country of birth in 2007, V Municipality (data of the former VI + VII Municipality). Source: Guglielmo Tagliacarne Institute: Rome Chamber of Commerce data. 15  According to ISTAT, industry is strictly the aggregate of all industrial sectors, manufacturing (mechanical, textile, clothing, chemical, food), mining, supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning, supply of water, sewerage, waste management and redevelopment. The building and construction sector is excluded and falls under the term ‘building’. 16  In 2007, in the whole capital, there were Bangladeshi 2251 owners and partners, the highest number in the city, followed by Chinese and Romanians. Only 160 Bangladeshis could be strictly viewed as working in industry, anther 78% in services. Of these, 1527 were in commerce, 158  in real estate activities and 264  in transport and communication. The Romanian citizens, on the other hand, were mainly active in construction, with an unverifiable number of 1245 owner-partners (Poles came second with only 287 units). Source: Istituto Guglielmo Tagliacarne: Info-camera data. 17  The Social Deprivation index (SDI) is used to quantify levels of disadvantage. SDI is a composite measure of area level deprivation based on demographic characteristics collected and used to quantify the socio-economic variation, compared to national performance average (2011 ISTAT census) The indicators considered are: (a) Unemployment rate, (b) Employment rate, (c) Youth concentration rate, (d) Schooling rate”. See Statistics Yearbook 2015, Municipality of Rome, p. 334. 18  Average income for Italian or foreign citizenship, 2013. Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale: Siatel data, Agenzia delle Entrate.

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Banglatown, as the area is commonly called, tends to highlight (even beyond the relative statistic number) the visible presence of the Bangladeshis, fostered by and fostering the image of a ghetto area, an image also projected and reaffirmed by the media. In actual fact, the number of Bangladeshis in the Torpignattara does not excel that of the autochthonous Italians. Torpignattara is particularly attractive to Bangladeshis as an area for various reasons—it’s close to the centre, well served by public transport and road connections (in and out of the city), and the prices of rents are still accessible. The transformation in the profile of inhabitants and its consequences has caused new issues to arise in the district, requiring quick responses, particularly from the local administration, and long-term programming. In a relatively short span of time (from the mid-nineties onwards), various migrant influxes have settled here and there, in places previously uninhabited. The V Municipal has welcomed immigrants from various continents—4628 from Africa, 15,169 from Asia, over 3300 from Central and Southern America, over 7500 from Romania alone, and nearly 3600 from other non-EU European countries, totalling more than 36,000 individuals (there were 10,345 in 2003).19 This population is diversified in terms of cultural orientations, needs, and interests, and is often not organized enough or with sufficient the means (directly or through intermediaries) to make use of council facilities and institutions. As already mentioned, from 2013 to 2014 the Bangladeshi population registered at the general register office in Rome rose by 11%, going from 25,646 to 28, 473 (22,213 of these being male). There were 5861 Bangladeshis in the V Municipal, though the largest concentration of this national group was to be found in the I Municipal, where 7271 Bangladeshis were recorded. Indeed, 62% of the total number of Bangladeshis registered in Rome were concentrated in the I and V Municipalities, along with the VI Municipal, confirming the relative general data on the presence of foreigners in the capital.20 The recounts given by the Bangladeshis interviewed during the research revealed the existence of a relational network, which allowed co-nationals

19  Foreign citizens registered in the register by municipality, sex and country of origin, 31 December 2014, Males and Females. 20  Source: Statistics Office, Roma Capitale, registry data.

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to organize a place to stay in Rome,21 even before leaving their country of origin. This had led to a complex system of favours and dishonest dealings being set up, which facilitated the immigration: I came here in search of a better life. Back home there’s no work. My brother was already here in Rome. There were people who organized things, they change your document (passport), so you can get here. I flew to Frankfurt and then to Florence. Today it costs 10–15,000 euros to get here. When I came, it cost less than 5–6000 euros…I need to get here in Europe, and they have to organize everything I need […]. They remove the old photo from the passport, and the visa. They manage it somehow. They organize it so you come as a tourist or something […]. They’ve authorized an agency to deal with everything [the visas]: I know a lot of money changes hands…They estimate how much it’s going to cost for you to come over, everything included, the ticket, as well, and all you have to do is give them the money, and everything is fixed up […]. They first organized your entry via Russia, with a lorry, via Czechoslovakia, Hungary. But I haven’t heard about this for a while now. The Bangladeshi immigration is characterized by the existence of organized circuits or networks, which allows the different needs of the new arrivals to be met, so that they can be inserted into the new context. First of all, they are given lodging, albeit precariousness and invariably involving co-habitation with a large number of co-nationals: […] you always live with other people. Always together. Otherwise, if you die, who sends you back to Bangladesh? As Bangladeshis, we don’t want any of us living in the streets, and we don’t want anyone living alone, to die alone. If one of us dies, someone has to know the family to send them back home. Someone must bear witness [to your life]. [Mahmud, Bangladeshis, shop keeper, cultural operator in Italy since 1989] If you have a family, you can find (an apartment) easily. If you’re with your friends, it’s not so easy […] If you want to be with your friends, 4-5 of you can share to pay less. It’s still possible to (sub) rent. Today it costs 120-150 a bed, but it’s getting less because there are more families. Sometimes, they put up bunk beds. [Anoar, Bangladeshis, second-hand dealer of telecommunication items, resident in Torpignattara since 2008] 21  These places of group accommodation were often called “houses”, to distinguish them from apartments where family groups lived, mainly formed by reunion of pre-existing families (Interview with Anoar, since 1996 in Italy).

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Then, the network finds work for the newly arrived migrant, despite being low paid and involving a working day of more than 8 hours. Among the activities observed, we can cite the selling at the stores, and our interlocutors referred that the average daily pay amounted to about 20 euros. The role of mediator taken on by some leaders, and patronage which can be counted upon, strengthen the bond between a Bangladeshis and the network of co-nationals, developing a kind of dependency, both in economic terms (the possibility to get a loan, some work), but also in terms of moral support or other forms of solidarity (a place to sleep, a point of reference to obtain documents, facilitation of administrative matters, access to social services and local mediators). In the past, the prominent members of the community were clearly identifiable, but today, the leadership is more fragmented. When I first arrived in Italy, there were about 170. […] The first association of Kibra was killed off, and split up into two with two presidents, half going with president Kibra, and the other half, with president Bachcù; for one, there was a raising of hands, in the other a (secret) vote. In the end, we didn’t believe anyone. Everyone thinks himself president—the same association, two presidents [laughter]. [Mahmud, in Italy since 1989, active member and president of the Piazza Vittorio Association]

Previous research found out how the internal organization dealt with an array of issues, covering economic, commercial, housing, administrative, cultural,22 religious, and even political matters (Pompeo & Priori, 2009; Pompeo, 2011; Priori, 2012). According to Anoar, married with a three-year-old daughter attending the Pisacane school at Torpignattara, the Bangladeshi network (and organization), despite being heterogeneous in nature, is fundamental for the insertion and stay of the new arrivals: […] Without anyone at all, it’s difficult to stay. In 1989, there was the pardon and then more people arrived. Then in 2002. Then again in 2009, as domestic workers, but then everyone was a domestic worker, you just needed to declare as much. And people from other countries came when the word got around. The most difficult was in 2012, but then they asked you to demonstrate that you’d been in the country since 2011. But a phone 22  The cornerstone of Bangladeshi culture is the language, Bengali (or Bangla). It represents a point of reference, of cultural belonging for historical reasons (national independence), conveying national pride.

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contract with your name on it was enough to make an application. Now it’s no longer possible to put your papers in order. […] if you come with a visa, then there’s no problem, otherwise you’re risking it. […] in the first few months after your arrival everyone helps you, to eat, to find somewhere to sleep. But everyone has to save up, the family. So you have to start looking after yourself. […] To be a head of the Bangladeshi community, you need to have an association, otherwise you’re nobody. […] There are 20 associations here.

Alessandra Broccolini has observed that, through their action and influence, the Bangladeshi associations, apart from defending, supporting (Holston & Appadurai, 2003, pp.  300–301), and providing relief and solace, also fulfil a regulating role for individuals of the community in terms of moral behaviour (Broccolini, 2014, pp. 92–94). In other words, a conditional support is given where each member is expected to respect the moral rules of the group, for instance, avoiding regular drinking or wandering. A Bangladeshi tradesman, who is active in the association and one of the first to arrive in Italy, explained to us the sense of solidarity existing between his co-nationals, referring to the case of a particular Bangladeshis (known to us), who had flouted the rules by drinking and wandering: As a general rule, the Bangladeshis never leave anyone on the street, but try to help them, a sort of brotherhood. We don’t ask whether you’re Muslim, Catholic, or Hindu—being Bangladeshi is enough. It doesn’t matter. If you’re Bangladeshi, then you have a right to stay at my home […]. But we have a dignity to preserve—we have to work to earn money. If you go drinking wine or whiskey, and don’t work but go bothering others, if you end up on the street, you’re to blame. When you arrive [in Italy] you’re not on the street. But, if you find yourself there it’s because of the things you’ve done [made the wrong choices], and nobody has to take care of you at that point. We haven’t left you, you’ve decided to go off and go down that road. [Mahmoud]

Banglatown is the name given to the district of Torpignattara by the Bangladeshis themselves, who are firmly entrenched in the area, particularly from via Marranella, via Eratostene to via Maggiolo (Broccolini, 2014, p. 85) Before, if you wanted to eat something ethnic or see other Bangladeshis who you knew, to pass the time and feel good, you had to go to Piazza

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Vittorio. Now you can stay in Torpignattara, or in Montesacro. There are also many Bangladeshis in a part of Viale Libia, or in the delle Valli district. There are also a few Bangladeshis in Fidene. There’s another large community of Bangladeshis in the San Paolo area. [Anoar]

Hence, Banglatown has apparently experienced a re-territorialization, both in space and in the minds of people, with the Bangladeshis in Rome having spread out to other areas, creating a known and recognizable place, which provides points of reference and a sense of safety. This is why some analyses have interpreted an ethnic grouping of the city space, particularly in the view of the acts of intolerance and violence (murders and assaults), which Bangladeshis have suffered. The studies carried out in this area have revealed these acts were racially motivated (Broccolini, 2014; Priori, 2012). Violence and a control of the space have been interpreted as stemming from, in one form or another, the “territorial encroachment” by this particular ethnic group (Priori, 2014, p. 104), with the perpetrators aiming to restore the “spatial balance”. Priori gives a reconstruction of the conflicting relations and violence directed towards a minority group of probashi (part of the Bangladeshi immigrant group), who lived in Tor Bella Monaca between 2009 and 2019, and suggests that public debate and the media stigmatizing the immigrants have contributed to a view of the urban space in terms of ethnic grouping (ibidem, p. 110). A marginalized area like Tor Bella Monaca, architecturally and socially segregated, would be particularly susceptible to identification with xenophobic ideology, and reproduce the spatial logic which itself had suffered (ibidem, p. 111). As observed in the previous chapters, violence is a possible action for those who negate the subjectivation of others—a negative subjectivation. For someone living within a context of tension and social disintegration in which prevailing images of identity and homogeneity appear threatened by the presence of people from other cultures and religions, violence represents a complete and belligerent rejection of otherness. While some might view Torpignattara as common ground for practising diversity, including culture, an example of cohabitation, for others, it represents an end or decline of development and social integration. These two ways of seeing Torpignattara somehow determine and shape the different committees and associations which work on the field, each wishing to give voice to the everyday needs of the citizens and to their own particular vision for the future of the district.

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4.4   Torpignattara Takes Action During the research, we met two different committees in Torpignattara— the recently formed Filarete Committee, and the historic Torpignattara Committee. The latter is the most important committee and the first one to be set up in the area, and acts as the main interlocutor with the institutions. It also promotes cultural initiatives, which include, and aim to attract, the immigrant population. 4.4.1  The Discontent of via Filarete The Filarete Committee was set up to meet the needs of the residents and tradespeople who wanted via Filarete (a crossroad of via Casilina) reopened up, after its closure due to a large hole appearing in the road. It took years for the repair work to be completed. In the meantime, the closure of the road had forced some commercial activities to close down. After some bloodshed, fistfights, in September 2014, various committees sprang up, apart from the longstanding one [Torpignattara Committee]: one was called “citizens of Torpignattara”, another “Filarete Committee”. [This last one] was set up in reaction to a specific problem in the district, due to the large hole which had opened up in the road and which stayed open for about 2 years. The hole was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But in actual fact, the problems are multifold, and various transmissions have covered them. [Luca, university student, active member of the Filarete Committee]

One of the main concerns of the committee is undoubtedly the issue of trade and commerce in the area. The committee was set up to find an answer to the legitimate requests for the services and access to via Filarete to be restored, and as such, drew the support of a part of the tradespeople and citizens of Torpignattara. On another front, these tradespeople also feel that they are up against some unfair trading, and criticize the commercial activity (whether established, street, or itinerant trading), which is gravitating towards the area. Likewise, some citizens do not welcome this new trading. First of all, trading is in a near total state of chaos: shops open up which are not part of the urban setup…for example fruit vendors. We have to say that unfortunately, most of these vendors are foreigners. But if they were Italian fruit vendors filling up the district, the problem would be the same. There’s such a shop in the centre of Torpignattara, run by Egyptians […] Opening

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a greengrocer’s incurs costs, and very often, on their own admission—I’m referring to the TV broadcast on the Public Serve [in actual fact “Piazza Pulita] they work with hidden cameras. On their own admission, with these people there’s some form of tax non-compliance, with regards the license…So, in certain ways, they’re not subject to the check-ups Italians are. [If it happens that one gets closed] they change the name of the business. Only yesterday we went to the president of the Municipal who told us: “Look. We close any business which doesn’t respect the health and safety norms, or which invade public property with bins (because this also happens), but they change the name of the business, the company name and then reopen. […] I went to speak with the wardens and they told me that in these situations you get into a vicious cycle: measures are taken but then there are loopholes to get round the measures, while still respecting the law. A greengrocer’s stall which gets closed changes owner—the same company just becomes another, and then just opens up again. […] The street vendors…the stalls: there are some which are legal, others are not (that is, sheets laid open on the ground) and those which are on the edge of legality and…These are the itinerant traders which show up with a cart (he shows a photo on his mobile phone) and they leave the markets with this cart, too big to go on the pavement, or rather they’d block the way for the pedestrians. These traders come all the way from via Casilina on foot and are given a place, by who knows who…in theory, according to the license they have, granted by other councils than Rome, but which are valid throughout the region, so they can go where they want to sell things. But listen, always moving on, not stopping. Just moving on, as I said. There’s reasoning behind all of this: an itinerant trader needs to be able to move about more or less as they want. The trouble here at Torpignattara is that the itinerant traders set up their cart in a fixed spot. And this is illegal, but even here there are loopholes in the law: as soon as the police pass by to check up on things, they start bartering, selling something—the one reason why an itinerant trader can stop—and so they’re respecting the law. The wardens go off and so does the buyer [he can go now]. We’re taking action because I feel that the only solution is a fixed posting of wardens, in a hot spot between via Casilina and via di Torpignattara, where there’s a great flow of people and where a spot for a stall is worth a great deal. [Luca, Filarete Committee]

As we will see in the following interviews, the subject of trade is bound up with matters of legality, social deterioration, and immigration. The criticism laid at the door of the local authorities draws a picture of inefficient administration, even connivance with the business of the street markets and the licenses.

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[…] or then we want to push them all out, amass them in an area, creating a kind of ghetto…because as it is, this place has become a ghetto…or you tell me. There are no inspections, the finance police only know shops like mine, which have been around for the last 60 years here. So they know when they give out a fine, it gets paid—they always know who to sanction. I’d like to believe that the Mayor Marino wants to fight all these lobbies that have been around for years…I want to believe it. But then does this mean the police are also involved somehow? The carabinieri, too? The finance police? Are they all against Marino? I wouldn’t know, you tell me. I’d like an answer. If there’s something that needs doing, I do it. What can I do? I can go when meetings [of the Committee] are held, say what the problems are. But it seems absurd when it’s plain to everyone. What are we going to do? Do we put on a brave face and put on a blindfold? [Marina, tradesperson, Torpignattara, active member of the Filarete Committee and the Citizen Torpignattara Committee]

Added to these complaints, there is the belief that a form of inverse discrimination is being carried out or, at the very least, encouraged by the authorities, enacted through integration policies, aimed at the insertion of immigrants, but to the economic detriment of the autochthonous citizens: licenses are apparently being granted and commercial activities opening, through municipal or city council funding. As a reaction to this perceived state of affairs, there is a call for law enforcement, which implicitly implies a “national preference”, as has been observed in other cases covered in previous chapters: About the business about licenses for the fruit vendors. You’re going to tell me that you don’t have to apply for a license anymore. That it only takes two days to open a shop. OK. So how come in other areas they’ve blocked the opening of other greengrocers but this hasn’t happened here? Here, there are over 400 greengrocers. Does that seem fair to you? […] I know they get help, because 99% of those who open up these greengrocer stalls are Bangladeshis…they get help, because someone gives them money… the State, the city council…I don’t know precisely who, but these people receive money from someone (I don’t know, say between 20 and 30, 000 euros)…I was told that this money is given to open commercial activities (greengrocers or call centres, and then each decides what to open). […] Here, nothing opens which is worth anything. We’re just slipping further and further into a state of degradation… […] But an Italian understands how things work, when [an immigrant] gets a license, gets money to open an activity, gets help from our city council

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area…an itinerant license, to move around, but instead, they stay put here morning till dusk […] If we go along and see, they’re all together in 200 meters […] This means the situation is tolerated, and we know that. It’s no mystery. The traffic warden comes along at 9 in the morning: they know the warden is gone by 10, and they duly open at 10 o’clock, and they know nobody else will come by to check up. They don’t give out receipts (if you want, I have the proof, one on there). They don’t give out receipts, none of them do: neither the fixed stalls nor the itinerant traders. This isn’t fair towards the people who pay their dues. And then they sell the same articles that the shop in front is selling. I don’t find this situation acceptable. Or do the traffic wardens pretend not to see anything? One of the wardens once told me: “eh sir, they know they have to move along”. It’s like someone double parking, “give me you driving license and your car registration document” (which is what the warden did): “eh but do you have a license?” but then doesn’t tell them they have to move along. Does that mean they can happily leave their car there? So, he’s not fined and he’s not told to move along. The traffic warden simply turns around and walks away. So why shouldn’t I think they’re somehow “accommodating”? Because people want it, because on a political level, people want it, because you can’t get away with such a thing. […] All you hear about here is giving, only talk about integration, but nobody talks about findings solutions to the problems, about getting the law respected. Why aren’t they forced to respect the law? [Marina]

Complaints about these illegal goings-on are merged with complaints about delinquency, such as bag snatching and mugging, drug pushing, thefts and assaults. These particular citizens feel that the free circulation of these people puts the security and safety of the area into jeopardy. The makeup of the area has changed over time and appears unrecognizable to some, who maintain a nostalgic view of a compact, working-class district, with a sense of solidarity prevailing between fellow residents. Now, it appears, with the presence of these “new” groups, all this seems under threat. There is a general feeling of insecurity and disintegration, where the traditional points of reference have disappeared to be replaced by uncertainty and a loss of control. Marina goes on to say: Then there are these acts of delinquency: look around you and tell me whether you see any woman still wearing a gold chain around her neck when going about this area. Does that seem right to you? The young people can no longer go out in the evening; the girls have to be accompanied, because they get hassled […] Everyday there were thefts, they tore off gold chains,

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people also got hurt: elderly people thrown to the ground. This is all unacceptable. […] I think we’re dealing with a time bomb—a pressure cooker that’s about to explode. Sooner or later, it’s going to explode because people can’t take it any more, and I’m the first to feel that way. People are suffering an injustice, but are squeezed like lemons for taxes: our area is in the A2 council tax category.23 Do you think we should pay the same as Piazza Bologna when we have to put up with the disgraceful situation we have here? It’s not right.

Others underline how expected modernizing projects have not been carried out. Their implementation would have given a very different urban character to the area, with the creation of middle-class housing for upwardly mobile families. The expectations once held by some of the long-standing residents are in stark contrast with the current cultural, social, and urban perception of the area—poverty-stricken, degraded, and in decline. The area appears a cultural “hotchpotch”, with unchecked movements of various groups of people, and a general lack of services, which all contribute to a general lack of faith and trust on the part of citizens towards the authorities. […] my main need is to live in an attractive area, and this area is not attractive. […] Un-pruned trees, I mean to say, the place is in a near total state of neglect. […] Whoever comes here, the most light-hearted remark they make is “Do you need a passport to enter Torpignattara? There’s a multitude of foreigners here… Foreigners in themselves don’t cause a place to go downhill—it’s a general lack of control. And then there are the drugs, the abandoned parks, the filth and rubbish, the lack of street lighting, the building sites which have been opened for…[…] The committee was set up to put pressure on the authorities, very often absent, to try and change things. [Luca, Filarete Committee]

Hence, on one hand, there are people clinging to a nostalgic image of a working-class district where the traditional social relations are presently falling apart, and on the, there are those who see their previous expectations of gaining an improved and upwardly mobile lifestyle unfulfilled. Either way, both positions converge in calling for greater safety and security. 23  The council property tax including the so-called ‘civil housing’: first “stately homes” (A1); “economic housing” (A3) and “council housing” (A4).

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I don’t know if you’ve heard about Caratelli,24 but he’s carrying out a project, a community project, not a political one, by coordinating the districts and areas of Rome. We are working side by side with them for some of the things they are fighting for, while keeping ourselves independent. When they appeared on television with the flag of Casa Pound behind them, we gave out a press release to disassociate ourselves from what had happened in Piazza Vittorio. […] His people25 had called a public assembly and it was very well attended. They all voted to take on some vigilantes to patrol the area [district] of Esquilino…three important streets in Esquilino. [Leonardo, Filarete Committee]

4.5   Working with the Differences The Torpignattara Committee takes different forms of action compared to the previous Committee. It was the first urban committee to be set up in the area, and it has been the generally recognized interlocutor of the council and municipal authorities for years. It is also part of a network of fellow associations, which operate in the area. When there was the mobilization in support of the young man accused of killing the Pakistani in via Pavoni (see § 4.1), the Torpignattara organized a counter-demonstration with members of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, and shouted slogans against the forms of racism and xenophobia which has been associated with the killing: We asked the council [V Municipal) to remove the banners. On 15th December they still hadn’t removed them, saying they didn’t want to foment further tensions. [Marta, member of the Torpignattara and Piscacane Committee 011]

The Committee actively embraces initiatives which encourage active participation of citizens, promoting the dissemination of information and defence of the territory. It also proposes projects for the reclaiming of public spaces in the district, seen as common good, involving as many of the immigrant population as possible. In particular, the project concerning the Sangalli Park, which won regional funding, foresaw the reclaiming of the green park with educational projects, and also aimed at improving social relations and reinforcing feelings of solidarity between citizens.  Compare with Chap. 5.  Coordination of the Rebellion of local areas and districts of Rome.

24 25

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Given the lack of meeting places and green areas, the project symbolically represents those citizens who desire and actively work towards, the renewal of spaces in Torpignattara, through the inclusion of the immigrants in the area, to help their integration into the rest of the population. The inclusive and proactive nature of the Torpignattara Committee makes it a potential interlocutor for other associations in the territory and a cultural actor capable of dialoguing with others on multicultural and multiethnic matters concerning Torpignattara. The theme of the common good, as with other experiences we will see in the following chapter, is central to their action, both to support and integrate, a sense of the collective, in the absence of adequate answers by the institutions. We wanted to reclaim this green area [the Castruccio garden, in Pigneto]. There’s no green area here, not even if you gave your eyeteeth for it. There’s the building site of the metro etc…This was 2011 […] we also wanted to give our action a wider meaning …so we thought up an idea and presented it as a way to manage urban gardens, as an experiment to replicate elsewhere. The State, given the condition it’s in, just hasn’t got the means to occupy itself with all the public property. So to entrust a piece of public property to an association, which takes it upon itself to render the property accessible to the community again, is certainly a good way of unblocking possibilities, the country’s potentiality in general. The Castruccio garden is how we started working […] Through it, we met lots of people and we were able to create…So it opened up the territory for us. […] In actual fact, the public (authorities) should take care of such things. But, in many respects, we ourselves are the public, too. [Valeria, Asinitas26 and Pisacone Association 011]

The network of associations and NPSs, which work on community and cultural projects across the territory, deal with problems arising from the presence of immigrants. Their investigations result in projects being drawn up and carried out. This area has been repopulated…when I was here in 1999, it wasn’t like it is today, not at all. I’m not saying it was better, nor that it was worse. It was just a different thing altogether. It was a different place. So from 1999 and now, it’s 15 years later, it’s not such a long time to cope with the changes 26  This association defines itself as a promoter of educational, recreational, and person-­ restructuring activities, through the methods of storytelling and life stories, to integrate foreign individuals (but also Italians) under the banner of coexistence.

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we’ve seen here. Neither it is easy for the politicians, easy to predict. There is whole new set of things which need taking care of, new needs. [Sara, 35, Pisacone Association 011]

4.6   The Example of the Pisacane School As we have seen, the V Municipal has the highest increase in immigrant population, with a 32% rate out of the total number of births. This indicator might correlate with a long-term plan by immigrant families to settle in the area. The new generations of immigrant origin have been a fixed presence at the schooling institutes of the Municipal for decades, at the Pisacane Comprehensive School (C.S.), in particular. Situated in via Acqua Bullicante, one of the main streets in Torpignattara, the Pisacane C.S. is part of a complex of scholastic institutions of the Ferraironi Institute27 and, since the first years of 2000, it has had a particularly high percentage of immigrant-origin pupils. In 2009, combining the infant and primary school figures, 90% of the children enrolled were of immigrant origin, a fact which attracted the attention of the media and the Ministry of Education at that time. The Pisacane lnstitute had come to be labelled the ghetto school,28 and came under fire from those complaining of an immigrant invasion.29 [The Parent Association] I think it plays a key role in the area. It works that we have interlocutors internal to the Pisacane school which head the Association; we need that presence when the time comes to organize events; we need it, we’ll always need it, given that the school has become the centre of another uproar, and this happens periodically. Now then, at the beginning of the summer [2014] the district suffered a number of violent crimes, which severely shook public opinion, severely shook many inhabitants. So, 27  The comprehensive Ferraironi Institute includes three primary school complexes (Iqbal Masih, Romolo Balzani and Pisacane), two kindergarten (via Guattari and Romolo Balzani) and one first grade secondary school (Baracca) within the V Municipality. 28  See articles from Il Tempo http://www.iltempo.it/roma-capitale/2012/11/30/i-genitoridella-pisacane-br-piu-italiani-nelle-classi-1.186777 (accessed on 2 February, 2015) and Il Giornale http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/classi-­ghetto-­scuola-pisacane-tre-bambiniitaliani-e.html (accessed online 2 February 2015). 29  In particular, Northern League MEP Mario Borghezio “Mario Borghezio expelled from the multi-ethnic school in Rome. “Mothers don’t like the racist rally” (accessed on 10 February, 2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2014/05/23/mario-borghezio-cacciato-­ scuola-multietnica_n_5377952.html.

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once again we had to take up accompanying our children to school, in front of TV cameras… it’s not easy to explain to your son or daughter why TV cameras are in front of the school…because someone was killed just four streets away from here…what’s the school got to do with it? You school’s got nothing to do with it, but your school makes good sport for journalists because at the school, there are children of the same nationality of the poor person killed. It’s not easy. That there are people…you see it’s not that anyone goes to talk to the journalists: if somebody wants to interview someone, there’s someone from the Association that goes to talk to them, and this gives you a sense of security, because the things that get said, whether right or wrong, are shared thoughts and feelings, which, right or wrong, make sense, that there are no personal outbursts. There’s always, more or less, a shared point of view. [Marta, Pisacane Association 011 and Torpignattara Committee, mother of due daughters attending the Pisacane school]

A considerable number of Italian families in the area choose to send their children to other schools, and not to the Pisacane where the percentage of immigrant-origin children is very high. The presence of the foreigners is associated with likely dropping standards, or a slowing down in the correct execution of the school programmes and curriculum. The commitment shown by the parents and teachers who defend the multiethnic nature of the school has become a symbol of resistance, a defence of a multicultural educational learning project. It has also assumed a political significance, with the choice of working towards integration from the bottom up, that is, starting from the school itself.30 The c­ hallenge faced by these actors has become part and parcel of what is at stake for the local policies, tested by a situation in continual transformation with the arrival of new migrants:

30  See the letter from the teachers of the Pisacane school to the Lazio Region School Commission—picked up by the local press—complaining of the stigma associated with the school, triggered by the media, but no foundation, didactically: “A ghetto—the teachers write in the letter—is a place where people with power relegate other people considered inferior or unwanted, but neither us nor people attending the Carlo Pisacane school have ever perceived themselves like this, before seeing it written in the newspapers in large letters. We see Pisacane as simply a school open to local residents: there has been a profound multicultural transformation in the past years, with migrants resident in Italy for ten, twenty or even thirty years, integrated and managing various commercial activities—their children were born here”. Cit. in http://www.pigneto.it/news.asp?id=685 (accessed on 2 February 2015).

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At the Pisacane school, five years ago, there was a drop in the number of children attending, and the first years nearly didn’t take off. […] But then the school was really deserted by the people of the area, because it had become a ghetto school, attended only by children of migrant origin and there was a huge political campaign against the school. They wanted to empty it out, because they wanted to use the space for other things. They wanted the school to close because there were those who didn’t want to mix with people from other countries. It was really hard to take. […] There was a clear political plan in progress, in the district, as well. Everyone’s happy that the district has been repopulated in this way. But not everyone thinks the same, some see it as a form of invasion, there’s no point being naïve about it. [Sara, Associazione Pisacane 011, mother of two daughters attending the Pisacane school] I’ve been living here a long time. Perhaps I was pregnant…in 2010? There was this case concerning a few mothers who had complained, in this tug-of-­ war between Marino’s executive and someone else’s, I can’t remember who, exactly […], the famous maximum 30% presence of foreign pupils allowed at a school. So I came to get informed because a few of the mothers had caused a media outcry, complaining about the number of foreign children in the school: in actual fact, there were only a few…they were all over the newspapers, with journalists laying siege to the school, the children intimidated by everything. Actually, I was struck by the teachers, they were fantastic. [Marta, Pisacane Association 011, and Torpignattara]

The number of Italian children attending the Pisacane school went up in 2014, making the primary school classes 50% Italian, and reducing the presence of immigrant-origin children to 84% (infant and primary school combined).31 The average percentage of the foreigners signed onto the schools referring to the Ferraironi complex, is 34%. Hence, the Pisacane school is an exceptional case in terms of the enrolment of immigrant-­ origin children, the majority being Asian, reflecting the reality of the district as a whole. Investing in the school through collective action, with the aim of encouraging integration and actively supporting the school, takes on a particular significance—the outcome will set the terrain for the future of the district itself. For this reason, we decided to focus our attention on the Pisacane Association 011, made up of parents with children enrolled at the Pisacane school.  Source: data from head administration Ferraironi Institute.

31

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The Pisacane Association was started up in 2012 by parents already committed to the school. The Association has now become a point of reference for informal integration (Pattaro, 2010; Farro & Maddanu, 2015, 2017), with the belief that immigrant inclusion into the district starts with the school. The Association promotes daily activities (done on a voluntary basis) and projects geared towards fostering social solidarity between families, and cultural and social events, on subjects ranging from issues concerning racism, to civic education on interculturalism. In the interviews carried out in the Association, a clear attempt surfaced to renew social relations and contacts between families, to encourage the insertion of immigrant families of the district into the dialogue and to get them involved in activities aimed at citizen participation. Through our research, we made contact with some association members who are active in different associations and groups, and have created extended networks, covering initiatives and projects extending outside the district. According to our interlocutors, the subject of integration and the challenge of multiculturalism had always been central to parent participation. This was effectively aimed at challenging prejudice against immigrants, and at creating a fruitful educational environment through inclusion. As emerged from the interviews, the parent association has two main objectives: first, its actions, both subjective and collective, aim to make an impact on a wider level, by working towards a vision of a society which opposes racism and discrimination. Politically, there is an idea of unity and mutual respect of the other, irrespective of culture and religion; and, second, action is seen as a form of “hands-on” testimony i.e. educational practices whose goal is to involve parents and children in experimenting forms of exchange and mutual understanding, with subjects being encouraged to listen to each other and help one another, and to integrate. As with other examples where the school itself is at the centre of everyday intercultural processes (Colombo & Semi, 2007; Ambrosini & Molina, 2004), the Pisacane school, as a place of infant education, comes across as a privileged context, uncontaminated, and not subject to potential traumas of conflicting social relations deriving from the adult world. The rhetoric incorporated into the teaching tends to exalt the visible differences and the multiple cultures the children represent (Pattaro, 2010; Besozzi, 2005). In the words of Marta, Perhaps the real objective is the path we are travelling together. The idea was to act as…We don’t mean to substitute the school…the didactics or school proposals, but it’s more of making a further contribution: so educationally,

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to offer more things to the children. For example, there’s a fixed Friday get-­ together we organize after school, mainly for the primary school children. We do homework altogether, some parents are present, and some external volunteers. It’s an opportunity to be together: Italian children with Italian children, second-generation Italian children, and perhaps with children who have recently arrived, why not? So now and again we do see problems of inclusion, or we simply spend some time with the parents. So that’s a good moment for the children to mix, but also it’s an opportunity for the parents to meet. […] Then in a broader sense, we are dealing with issues concerning the struggle against racism, interculturalism…[…] [The association was set up] mainly to develop a meeting point, to cultivate common ground. Differently from Di Donato, there wasn’t even an actual place where one could meet, because really, even though it’s a big school, renovation work is still going on […] So in actual fact, apart from the schoolrooms or the gym, there aren’t many places for meeting up […] Sometimes “defining” who you are helps, don’t you think? You see yourself as any mum, dad, then you define yourself or create yourself an identity with an association—you decide what you want to work towards, to create a sense of social belonging, to be active in the school, and in the district. So, that’s a step forward. Then, bit by bit [objectives] get set by individual parents, generated from particular situations […] what remains a constant, is not to act passively with regards the school, but to do our bit, to support it, interact with it, and contribute to it.

In particular, what emerges is the need to propose practical solutions to overcome the phenomenon of people from different cultures living in defined separate spaces, to find a way to overcome marginalization, and work toward integration in the territory as a whole. The school is at the heart of generating intercultural policies (Pattaro, 2010), as has been observed with the Italian model, and with other comparable European cases. In the face of new phenomena created by immigration, the Italian school’s mission, appears to be opting for a practical form of intercultural education, which includes specific educational and formative activities. In the Rapporto sull’integrazione degli immigrati in Italia (Report on the integration of immigrants in Italy) (Zincone, 2001; cit. in Giovannini & Queirolo Palmas, 2002, p. 7), some distinct methods can be made out in Italian schools: • the experimentation of some methods of activity taken from other cultures—dances, games, cooking, parties; these are particularly

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present in the infant and primary schools and often foresee the involvement of parents; • the twinning up with schools in other countries with written exchanges, long distance adoption; • the recounting of tales and fairy-tales to compare differences and provide analogies between universes of fantasy and stories from different cultures; • approaches which make connections between education and interculturalism, to develop and analyse global societies; the most interesting cases go from the “micro” (interpersonal class relations, interethnic relations in one’s own city) to the analysis of the “macro” (relations between world countries, between North and South); • the study of peoples and culture: in some cases, attention is focused on the prevalent cultures in the school, for example the Albanians in Puglia, and the Chinese in Florence and Milan. In other cases, study is focused on populations far away in time and space, such as the aborigines in Australia or the Indians in America, aimed at seeing how to discover and value those different from oneself; • the study in depth of some aspects of the curriculum (for example, in the study of history, the migrations, or the clashes between Arabs and Christians); • the discussion and analysis of particular topics, such as prejudice, racism, tolerance, particularly aimed at pupils of the middle and secondary schools. According to a mother, an active member of the parent association and the Asinitas association, the role of the teacher is crucial, and one of the reasons why the Pisacane school should be taken as a exemplary vehicle of integration: I think the teachers make the difference. The peculiarity of the Pisacane school is more intensely felt in the infant school than in the primary school. But the strength of the school lies precisely there, a group of teachers has taken integration and working with children of foreign origin as the main objective of their work. [Valeria, Asinitas and Rainbow Family Association]

The Pisacane school has become a focus point where different forms of activism converge, networking with other associations on cultural themes and social problems particularly relevant to Torpignattara district.

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[…] The demonstration against violence towards women began from the Pisacane school. Many parents of the school have links with the “Asinitas” association. And others…we were only women, a group called Vicine-vicine and and that’s what we work on, all of us together, Italians and foreigners, foreigners and Italians […] A number of things perhaps start off from the school, reverberate outwards, into actions outside the school, but then come back and feed into the school. I think this continual “inflow and outflow” is really useful. [Marta, Pisacane Association]

According to our interlocutors, the idea of a child-friendly school, where the pupil him/herself becomes the subject of scholastic experience (Dubet, 2002, pp.  93–99), is one of the characteristics of the Pisacane school. Contrary to a school which produces inequality and segregation due to the high numbers of children of immigrant origin, the Pisacane school is perceived by the Italian parents themselves, the people who are committed to the potential of such a society, as a “formative springboard”, capable of attracting others to help see a possible way forward. […] This is not a school like the others, there isn’t one who talks while the other listens. Underpinning this school (though this needs constant reinforcing) is the principle of interaction, exchange, listening to the child. And given the fact there are so many children of foreign origin, communicating is even more essential, to find ways of stimulating participation, to create a sense of inclusion in all respects. To sum up, on a broader level, we’re talking about social inclusion, being an integral part of society. I think this approach is a political one. That’s something the school should do, but often it doesn’t do it because it lacks the resources, the teachers are demotivated. [Marta, Pisacane Association]

Problems related to scant resources or absent teachers, and of a lack of commitment on the part of the authorities in a moment of economic crisis, are issues which frequently surface.32 Yet, precisely this problematic situation seems to generate the belief that the parents themselves need to take action (though without interfering with the prerogatives of the school itself) by investing in the school in concrete terms, supporting and promoting it in the ways open to them, in accordance with the school 32  According to 2014 OECD data, regarding the world’s 35 most industrialized countries, Italy is among those countries spending the least on education: OECD (2016), Education at a Glance 2016: OECD Indicators, Paris: OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.187/ eag-2016-en.

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management. The action of the Pisacane Parent Association 011 (as was observed in the study of the association of the Di Donato school in the Esquilino district (Farro & Maddanu, 2015), feeds off and feeds into the same ways of achieving interculturalism, with individuals acting according to their own moral beliefs, interpreting what they understand interculturalism to be on an everyday basis. Hence, the action of the association never encroaches on the didactic domain of the school or the choice of teaching approaches and methods made by the teachers. Rather, the association attempts to take a more social approach, aiming to reach out to and integrate the immigrant families, encouraging their active participation in and contribution to, the school, but also the district as a whole. Clearly, such an approach comes up against a far more complex reality than that met at the school, where, comparatively, cultural debate and didactic objectives represent more straightforward matters, in terms of integration: The association is a partner in a network made up of other associations, working in similar situations in different districts. It’s easier to make contact with the school and its workings if you can talk with such an association, rather than necessarily going through the school management, or the teachers’ council, or other institutional bodies. And now that particular projects are being set up, this channel of communication with the other associations has become essential. Having these associations at the schools is really useful, there is a continual exchange between ourselves and the other associations in the area […] such as Asinitas, which does really important work, childbirth classes for foreign women. It’s the only one to offer such a service in the territory, absolutely free. [Sara, Pisacane 011 and the NPO Citymothers]

Some of the parents of the Association have the view that their initiatives actually construct “life spaces”, a kind of exemplary sharing. For the members of the associations active in the district (Torpignattara Committee, Asistas, Pisacane 011, Rainbow Family Association), the school represents the fulcrum for their action, and the source of their optimism expressed during the interviews. It is not simply a question of expressing a position, but entails the promotion of social involvement, taking the school as a starting point, and implementing strategies directed at the respect of the other and integration across cultures, in a manner considered ethical for a responsible citizen. According to Marta,

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If the school works for everybody, it includes everybody. It’s not geared for one sex or the other, or for one race as opposed to others: it’s about creating an inclusive environment and stimulating the children (girls and boys) so that they have the means to become active citizens in the future. […] We also talk about active participation with the children themselves, when we are all together, taking part in an activity. And this is the reason why this way of thinking is then transmitted to the district as a whole, if you like, in that we often go out together, to socialize in and with the district, to take part in the community. That’s what I’m hoping for…even though there are still many obstacles. Even though there’s a lot of talk about participation from the bottom up, active citizenship, often deep down it tends to be just for show. But what is it really? And at the end of the day it’s part of being here: to understand things and to be part of them; not simply a matter of casting a vote and delegating, but voting and then taking action.

Despite the evident optimism of the actors and the expectation that their actions will yield immediate benefits, they come against a reality, which in actual fact is much more complex and involved, where the way of life of individuals, of the parents (especially immigrants) are very diverse one from another, each having different needs from the other. I’m not trying to say Torpignattara reflects the whole world, but perhaps Torpignattara illustrates what the world will be like in the future. […] I chose the Pisacane school because I think that my children will be enriched by being in a class where half the other children are from foreign origins. […] To tell you the truth: compared to what I was expecting, I’m rather disappointed because I thought there would be more “integration“, more of a melting pot, more participation…that THEY would participate more (the foreign parents). It’s also our fault, the Italian parents’ fault, because we have our own methods: the meetings, assemblies, where we all talk together all at once; where nothing gets decided. Perhaps the other parents don’t always understand our ways of doing things. […] I was expecting more. But I think we’re the ones who have to learn more. [Valeria, Rainbow Family Association and Asinitus]33

Testimony by Sara provides hard evidence for how cultural differences can produce problems of incompatibility in terms of values and ethics. For those directly involved in the processes of integration, in a multiethnic and 33  Interview cited by us in “Partecipazione e creatività: reinventare i beni comuni a Roma” (Andò et al., 2017, p. 200).

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multicultural context, such as in Torpignattara, the question of tolerance is put to the test when attempting to respect and manage all the diversities. The association members have invested energy and time into developing a multiethnic school, and building through it, a community capable of dialogue or at least, or greater cohesion, without waiting for state intervention. Through careful thought and individual interpretation of affairs, these active parents share the ambition of transforming the present condition of the district. Clearly, this cannot be achieved without sufficient self-­ analysis and putting one’s role into question, including one’s world vision and ethnic orientation. Rejecting integration as a “personal statement” implies a certain type of participation, whereby interaction takes place amidst difficulties and without giving up one’s own value system: I don’t consider myself a do-gooder, not at all. And I don’t believe you have to get used to differences, as you said. I believe you have to be educated to accept the differences, in that you mightn’t like the differences…and perhaps you like the way you yourself are made much more, and you think those who don’t think the same way as you do are strange or even wrong. But the right education can teach you to respect them, not humiliate them, or speak badly of them, and not see them necessarily as enemies. So, I see the role of the school mainly being this—to give a good education, a social and civic education. This doesn’t mean that the children leave the school the best of friends, that my daughter necessarily says “I love all my classmates just because they’re Bangladesi”—I’m not expecting this, that this will happen to me because I mix with these parents. What I do expect—and in actual fact, this is already happening—is that we get to know each other and our differences, our cultures, which may be really very different from one another. Because, and now I’m telling you something very personal, I’m a feminist, and it’s not easy for me to talk to a woman with her face veiled, with only a gap for her eyes. I don’t find it easy to accept that woman bringing her seven-year-old daughter to school, with a veil. It’s not at all easy, I don’t like it […] But I have to keep an open mind about such things, because these people live in the same district as I do, it’s as simple as that. Sharing a space doesn’t necessarily mean becoming friends, showing solidarity. But it does mean showing mutual respect.

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4.7   Conclusion The arrival of immigrants at Torpignattara has led to a redefinition of the commercial setup, the social fabric, and the sociodemographic profile of the district. The constant increase in the numbers of migrants (particularly, Bangladeshis), have raised issues as to how to build and foster sociality. A certain part of the inhabitants live the decline of the sociality which had previously structured the social fabric of this working-class district as a decline in their living and working space. In this transformation, immigration is seen as an explicit expression of the state of degradation the area has fallen into, abandoned by the authorities, and exposed to unsafe and illegal situations. Our interlocutors, as with those of the Filarete Committee, are having problems in gaining a coveted social advancement to middle class status in the area. Specifically, the shopkeepers and businesspeople feel particularly exposed to the district’s general state of degradation, and are suffering stiff competition from the new immigrant economic operators, whose actions are seen as legally unfair and guilty of lowering prices. In contrast, the immigrants, particularly the Bangladeshis, are busy building a relational network of support, help and sociality, establishing a communicative form of sharing and shared living space through the network of associations that operate in Torpignattara. Besides the Toripignattara Committee, the Carlo Pisacane school, with its highest number of foreign pupils or of immigrant origins, has become a point of reference in the area, and occupies a strategic position for action. The Pisacane Parent Association 011 aims to expand citizen involvement in the State School—the heart of education—seen as a space where to put shared activities into practice, and develop and give meaning to, social behaviour based on civic ethics. The school is the starting point for a series of activities and relations across different networks, where dialogue and partnerships are encouraged to create new forms of sociality. All is interpreted as playing a part in the construction of a democratic global society founded on shared living. Parenting takes on a strategic role: on the one hand, it gives vent to forms of activism, openly politically, as well as socially, motivated; and, on the other, it represents just simple participation, sometimes only on particular occasions, by those who are making a cultural investment in their children’ future or who want an informal institution, capable of building social relations and giving a hand, as needed.

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References Ambrosini, M., & Molina, S. (Eds.). (2004). Seconde generazioni. Un’introduzione al futuro dell’immigrazione in Italia. Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli. Andò, R., Farro, A.  L., Maddanu, S., & Marinelli, A. (2017). Partecipazione e creatività: reinventare i beni comuni a Roma. In L. Bovone & C. Lunghi (Eds.), Resistere. Innovazione e vita quotidiana (pp. 191–214). Donzelli. Besozzi, E. (Ed.). (2005). I progetti di educazione interculturale in Lombardia. Dal monitoraggio alle buone pratiche. Fondazione Ismu – Regione Lombardia, Osservatorio Regionale per l’integrazione e la multietnicità. Broccolini, A. (2014). Torpignattara/Banglatown: Process of Reurbanization and Rhetorics of Locality in a Suburb of Rome. In I.  Clough-Marinaro & B.  Thomassen (Eds.), Global Rome. Changing Faces in the Eternal City (pp. 81–98). Indiana University Press. Camuso, A. (2014). Mai ci fu pietà. La banda della Magliana dal 1977 a Mafia Capitale. Castelvecchi Editore. Colombo, E., & Semi, G. (2007). Multiculturalismo quotidiano. Le pratiche della differenza. Franco Angeli. Della Queva, S. (2010). Tra realtà e pregiudizi: il caso di Torpignattara a Roma. In Parra Saiani, P., Della Queva, S., Cuppone, F., Scotti, D., Ceresa, A., Pirni, A., & Mangone, E.. Per un’integrazione possibile. Processi migratori in sei aree urbane. : Franco Angeli (pp. 19–79). Dubet, F. (2002). Le déclin de l’Institution. Seuil. Farro, A. L., & Maddanu, S. (2015). La scuola del mondo in un quartiere. Genitori ed esperienze di rigenerazione della vita sociale. Scuola Democratica, 1, 211–230. Farro, A. L., & Maddanu, S. (2017). Public School and Madrasas: Parallel Circles of Sociability and Neighborhood Life. Scuola Democratica, 3, 607–625. Ficacci, S. (2007). Torpignattara: Fascismo e Resistenza in un quartiere Romano. Franco Angeli. Giovannini, G., & Queirolo Palmas, L. (Eds.). (2002). Una scuola in comune. Esperienze scolastiche in contesti multietnici italiani. Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli. Holston, J., & Appadurai, A. (2003). Cities and Citizenship. In N.  Brenner, B.  Jessop, M.  Jones, & G.  MacLeod (Eds.), State/Space: A Reader (pp. 296–308). Blackwell. Pattaro, C. (2010). Scuola e migranti. Generazioni di migranti nella scuola e processi di integrazione informale. Franco Angeli. Pompeo, F. (Ed.). (2011). Pigneto-Banglatown. Migrazioni e conflitti di cittadinanza in una periferia storica romana. Meti Edizioni. Priori, A. (2012). Romer probashira. Reti sociali e itinerari transnazionali bangladesi a Roma. Meti Edizioni.

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Priori, A. (2014). La difesa dello spazio: le aggressioni ai bangladesi in un quartiere della periferia romana. Archivio di Studi Urbani e Regionali, 110, 95–114. Scandurra, G. (2007). Il Pigneto: un’etnografia fuori le mura di Roma. Le storie, le voci e le rappresentazioni. Cleup. Severino, C.  G. (2005). Roma mosaico urbano. Il Pigneto fuori Porta Maggiore. Gangemi.

Reports Comune di Roma. (2015). Annuario Statistico 2015. Roma Capitale. Pompeo, F., & Priori, A. (2009). Vivere a Bangla Town. Questioni abitative e spazi di vita dei bangladesi a Torpignattara (pp.  254–262). Caritas Roma, Osservatorio Romano sulle Migrazioni. Quinto Rapporto. Zincone, G. (Ed.). (2001). Commissione per le Politiche di Integrazione degli Immigrati. Secondo rapporto sull’integrazione degli immigrati in Italia. Il Mulino.

CHAPTER 5

A Lesson at Esquilino

5.1   Esquilino Flares Up In January of 2007, the local and national media reported an event, which gave the district Esquilino1 cause for concern, both for its citizens and associations. A Bangladeshi mother and her son threw themselves from their fourth floor apartment in via Buonarroti in an attempt to escape from a fire raging in their home. They were both killed.2 Following this event, the Town Hall dedicated a square within the garden of Piazza Dante, in the Esquilino district, to the victims of the fire. On inquiries carried out by the media and judiciary, it emerged that an Italian who lived in the same apartment for 150 euros a month, had previously threatened and assaulted the Bangladeshi family,3 and was consequently suspected of playing a role in the tragedy, though no formal accusations were made. District and migrant associations used the event to

1  The toponymic definition of Esquilino demarks the area Via Cavour, Via Giolitti, Via Merulana, Piazza San Giovanni and by the walls flanking San Lorenzo laterally. The Esquiline is the fifteenth of the historic districts of Rome. 2  In memory of the victims, the Town Hall marked a square in Piazza Dante garden, Esquilino. 3  See La Stampa (2007, January 13); La Repubblica, 13/01/2007; “I saw a shadow cast a match”, Corriere della Sera (2007, January 13), accessed online on February 2, 2014.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_5

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highlight the district’s complex living situation,4 involving overcrowding and numerous homeless, even though Esquilino had not previously been seen as a high-density population area. Difficult and exploitative housing conditions, similar to those in via Buonarrorti, raised questions concerning the subleasing market, clearly affecting the more vulnerable sections of the population, such as migrants.

5.2   Migrants in the Centre of Rome At the end of the last century, and the early years of 2000, the Esquilino district was depicted by the Italian media as a Roman area particularly attracting influxes of immigrants.5 Migrants began to appear in significant numbers in Esquilino around the seventies and early eighties. They met in the squares and gardens, and found work opportunities in the area, as well as access to services, canteens, and male dormitories and hostels. The late eighties saw mainly people from Bangladesh and China arriving, followed by significant numbers of Philippines (Mudu, 2002, pp. 646–648). The increases peaked during the nineties and in the 2000s. From the 2000s inwards, the numbers of these three nationalities grew significantly in the Esquilino district (as registered at the general register office). In particular, there were significant increases in the numbers of Chinese and Bangladeshis (see Table 5.1), establishing themselves as the two main national groups in the area. As the numbers of Chinese and Bangladeshis increased, the available data show a corresponding fall in the numbers of Italians, with the district slowly being seen as an immigrant area. In actual fact, the registered numbers of immigrants were far lower than those of the Italian population, but the image of an immigrant came across mainly via the visible presence of people of Asian origin, not only as residents but also through their conspicuous presence in the district’s commerce, in shops and bars, and so on. Moreover, the district drew a broad spectrum of people, immigrants passing through or temporarily staying, or those visiting the area for one reason or another, with many gathering in the main square, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. Apart from lodgings and work, a migrant also needs to have access to services to be successfully inserted into the host country. An important  See Cortellesi et al. (2007).  To research Esquilino, numerous newspaper articles relating to the district were referred to over that period, particularly from La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera and Il Messaggero. 4 5

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Table 5.1  Esquilino population by nationality and continents (December 31, 2000, 2007, 2013)

Bangladesh China Philippines India Others Asia North-Africa Others Africa North America Central/South America Italy Others UE Others Europe Oceania Total

2000

2007

2013

557 598 382 50 257 300 203 52 317 19.331 365 346 12 22.770

697 1331 432 152 310 268 377 72 487 17.526 913 353 16 22.734

1130 1837 409 217 461 184 1074 69 423 16.451 1063 376 11 23.705

Source: Office of Vital Statistics of Rome

step in this process is obtaining the necessary information, the norms relating to the right to stay, an immigrant’s rights, their right to health care and education for their children. This information can be obtained through the institutional bodies: it is given out directly by the Rome City Council through leaflets, teletexts, apps, web page and specific help desks. Moreover, immigrants can rely on the network of contacts, co-national associations, and organizations (usually voluntary)6 aimed at assisting immigrants. These networks and organizations also provide legal assistance and help immigrants to obtain a residence permit.

5.3   Trade and Commerce Characterized by buildings constructed in the architectural umbertino style, Esquilino had been part of a specific political aim to render the Italian capital as modern and as functional as possible, with the view of overcoming certain urban features considered backward, and installing a functional network connecting the outer areas to the centre (Girardi et al., 6  Catholic organizations, such as Caritas, active throughout the country and internationally; or secular, such as the House of Social Rights, particularly active in areas of the capital with a high immigrant presence, such as areas around Termini station.

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1974). In the case of Esquilino, the construction work began at the end of 1872, when the city council, submerged by proposals from building enterprises, banks, national, and foreign financial firms, decided to assign the construction to two Genovese financial firms, the family Massimo, and the Compagnia Fondiaria Italiana, which bought up most of the area earmarked for building, the previous owners having been disposed by the city council in the process. The interest in this particular area, going back to the Umbertine era, can be easily explained. As we will see, there are various sound reasons why the district should attract such a large number of people, despite having been a degraded urban area since the early years of 2000, requiring city council intervention with urban reclaiming and requalification projects of the area.7 First, its spatial position is of importance, since the district constitutes a through road for traffic coming in from the consular roads, via Appia and via Tuscolana, to reach other central areas. Second, the national and international railway station, Termini, is only a block away. Finally, the Piazza houses a well-known market, the support for which has waxed and waned, over a period of a century. It remains a very active marketplace (particularly for foodstuffs), attracting people of different social strata, both for the variety of stuffs offered, and for the low prices. Later on we will see how the management of the stalls has been downsized, and how the type of products has changed to meet the new demand of the new foreign residents. Given these characteristics, the district has become a hubbub of trade and is well serviced to meet the needs of tourists. Esquilino is an area through which much outside traffic necessarily has to pass through to reach important tourist attractions and luxury shopping centres and department stores in the historic centre of Rome, for example in the area covering via Barberini, via del Tritone and Corso Umberto I, giving rise to a whole series of shops and services, aimed at middle and high-­ end customers. Further to this, due to the close proximity of the railway station, there are many hotels and boarding houses in the area, ranging from five-star luxury hotels to the cheapest accommodation. Since the beginning of the nineties and the beginning of 2000, as the numbers in the immigrant population has increased, so has the trade in the area, with shops being run by citizens of Chinese origin. Esquilino became known as a sort of Chinatown in the city centre, housing various retail 7  For example, the 1997 “Nuovo Centro Esquilino” project and the 2015 redevelopment project for Piazza Vittorio.

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businesses—wholesale shops and warehouses, and showrooms, sometimes accused of being front companies or lacking in transparency.8 Esquilino, particularly Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, has been an area of intense trade and commerce, made up of artisans, resale shops, retail, and wholesale stores, due to its strategic and central position in the city, and its close proximity to the main railway station.

5.4   Dreaming of a Chinatown Immigrants of Chinese origin began to arrive in Esquilino in significant numbers during the nineties, and subsequently established themselves as the largest national immigrant group in the area. Chinese from other areas of Rome gravitated towards the district, as they found work in the businesses run by their co-nationals. The Chinese entered Italy in different ways. According to the reconstruction of facts given by our interlocutors, mainly collected informally, without the possibility of registering the content, some Chinese entered legally into Italy, while others arrived through organizations, which organized the journey from Asia, with mid-trip stops, and guarantee of lodging within the Chinese community. At the beginning of 2000, such a journey cost around 15,000 euros, with each migrant having to pay back the sum once they were inserted into the country of destination. Hence, a migratory production chain was in motion, both on a national and regional level. The Chinese who arrived in Rome, for example, came from the Zen Jan region, as far as could be ascertained by exponents of their community and from what we could gather during our research. The great influxes really began in the eighties and nineties, at the same time of the pardons, which aimed at legalizing the position of immigrants. The first pardon was passed by Martelli, and then other pardons followed. There was a small amount of immigration between the two wars, but only men arrived in that period due to the war, with their women folk rarely being able to join them from China. This meant these men were often assimilated into the Italian contest, preventing a real national group nucleus from forming. In the seventies it was still problematic to leave China, as the cultural 8  See for example, the article from Sole 24ore (accessed online on 2 May 2010), http:// www.ilsole24ore.com/ar t/SoleOnLine4/Italia/2009/07/gdf-operazione-anti-­ contraf fazione-cinesi.shtml?uuid=ba99858c-67b1-11de-bb24-784de86f3209& refresh_ce=1

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r­ evolution was still going on, but then when Deng Xiaoping came to power in the early eighties, economic reforms were implemented and there was an opening up of China, making travel more possible, compared to the past. [Meng, Italian of Chinese origin, entrepreneur].

The number of Chinese rose all over the capital, reaching 1330 individuals in the Esquilino district alone in 2007, double the number in 2000, as shown by the register records (see Table 5.1). By 2013, the numbers had trebled. Their presence could be strongly felt, not only by their numbers, as recorded in the district register office, but also due their commercial activity, particularly evident along the porticoes of Piazza Vittorio and the nearby streets. In the survey we carried out (Table 5.2), a high number shops run by Chinese were found to exist as early as 2000, this figure doubling to be just behind the number of Italians running similar businesses (43% of the total v. 45%). As with other metropolises around the world, some Chinese citizens had in mind and still dream of a Roman Chinatown, a district strongly characterized by a homogenous population, which carves out its own space through its cultural, ethnic, and social presence, articulated and supported by its economic network of activity, made up of commercial enterprises and restaurants. Around the eighties and nineties, there was a peak after the pardon, particularly in the Esquilino district, because of its favourable characteristics—it was near the stations, it was well connected…but most of all, especially in the early eighties, the prices were very low since Esquilino had an image of a somewhat urban decay for many Italians; so these new entrepreneurs were able to open businesses with an initially low capital, then there was an increasing demand, and after these first entrepreneurs had established their own nucleus, prices began to go up. They say Chinese business people who Table 5.2 Esquilino shops census by nationality (2000 and 2010)

2000 2010 Italians Chinese Bangladeshi Africans Others TOTAL Source: Authors

530 221 73 36 14 874

492 466 102 13 14 1087

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wanted to invest in the district paid off Italian tradespeople with handsome sums, probably because the Chinese considered Esquilino to be in a good strategic position. Then, in the late nineties and the first years of 2000, there was trade liberalization and commercial de-licensing with the Bersani Law, and the procedures for opening up a business were greatly facilitated. Instead, the Veltroni council administration made some commercial exceptions to this with regards the historic centre, to prevent a Chinatown from being created in Esquilino. The real big expansion took place under the Rutelli council administration. [Meng].

With the signing of the Protocol between the Rome City Council and representatives of the Chinese community (including the diplomatic advisor to the Chinese embassy in Italy), it is apparent that there was the political will to avoid the creation of areas in the Capital being characterized according to ethnic grouping. Through the obligation to put shop signs in Italian (and not only Chinese), the undertaking to diversify the commercial offer or even the banning of wholesale trade, underlines a political desire to integrate the Chinese community into the district.9

5.5   Esquilino Speaks Bangla Right at the beginning of their migration into the Capital, the Bangladeshi set up some commercial enterprises in the Esquilino district. In particular they started up businesses, including cooperatives, which also sold products coming from Bangladesh, mainly aiming to sell them to their co-­ nationals. They attempted to develop import/export trading, taking the Chinese model as their guide. They imported products (particularly textiles) made in Bangladesh and exported back consumer products difficult to find in Italy. A veritable trade network was set up which ran with the aid of foreign investment and a cheap labour force. According to Knights there were 21 enterprises in the area of Piazza Vittorio and Termini Station 9  The protocol clearly calls for the Chinese community to integrate with the local populace. For example, Italian courses for Chinese were activated and promoted. Moreover, the agreement wording specifically proposes “cultural integration with Italian citizens, jointly exploring all forms of cultural and social collaboration to produce a sense of belonging and social cohesion… [in] the areas of city residence… stemming and avoiding the formation of new mono-ethnic neighborhoods”. See Institutional website of the Municipality of Rome (accessed online 2 May 2016) http://www.comune.roma.it/pcr/it/newsview. page?contentId=NEW147989.

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(1996, pp.  136–137).10 In the mid-nineties and particularly in the late nineties, other businesses run by Bangladeshi could be noted, partly connected to the market in Piazza Vittorio—at that time, still held in the Piazza itself, before being moved permanently in October 2001. Generally, Bangladeshi started off working for others, and then took up the management of some of the fruit and vegetables stalls for a generic local clientele. In this period, however, a significant expansion of different businesses run by Bangladeshi took place in Esquilino. The first typology evolved around telecommunications, strictly phone centres and internet points. In our research, we recorded 73 businesses run by Bangladeshi in 2000, with 14 being in telecommunications (constituting the vast majority in the district, the total number of such centres numbering 17, with 2 being run by Africans, and one by Philippines).11 From 2006 onwards, however, after a tapering off of the expansion of this sector, many of the centres were closed.12 Another typology regarded the selling of discs, music dvds and film productions of Bollywood, the centre of cinematographic production in the Indian sub-continent. These cultural products are often geared at the Bangladeshi group even though it may appeal to a wider public. A third typology consisted in the shops and stores selling costume and fashion jewellery, souvenirs, and umbrellas. Retail shops were open to the public, while privileging trading with street traders, usually Bangladeshi themselves. Once again, commercial channels of supply existed via 10  Including a restaurant, a dry cleaner, stalls at the Piazza Vittorio market, video stores, jewellers, bars, service cooperatives, food shops. 11  At the beginning of the 2000s period, new information technologies developed, with submarine fibre optic cables leading to low-cost fast communications. Using such technology was an attractive business, with low investment costs (renting a room and equipping it with a dozen cabins, costs ranged from 10 to 20,000 euros). Often taking out intra-­ community loans, several partners together could easily set up such a shop. The law in force at that time (Bersani) did not place limits on their number, nor were there any municipal regulations concerning Esquilino. Furthermore, a single person could manage the shop; the rent of the premises and service prices remained very low in that period. 12  The clientele decreased due to the spread of these centres, Bangladeshi immigrants moving to other places of to Rome, such as Tor Pignattara, and the increase in the number of domestic internet users or other low-cost telephone services. Furthermore, from 2007 onwards, as part of provisions that govern Rome municipality. Esquilino was subject to municipal directives that regulated commercial activities, limiting the presence of phone centres (minimum 300 meters from each other) in a given areas. See Resolution No. 83, May 17, 2007.

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Bangladesh and China. Payment occurred as each batch was sold, that is, after the previous batch had been sold. These shops acted as a focal point or nexus from where Bangladeshi, particularly those recently arrived, could develop some form of trading activity. As such, it could be considered the first step into the labour market. Last of all, there was the typology of selling foodstuffs. As already mentioned, this can involve the running of stalls at the Piazza Vittorio/Esquilino market, where, in 2014, the number of stalls run by Bangladeshi was significant (more than 40%). Alternatively, in Esquilino and in other areas, Bangladeshi ran food shops also selling alcohol, remaining open in the evenings and on holidays, to satisfy a particular segment of the market.13 According to our survey, apart from the market stalls in Esquilino (not recorded in the survey), Bangladeshi citizens already ran over 70 shops in 2010 (see Table 5.2), accounting for 10% of the total number of shops in the district, behind Italian and Chinese shopkeepers. Moreover, Bangladeshi citizens also worked for Italians in other types of business in the area, such as florist shops and other stalls. As can be ascertained, the work is underpaid: a florist worker can earn 20–25 euros a day while working up to 12–14 hours a day.

5.6   Esquilino’s New Market The local market was once held in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, but, due to issues of hygiene and urban renewal planning, in 2001 it was moved to the undercover area of the former Sani army barracks.14 In the words of the president of the Co.Ri.ME cooperative,15 Naturally, the market is an historic one, going back to the early years of the 1900s. It has undergone transformations mainly due to changes in the area—due to the large size of the market within an important piazza, close to Termini station, problems were beginning to arise due to the related increased traffic and issues of hygiene. In the late nineties, the city council felt it was time to move the market and find it a more suitable location. A 13  Their diffusion led to the association of these shops to this particular ethnic group— “bangla”. In other areas of Europe, other associations have been made, such as in France (“l’épicier”, which has become commonly “Arab”) or in Great Britain (“Paki”), which are sometimes viewed in derogatory terms. 14  Situated between via Principe Amedeo, via Mamiani, via Turati, and via Lamarmora. 15  Esquilino Market Dealers Association.

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place next to Piazza Vittorio was singled out, so the market wouldn’t be too far out. As operators of the market, representing the market itself, we decided to set up a cooperative. […]. Around 200–250 stallholders of the old market initially joined the cooperative, but then we lost some along the way, and 133 foodstuffs stallholders have remained, along with 54 stallholders selling clothing and other goods. These remaining workers have now acquired the right to a place in the new market. […] Naturally, the vast majority of owners used to be Italian, but even when the market was in the piazza, 10% were foreigners, Romanians, Egyptians who began by renting stalls. However, when they began setting up in the new market, they began to hold licenses themselves. […] Today around 60% of the licenses are held by foreigners, of which 10% are Romanian, some Egyptians, and around 45% are Bangladeshi: some have bought the license, others are running stalls, and some have set up a business by buying more than one license.

With time, the market has undergone a transformation, with a dynamic presence of foreign operators, particularly Asians, who have carved out their own space by introducing new products from all over the world. Today, the market enjoys both an immigrant and Italian clientele who have access to a wide range of products at competitive prices. As in other areas of social life, in the market relations between operators of different origin appear to be problematic. Despite attempts of mediation on the part of the cooperative CO.RI.ME, during our research we observed persistent conflicts and misunderstandings between operators of different nationalities, in particular between Italians and Bangladeshis, and the Bangladeshis and the management of the cooperative. As the running of the market is subject to assembly and decision-making in accordance with the will of the majority, participation in the assemblies and knowing Italian are two essential aspects for the functioning of the market. The poor participation of the Bangladeshi operators (in part due to not knowing Italian sufficiently) appears to set a limitation from which misunderstandings arise between the market operators. As related by a fifty-six-year-old Egyptian butcher in the market, who has resided in Italy since he was 32, […] I respect everyone, but I can’t agree with some of the attitudes and behaviour of my colleagues, who show no interest whatsoever in the organization of the market. […] So I think my colleagues work more with their brawn than their brains, they only think about working, and then they com-

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plain that things don’t go as they would like them to, but to change things we need to cooperate and decide on things together. […] Something else with which I don’t agree with at all, and here I’m giving the example of Bangladeshi owners or stall keepers, is that they are very closed-minded, they take on two co-nationals who hardly speak a word of Italian, and they put them there to run the stall. But you need to know Italian if you want to sell and expand your clientele. But they don’t think about this, it’s essential, they only think about working.

Aziz, thirty-four-year-old Bangladeshi butcher, resident in Italy since he was five, and Abdallah, running a fruit and vegetable stall and resident in Italy since he was 8, think differently: Working relations are generally good, there is mutual respect and a peaceful coexistence. I’m very focussed on my work and I try to do it by not invading other people’s space.[…] The wardens come by, do their checkups, and sometimes they give out fines, other times they tell us which laws need respecting and they give time to make the necessary changes. Then they pass by again and check whether we’ve done what were supposed to. […] Very few Italians [customers], nearly all Bangladeshi some Africans and various other nationals [Aziz]. Relations with the others…but I just think about getting on and working. This one besides me sells household goods, why should I have to agree about anything with him? [Abdallah]

The market is characterized by a strong presence of Bangladeshi operators, who represent the majority national group. Within the workings of the market at Esquilino, contrasting ways of trading and operating emerge, motivated, among others, by different interests. On the one hand, some operators assume a self-referential behaviour, while, on the other, there are difference as to what is meant by trading with clients, and what it means to share a commercial space with other colleagues in the same market.

5.7   Ethnography of a Piazza Observation of Esquilino enabled us to construct a detailed mapping of the comings and goings in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II,16 and the routes and passageways taken by its visitors. Through a systematic and regular 16  Completed at the end of the nineteenth century, this is largest square in Rome, built in the eclectic Umbertine style characterizing the whole district (Girardi et al., 1974), following the transfer of the capital of Italy to Rome.

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ethnographic observation, it was possible to construct a cartography of the Piazza and some of the adjacent streets, deemed significant for the different and dynamic presence of individuals and groups. The cartography is based on weekly on-site observations (on Saturdays and Sundays at midday) over a two-month period. The map (See Fig. 3.1) traced the presences of bivouacs, regular stops and meeting-up of groups of people in particular points of the Piazza and in the nearby streets. Apart from the street stalls and trading under the porticos, we were able to trace the regularity of the presences of particular groups of people in the Garden, under the porticos and in the adjacent streets leading to the New local market in Esquilino. Hence, the cartography presented here (referring only to the garden, for reasons of space) summarize the constant presences recorded over two months, providing a photograph of the itinerant presences. The presences mainly regard migrants from different continents who, for various reasons, were to be found in different parts of the piazza. They live in different part of Esquilino, but come together is this particular Piazza, in the gardens and the adjoining streets. In the garden, we could identify the presence of two groups of Afghan refugees who said they were housed on the Cristoforo Colombo—one is of the Pashtun ethnic group, and the other, made up of members of the Tagiki ethnic group (originating from Kabul). The groups kept apart. The two groups occupied a more isolated part of the garden, with no throughway, sitting around on blocks of cement and near the flowerbeds, drinking cups of hot drinks, such as coffee or tea with milk kept in a thermos flask. The groups were made up of adult males, aged between 20 and 35 years old, who have obtained or are awaiting status as political refugees. The presence of South Americans was also visible in the gardens and in the adjacent streets, in via Principe Amedeo in particular, in front of one of the main entrances to the new market of Esquilino. The road was particularly busy (see Fig.  5.1), with ethnic trading and restaurants, small mixed Peruvian groups (men and women) standing around, as well as sitting, drinking hot and soft drinks, pre-packaged food or homemade food. The presence of the Sub-Saharan Africans was more varied, originating from different national groups (Togo, Gambua, Chad, Nigeria), though all young males, with some stating they were looking for political asylum, particular those positioned in the gardens (see Fig. 3.1). They consumed alcohol and light drugs. Some played basketball sharing the only basket to be found on the side next to via Carlo Alberto/via dello Statuto with young Philippines. These people (again, all males) who positioned

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Fig. 5.1  Public Garden of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II “Nicola Calipari” (Esquilino, Rome)—Ethnographic Map. (Source: Our elaboration on Google Earth Picture (accessed on January 10, 2017))

themselves in via Ricasoli and via Principe Amedeo, set up a makeshift market between the pavements and the parked cars, selling clothing, shoes, and various objects. In via Ricasoli, among Rom and other traders, some had cut out a small space for themselves to sell watches, brand perfumes and mobile phones. It was not uncommon that some individuals went right up to passer-by to try to get them to buy goods, particularly mobile phones, which they took out of their own pockets as opportune. The largest group present in the Piazza Vittorio gardens was the East Europeans, who were Russian or Ukraine women over the age of 40, who drank soft or hot drinks and a meal, generally in plastic containers or wrapped up in carrier bags. They mainly sat along the central walkways of the piazza, on benches or on the low walls. During our research, we also met small groups of Sri Lankans, especially on Sundays, who, like many, chose the Piazza as their meeting point on holidays, and ate at a well-known Sri Lankan restaurant situated nearby. Last of all, we also continually observed sporadic Bangladeshi bivouacs, confirming the importance of the presence of this national group in the district and in the city as a whole. They were mainly present, however, as

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very active traders, both in the new market in Esquilino, and as street sellers who occupy numerous places under the porticos of the Piazza, as well as shops and stores in the district and particularly in the vicinity of Piazza Vittorio. Though the various national groups were often to be found in the same place, they could take turns in occupying certain areas of the gardens, for example, areas of the garden near via Conte Verde and via Principe Eugenio, which were occupied in turn by South Americans, Philippines, and Chinese. The Piazza was still a throughway and a meeting place during the weekend, particularly due to its close proximity to Termini station, and due to the numerous public means of transport (such as the Metro A, numerous buses, trams, and local trains) providing stops in the area, connecting the district to other areas of the city, particularly those inhabited by the immigrants, such as the Prenestina and the Casilina. The gardens were also frequented by Italian citizens who invited participation and promoted initiatives and happenings in the piazza open to everyone, residents and non-residents alike, with different sorts of events being put on—cultural, political and intercultural. So, the piazza has also become a chance and occasional meeting place for many, from Italian residents to migrants, who have transformed the gardens into a veritable gathering point for certain national groups. The so-called multicultural character of Piazza Vittorio is emphasized by the promoters of the get-­ togethers between Italian citizens and migrants who gravitate towards the district. Some activities are promoted by individuals or by associations in an attempt to involve other community groups in the district, promoting folklore, cultural, and artistic events, hence contributing to convey an image of the Piazza and the District as one of exchange and multiethnic tolerance.17 The piazza is enclosed by nineteenth-century porticos, which run around the gardens. The markets consisting of stalls move around and along three of the four sides of the covered porticos. Most of the stalls and stands are run by Bangladeshi, or as a subtenant of the trading license, or workers paid by the subtenant or actual license holder. The research 17  Piazza Vittorio became the name of a group of artists, the Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio, which wished to pay homage to the image of a multi-ethnic. district. The Orchestra, formed in 2002 due to an artistic-cultural project of the Apollo Association (made up of artists, filmmakers and intellectuals mobilized to save the historic Apollo cinema in Rome), had artists from more than 15 different countries, and created musical syncretisms to reflect the different origins of the members of the group.

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managed to map out the various positions of the traders and the type of produce sold, every Saturday over two months (October/November 2014). The stalls meet with strong opposition from many residents of the piazza, who criticize the quality of the goods sold and the aesthetic depreciation of the areas created by the presence of the makeshift stalls under the porticos. The only side where lots for the stalls have not been granted— between via Principe Eugenio and via Emanuele Filiberto—distinguishes itself for its cared-for appearance, particularly the part where l’ENPAM18 has its offices.

5.8   Association Adherence Whether predisposed to build relations with the immigrants or conversely set on defending themselves from them, the inhabitants of the Esquilino district are worried about the deterioration of the area. In particular, they are concerned about a deteriorating situation being possibility accompanied by exclusion and a precarious social life. To stem the tide of degradation, different associations made up of residents and economic operators have been set up. Some of these associations, such as the Comitato Esquilino, Castellum and, more recently, Piazza Vittorio Partecipata, mainly concern themselves with safeguarding the district’s social, cultural, and urban fabric. The associations have a variety of priorities and scope of action, from the rebuilding and defence of specific local culture, to the safeguarding and reorganization of the district’s commercial life and setup, including the market, and other actions geared towards encouraging participation in urban renewal projects. Other associations, instead, such as the Casa dei diritti sociali, Nero e non Solo and the Caritas mainly concentrate their efforts on improving relations between Italians and immigrants. From an urban point of view, the areas which attract most attention are those of Piazza Vittorio and its market, the former Milk Collection Centre (Centrale del latte), and the area in proximity of Termini Station. Yet, the interest shown by these associations towards these areas is not only dictated by the desire for urban renewal or from a purely technical point of view. Indeed, the restoration and reorganization of these particularly degraded areas are seen as being part of a general requalification of the whole district. However, though these associations may agree on criticizing the degradation of the district and trying to find adequate solutions,  National Insurance and Assistance Institute for Doctors and Dentists.

18

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they diverge on exactly what is being criticized and the ultimate goals to be pursued. In particular, three distinct cultural approaches can be identified, according to the different characteristics of each organization. 5.8.1  Nostalgia The first is motivated by a sense of nostalgia, expressed to a varying degree by organizations such as the Esquilino Committee and the Castellum Cultural Association. According to these associations, the main problem lies in re-gaining the central role the district once had, to bring back the levels of habitability it once enjoyed, as well as the cultural characteristics it previously had, from its construction to a decade ago. As the urban decay is seen as the result of a lack of care and maintenance and a progressively precarious social life, the answer lies, according to these associations, in reorganizing and restructuring along the lines of the original culture. The changes and transformation due to the presence, both economically and physically, of the migrants, implicitly means considering them as unwelcome “change agents” in the district. In the early nineties, a group of inhabitants set up a body, the Esquilino Committee, in an effort to deal with the deterioration of the district. As far as this committee it concerned, the degradation has been caused by essentially three factors. The first concerns the architectural and urban state of affairs, the second, public order and safety, and third, the immigrants. For the members of this association, the degradation is experienced as being the progressive unravelling of the social life of the district, which is losing or has lost its earlier character as an attractive residential and commercial area. Hence, the committee members are motivated by feelings of nostalgia, which determine the reasons for the degradation and the way the situation should be remediated. When the market was still in Piazza Vittorio, the committee made a move to limit the commercial activity of the stalls. More recently, the committee also directed criticism towards how the district was organized, both in architectural and urban terms, seeing this as related to a deteriorating public order. The Committee sees the decline in the district as being accompanied by social deterioration, as expressed by the drug dealing, prostitution, and episodes of petty crime, regularly occurring in certain areas of the district. Most recently, the committee members also see the situation being further worsened by an increase in the numbers of non-authorized immigrants, who sleep or gravitate towards the area.

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While also desiring to restore “lost harmonies” in the area, the Castellum, is more concerned with cultural issues. The cultural association has been organizing the street pageant “All’ombra del Colosseo” (In the Shadow of the Colosseum) since 2015, and other cultural and fun activities within the Roman Summer. The association was formed in the early nineties in Esquilino. Its aim was to defend and promote the specific characteristics and features of Italian culture in the area, recalling Italian cultural traditional in general and in the district in particular, as a historic area of Rome. The association’s organizers wanted to avoid an association being made between social precariousness and the predominance of cultures different from the Italian culture in the district. 5.8.2  Participation, Culture, and Shared Living Today, the second approach is embodied by the Piazza Vittorio Participatory Committee. This organization mainly sees the urban decay as tied to shortcomings of the rationale behind the structural organization of the area. According to this association, on the one hand, the district has lost the commercial and residential role it held in the previous urban rationalization, and on the other, it has been unable to redefine a niche with the restructuring of a city undergoing change. In other words, an incongruence exists: the area is subject to commercial and residential decay, lacking in future prospects for upgrading and enhancement, despite enjoying a central and privileged position within the city, an asset seemingly greatly undervalued. The aim of this type of association is to enhance the district by redefining its renewal in relation to the city as a whole and its rationalization. Within this context, the restructuring of the district could include, for example, the reinforcement and urban and architectonic requalification of structures housing and promoting cultural events. Hence, the committee’s action inscribes to the experimental projects of participation outlined in the urban renewal plans promoted by Municipal I.  A lack of effective institutional intervention, capable of grasping the everyday complexities existing in the area, is seen to be responsible for the present degradation of the area. In response, the committee proposes action directly involving the citizens in support of local institutions and, if required, acting as a substitute in the construction of a new social fabric. Interaction between Italians and immigrants is viewed as enriching the district, and not as a degrading factor as such. According to this association, the path to follow is through meetings and intercultural exchanges

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involving participation in district life on a practical level. This association, referred to again in the last chapter, is linked to a wider network of daily democratic participation, going under the acronym of Cittadinanzattiva (see here and Chap. 7). 5.8.3  Solidarity The third approach to the problem of the degradation of the district and how it can be resolved is represented by organizations such as the Caritas and the House of Social Rights (La Casa dei diritti sociali), which, from different points of view, work to facilitate the insertion of the immigrants into the area or, at least, into its social life, on a more general level. These organizations consider the degradation of the area lies in the lack of means to enable different cultures and different social needs to integrate. The Caristas bases its action on moral principles concerning the essential equality between human beings. The House of Social Rights invokes equality on the basis of left-wing thought and practice. While seeing a lack of solidarity as the cause of the social degradation, they also work to show and build the value of interethnic relations between the different communities of immigrants and the Italians.

5.9   Dealing with Degradation During the research carried out in the Esquilino district, we met resident citizens, participants of meetings called by Municipal I, participants of the meetings called by or housed by the winning party of the local elections (DP), city counsellors and technical experts of Municipal I, and association activists and committee members, in particular the Piazza Vittorio Participatory Committee, and the Piazza Committee. Among the most attended and animated meetings, we noted certain issues particularly held dear by the residents (1) waste management (2) action aimed at stemming the degradation and widespread petty crime in the district (unauthorized commercial activity, troublesome bivouacs) or once again (3) requalification and maintenance intervention. Notably, from citizen interventions during the meetings, the theme of degradation appeared intrinsically linked to that of waste time and again,19 in every occasion during our 19  In particular, those held at the PD headquarters at Esquilino, via Galilei, on 16/05/2014 and 19/09/2014.

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registration. These two themes also appeared in occasion of events and public assemblies when other issues were on the agenda. The state of abandonment and degradation was regularly commented20 on by residents at these public assemblies, with participants agreeing on the need for intervention, but then disagreement would follow as to who was responsible, and what methods and solutions would be needed to overcome the day-to day problems. In particular, besides differences in orientation and conception of sociality, two approaches could be distinguished, as well as two distinct methods of action. A first approach tends to criticize and stigmatize the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the local institutions, the elected representatives and politics in general: there is an evident frustration in a perceived “never listen, never take heed, never act” in stark contrast to the urgency of the issues and the cries of alarm on the part of the citizens. Everyone is reminded of the responsibility the institutions have in the correct and functional management of waste, of maintaining the decorum and legality of the urban context. Essentially, this approach concerns blaming the institutions for not intervening effectively (or at all) and sometimes ends in protests, by single individuals or by more organized group action. Finding solutions to the problems, however, is ultimately seen as the responsibility of elected representatives, the administration and the city governance, who should act in their stead. It is a form of protest not directly leading to collective action, but regularly surfaces and is often guided by individual citizens who converse with the city and municipal administration. The recurrent theme is the district’s deteriorating state, and the absence of official control and intervention. Then, there are complaints of isolation and abandonment. As we have seen in the case of some citizens, particularly businesspeople, at Torpignattara, demands mainly centre around the word legality. This is interpreted as referring to law abidance in general, but also to the need for authorities to maintain control of the area, particularly regarding immigrants, those who pass through the area or those who set up camp in some areas of the district, as well as those who run or are 20  This is the case, for example, of the meeting to present the participation proposal and establish the citizenship workshops at the headquarters of the former XVII Town Hall, Prati, Circonvallazione Trionfale of 13/05/2014; the meeting on the draft of the participation protocol presented by a technician on behalf of the First Town Hall, at the headquarters in via della Greca 17/05/2014; or again on the occasion of the meeting of the First Town Hall with the Citizens’ Committees on the ratification of Resolution 48 of the Municipality of Rome on the protection of historic squares, which also took place in via della Greca.

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involved in the local trade.21 The political leanings are not explicit, or at least not made explicit, but are expressed through a neutral position, and without explicit connection to one political party or another. The second approach is more representative of local residents investing in the promotion of initiatives encouraging citizen participation. It sees direct participation being needed, with citizens themselves acting as change agents, providing support or re-launching the political action of the district. The individuals who are part of this type of approach share much of the previous criticism of inefficiency and late intervention by the authorities. That is, they do not contest the need and prerogative of the local authorities to act. However, taking as a starting point that there is a lack of resources and inadequate structuring of the local administration to tackle a number of issues, this second approach calls for, promotes and at times, even expects citizens to take on an active role in finding solutions. Hence, citizens can put themselves forward to provide support and actively take part in the decisional, operative, strategic consultation process. Interventions made are often to underline the need for action on the part of the citizens themselves and is tied to looking after the public good and protection of the interests of all. The political leanings appear near, though not directly bound to those of elected left-wing parties or civic lists, or, in any case, appear to have this political background in some form. 21  This logic recalls the so-called broken windows theory. Often referred to in American criminology research (Skogan, 1990; Sampson & Cohen, 1988), this theory has met with some success beyond the academic field., as well. Through the allegory of a building with a broken window, it maintains that interventions to prevent vandalism, decay and crime can be reduced and even cancelled out if there is a system of control and maintenance of decorum and legality: a broken window results in occupation or vandalism of the entire building; the care of the building and urban setting contributes to maintenance of an urban area, avoiding its possible degradation. However, the actual results of control and prevention policies advocated by Broken Windows Theory are contested and refuted by some (Harcout, 2001, pp. 78–89) as ineffective. This theory has been behind more stringent security policies, such as the Stop and Frisk (check and preventive search) widely used in New  York during the administration of Rudolph Giuliani and his zero-tolerance policy but later judged unconstitutional (2013), as an instrument of racial discrimination. The data relating to the interventions of the New York police showed in fact an over-representation of Afro-Americans and Latinx among those most subject to these police practices, thus showing the checks to be prejudicial. The Stop and Frisk Principle—proposed again in the electoral campaign by the US presidential candidate, and afterwards winner, Donald Trump to deal with the rising crime rate in particularly violent cities, such as Baltimore and Chicago—is based on the idea, drawn from the broken windows theory, that prior control of dangerous and potentially armed individuals, would dramatically reduce the number of crimes committed.

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The two approaches outlined above mainly differ from each other in how each one sees the relationship between citizen and institution: in the first one, the institution is seen as duty bound to exercise its role to defend the citizen, guaranteeing services pre-established and adapting to the needs of a changing reality. The citizen is viewed as a user and “customer” or “client”, as an elector and taxpayer. In the second case, while recognizing the responsibility of the institutions to manage services, the role of the citizens is seen in more active terms, proactive, supportive and, where possible, as a resource to help resolve problems. This approach puts the individual at the centre of the process of transformation and provides a sense of purpose, on an everyday basis. “The citizen” becomes protagonist— citizens who take into their own hands their own present, as well as their future. As such, they wish to make a direct impact on the general direction of things and assert rights, needs and a progressive vision to better their own existence and to delineate a common project of society. Elena, 58, who is very active in various local committees, activist in the Active Citizenship Network22 and involved in the experimentation of participation within Municipal I, explained what she understood by citizen participation, as follows: [to be an active citizen] means participating while being aware, informed and proactive, to find solutions to certain issues. In the specific case of a city like Rome, which concerns not only the quality of life, but also the quality of democracy…so to give private citizens the opportunity to contribute to finding solutions and managing issues related to…life…exactly that. Since there’s ample evidence that neither the central nor the local authorities are able to find solutions to all the problems on their own…Because they’re not qualified to do so, they don’t have the necessary resources, they can’t see, and […Compare to the past] the quality of participation has really changed a great deal, but because the world has changed…the spreading of information, for example. But so has the ability of the political parties to understand certain signals…the parties have certainly changed.

22  Part of the Active Citizenship Network, Cittadinanzattiva defines itself as a European network organization that unites civic associations and favours the active participation of citizens in local policies. It provides support for organized action by promoting subsidiarity and citizens-institutions relations, to manage and pass projects of public interest. See http:// www.activecitizenship.net/

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As seen by our interlocutor, the situation of Rome demonstrates this particularly well. The local authorities appear to be in great difficulty in providing answers to problems that citizens face every day. Nonetheless, the organization of action starts from the assumption that with society in the throes of change, the role, and the capacity of the institutions have been downsized, for reasons which are also linked to the evolution of the financial and economic circuits, to the flow of migrants, and to other effects of the fragmentation introduced by globalization. Elena went on to say the following: Citizens have lost faith somewhat in the institutions…yes. Then there is a greater will, a greater awareness to actively contribute to society in some way, to have an impact or, at times, to protest. So, I would say citizens have changed (broadly speaking) and the institutions have changed, as well.

As was noted at the beginning of this research, the Roman context observed during our work was characterized by periodic episodes of corruption which determined public opinion on a local level and, as the capital was involved, also on a national level. Contextualizing their daily lives, our interlocutors underlined how the corruption and inefficiency of the institutions went hand in hand and constituted the main cause of a loss of faith on the part of the citizens as a whole. However, they gave a different interpretation in terms of the responsibility of the individual, who, in turn, needed to participate in collective action to repair, help and sustain the efforts of the institutions. The need to act came from a subjective impulse to assert oneself and take a position with regards to forms of domination—to those close at home, as well as to those further away, but felt on a daily basis, nonetheless. In terms of giving a meaning to the action of the social actors, two levels of analysis can be distinguished: the first level is given through a direct, practical approach, involving the care of one’s own space (the piazza, the district, the city) understood as inalienable, transmissible, and common (to all). This action is seen as an urgent need to deal with the degradation and degrading of the setting of one’s own life, both physical and spatial, as well as ethical and moral, provoked by the economic crisis and by the crisis of the institutions, and indeed, by the political system in general. This approach consists in experimenting alternative democratic experiences, cooperating with others and transforming one’s own vital space, both symbolically and practically. Networks across the territories are built or reinforced, giving relevance to the feelings of

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others and the positive potential of the population, interpreted as capable of producing solutions and shared projects. The local context, whether the district, the school, or the institutions, is the first place where one’s own action can be demonstrated and expressed. The second level of analysis regards the assertion of a single individual and their specific ethnic orientations, geared to resist systemic forms of domination influencing the personal lives of the individual and preventing them from living their existence to the full. As such, an individual is seen as one who acts according to their own uniqueness and specificity to assert their values and orientations, and in doing so, frees themselves from the neoliberal context and its injustices, while at the same time, acts as an opposing force.

5.10   Rubber Wall The actors we met during the research perceived a fragmentation of institutional competencies and responsibilities, symptomatic of the state of institutional crisis, the institutions being clearly inadequate to deal with the most pressing social issues. The themes which citizens come up against most on a daily basis concern the inefficiencies of services (waste, urban cleanliness, and decorum) and evident situations of unauthorized commercial activity. Some of the interlocutors also perceived evidence of clientelism, corruption and crime, which benefited particular interests. On the impossible task of managing the markets and traders, Nina, a city councillor, Marino civic list stated: There is a mass [of stalls] which are illegal, such as those on wheels…which they don’t even use anymore as they are so shrewd. Or those street traders who just pop up are totally illegal […] And then, as to the stalls, what can I say? Many shouldn’t cover the area they do, covering much more than they are entitled to…and there it’s a problem—whether with regards to partially or totally illegal activity—of an ineffectual stemming of illegal business activity: the answers one gets from the local police is “there are only a few of us, we give out fines which don’t get paid…or we fine perpetrators, but then the city council, or the department, don’t take measures”. So you ask “why aren’t you taking measures?” because the law isn’t clear, because there are only a few of us, because we lack the means, because we take measures, and the same perpetrator reopens another business [under a different name]. In brief, everything’s impossible. It’s like a rubber wall: everything’s impossible. Then in actual fact you see that there really are only few personnel and

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that they really do only have a few means at their disposal; the offices who should be doing the checking, which means that they’re responsible for more sensitive areas, such as those concerning commerce, and they’re in complete chaos because they don’t have the necessary technology, they don’t have archives, there are just a handful of them…I think things are kept as they are deliberately, I don’t know by whom…but I think things are kept deliberately as they are, in the building sector and in the commercial sector and the local police, as well, who should be dealing with these issues…Which then all adds up to an excuse because there are many honest people. But then perhaps there’s one bad apple in the barrel which blocks everything…or…to sum up, what I can see is that there’s no real attempt to put an end to this illegal state of affairs.

The issue does not only concern an unwieldy administrative system, where distinguishing a genuine will and political interests from rules and technicalities becomes problematic. As related by our interlocutors, the administrative system is fraught with fragmentation, as ascertained by those citizens who have come up against local institutions in an effort to find a solution to everyday problems. Elena (Cittadinanzattiva and Piazza Vittorio Committee), explained the difficulties which citizen committees come up against, despite a genuine commitment and desire to work to improve the state of affairs, even drawing on professional knowledge and skills, […] In the case of Rome, we’re clearly before an unworkable situation, if you just think, for example, of the responsibility the city council has and the few means they can count on, both in terms of personnel and economic resources. Or if you think of a situation like the one existing in Piazza Vittorio, a garden where, I believe, a dozen or so different companies ­compete for the running of the garden. So there’s also a problem of fragmentation of responsibilities.

According to these actors, particularly interested in the workings of citizen participation and in directly intervening on issues concerning their district, a hiatus exists between how citizens wish to define their own experience of life, and the mechanisms with which the institutions respond to these desires. There is no attempt to set up an alternative institution but an effort to provide what is necessary to support or re-establish the institutions.

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5.11   The School Once more to the Fore Our research also focused on a school in the Esquilino district, one which is known to have a high number of pupils from immigrant families or families of immigrant origin—The Di Donato Comprehensive Institute (DC) (L’Istituto Comprensivo Di Donato). In particular, we went to meet the school’s Parent Association which, in, 2001, backed by the presiding head teacher, decided to promote a form of participatory action using the school premises in after-school hours. At that time, the school was known to have more immigrant pupils than Italian pupils (Farro & Maddanu, 2015). Given the multiethnic and multicultural character of the school, efforts made by the Parent Association represented a cultural, as well as political, challenge—these people wanted to demonstrate the potential of a multicultural context, both on an educational and relational level. After its formation, the first problem the association encountered was where to meet, and what actions would be effective in creating a more cohesive district. The school saw the district as fragmented and diversified, in terms of the lifestyles of the different groups of immigrants (from Bangladeshi to Chinese, from Philippines to Africans), rarely involved in school activities. According to Sandra, a former member of the Di Donato Association and now in the Parent Committee of the Bonghi school,23 working around and for a school, is, de facto, an aggregating factor, giving meaning to the school as a shared space. Opening the school doors after school hours, even for those who do not have a direct connection with the school, meant creating a transversal aggregation in the district, with individuals coming from different realities, with different needs and interests: I was very undecided right up to the end, since I believed going to the Di Donato school not only had a didactic purpose…with regards to my daughter, but involved many other things, as well: it was a new participatory experience, to be part of a community. […] the Di Donato Association does not cut you off from outside, so even after [my daughter changed school] I have continued to do things together with them.

In material terms, the Parent Association runs the after-school activities, promoting theatre and sports courses, recreational and educational activities, all subject to an attendance fee, guaranteeing, however, free access to children from disadvantaged families. The after-school activities  Another local school, Bonghi was mainly attended by Italian students.

23

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and the interaction between parents aim to promote ties defined by the “community” actors themselves, through shared management and care of the common good, following ethical imperatives. In this way, the action of the Parent Association tackles the institutional crisis which has repercussions on the functioning of public education, intervening to care for the common good through concrete actions such as the restructuring of the building, enacting safety measures or with other required interventions on the school edifice, which would otherwise be abandoned due to a lack of funds. Parents make proposals concerning the formative activities the school could organize, fudging the dividing line between what solely regards the school as an institute and what can be taken on, at least in part, by the Parent Association, to enable to school to function as well as possible. As seen by a member of the Association, the need to intervene in support of the common good can be explained as follows: […] for example, we found some of the historical archives of the school, dating back to the 20s, and we want to restore them…and give them back to the school one day: but how much will the school be able to appreciate them? If one head teacher holds them dear, they will be looked after, but then another comes along, and is surrounded with a thousand things to deal with, and the school archive becomes just another headache and ends up in the basement at the mercy of the rats. [Renzo, Association member].

Renzo concluded his interview by observing that, for various reasons, the school is unable to protect its historic patrimony (which is of educational importance for the new generations), so it is up to the citizens, in this case the parents, to deal with it. Di Donato has been successful due to the excellent relations existing between the school management and the support from the city council. The Di Donato school has become exemplary of “an open school”, successfully finding balancing the problematic relationship with the authorities, while maintaining a proactive autonomy. It encourages an active participation of various actors through the use of its physical spaces and puts the school forward as a central force in the district. As parents, we parents run things: we partly run the school, in concrete terms, organize events, courses, maintain a network of contact with the families…with some families, in particular. [Francesca, parent of a pupil at the Di Donato school, member of the Association].

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Francesca did not see the school as something entirely distinct from her family environment (“in a way, it’s my home”). And it is this close connection between actors and the school which allows a balance to be found whereby there is no encroachment upon the competencies or spheres of action of either, those of the school and its teaching staff, on the one hand, and those of the parents with their support and initiatives, on the other. Francesca went on to say: Obviously, each one of us has their own idea of what encroachment means, so there are teachers who do not look kindly on the presence of the parent association, while other teachers are more open-minded. There are some teachers who are also members of the parent association […] We never deal with anything which occurs during school hours, with the teaching. We do things from four thirty onwards, to provide after-school support, to help those who are having problems with their homework, sports activities, meetings between families.

Through the project “Open school”, parents exercise a form of right over the physical spaces of the school through the after-school activity, reusing a symbolic place to spread culture and a feeling of citizenship to create aggregation in a district often seen as lacking in meeting places and subject to difficult social relations. Precisely because the open school is a place where the new generations (both Italians and those of immigrant origin, from different social backgrounds) meet, means it is an effective way to re-launch the institution itself. The school as institution, lacking, but not only, in adequate economic resources, is seen as common good on the part of the members of the association. This includes its physical structure and the school building itself, where putting into practice a caring citizenship and civic commitment can be experimented, for one’s own children, and indeed, for oneself. This political project, subordinate to the needs of the school as institution (Arena & Cotturri, 2010), is shared by many other associations, and fully expressed on a national level, as confirmed by the privileged relationship held with LABSUS.24

24  Labsus, Laboratory for Subsidiarity, was an association intending to develop a national network (city foundations and associations, local institutions and administrations, research centres and universities, companies and third sector foundations) to promote active citizen participation, in support of administrations and institutions, for mutual care and management of public property.

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5.12   Conclusions The image of Esquilino as a multiethnic district is due to the perception in the early years of 2000 of a district undergoing profound transformation, particular due to the new commercial enterprises set up by Asian citizens. As confirmed by our onsite data, Chinese citizens are involved in almost half of the total commercial activity of the district. Moreover, the Bangladeshi citizens have a significant presence, representing 40% of those running the stalls at the historic Esquilino market. The ethnic business is one of the areas offering employment for the immigrants. Other relations with the country of origin are maintained through informal networks and cultural associations made up of co-nationals, which also provide channels to important organs, particularly the respective consulates and embassies. These networks and associations, apart from providing support in finding work and lodging, also constitute communication circuits, which facilitate and support sociality between co-nationals living in Italy. Through these circuits and networks, traditional cultural characteristics are maintained and perhaps reworked, given the new context, through use of the national tongue, and as such, act as a support to and cohesive glue between the various members of the ethnic group. In the case of the Bangladeshi, maintaining their cultural identity is a question of national pride. The networks are aided through political and union initiatives, taken up by organizations reproducing the same formations as those existing in their country of origin or reinventing other formations connected, to a varying degree, to the political and institutional context of the host society. This presence, as we have already seen in the case of the market, does not entirely integrate with the new context, but is marked by a certain closure and conflicting relations. In the same way, problems have arisen in the district, which, on the one hand, are seen to be concerned with the general state of urban degradation of the area, and on the other, tend to associate a perceived state of insecurity and social breakdown with an ever-­ increasing presence of migrants. When the state of affairs are viewed in this way, as with some Committees, nostalgic feelings are expressed in dissension with the transformations the district has undergone, with the consequent reaffirmation and celebration of Italian culture. At the same time, however, other groups and associations have been formed which, while being equally critical of the inertia and inefficiency of the institutions in managing services and urban decorum, have decided to intervene first-­ hand, to support—and in a certain sense revitalize—the institutions

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themselves. These participatory forms, which directly aim and concentrate on transparent planning and democratic urban regeneration, do not overlook the social and cultural aspect, introduced into the district through the presence of migrants. Instead, these specific groups and associations perceive this intercultural presence as enriching the district, and above all, see the need for integration and social insertion, particularly in those areas where the social fabric appears fragmented and risks falling into separate and distinct entities. Along these lines, Di Donato school, rather similarly to the Pisacane school in the Torpignattara district (see previous chapter), proposes an integrating, civic approach through subsidiary participation within the school (in the physical spaces of the school. and as a symbolic element), with the aim of developing collective action in defence of the common good.

References Arena, G., & Cotturri, G. (Eds.). (2010). Il valore aggiunto. Come la sussidiarietà può salvare l’Italia. Carocci. Cortellesi, G., Venezia, P., & Carelli, S. (2007). Casa: un diritto di tutti! Ricerca sulle condizioni abitative e il diritto all’abitare. Cittadini, migranti nel rione Esquilino. Comune di Roma, I Municipio. Creative Commons. Farro, A. L., & Maddanu, S. (2015). La scuola del mondo in un quartiere. Genitori ed esperienze di rigenerazione della vita sociale. Scuola Democratica, 1, 211–230. Girardi, F., Spagnesi, G., & Gorio, F. (1974). L’Esquilino e la Piazza Vittorio: una struttura urbana dell’Ottocento. Editalia. Harcout, B. E. (2001). Illusion of Order. The False Promise of the Broken Windows Policing. Harvard University Press. Knights, M. (1996). Bangladeshis in Rome: The Political, Economic and Social Structure of a Recent Migrant Group. In M. L. Gentileschi & R. King (Eds.), Questioni di popolazione in Europa. Una prospettiva geografica (pp. 129–142). Patron Editore. Mudu, P. (2002). Gli Esquilini: contributi al dibattito sulle trasformazioni nel rione Esquilino dagli anni Settanta al Duemila. In R. Morelli, S. Eugenio, & C.  M. Travaglini (Eds.), I territori di Roma: storie, popolazioni, geografie (pp. 641–680). Università degli studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’. Sampson, R. J., & Cohen, J. (1988). Deterrent Effects of the Police on Crime: A Replication and Theoretical Extension. Low & Society Review, 22(1), 163–190. Skogan, W.  G. (1990). Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods. University of California Press.

PART III

From the City to the World

CHAPTER 6

The Rise of Populism and the “School of Sardines”

6.1   Migrating In modern times, Italy has been a land of emigrants. During the nineteenth century, before and after the country’s 1861 constitution, and again in the twentieth century, Italians left the country, especially from historically less developed regions such as Sicily, other areas of the South, as well as poor northern areas like Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto. They then inhabited, temporarily or permanently, the Americas, Australia, and other developed Western European areas.1 In 2017, 5.2% of the U.S. population declared Italian ancestry (U.S. Census Bureau Survey, 2019). In Europe, at the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, at least 8% of the French population was said to have Italian ancestry (Toscano, 2020), and Germany counted around 911,000 people with Italian ancestry (Destatis Statistisches Bundesamt, 2021), with another 785,088 citizens and residents being Italian (Centro 1  For Italian migrations to North America see: Ross, 1914; Park et al., 1925; Lopreato, 1970; Lieberson, 1980; Sowell, 1981; White, 1943; Guglielmo & Salerno, 2003; and Scarpaci, 2003. Regarding other cases of Italian migrants to Central and South America see: Baily (1999); Amara (1998); Australia: Castles et al. (1992). For Italian internal migrations from southern less-developed areas to industrialized northern-areas during the second period of twentieth century see Bonifazi (1999). For Italian international migrations to France at the end of nineteenth century and first decades of twentieth century, see Corti (2003).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_6

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Studi e Ricerche IDOS, 2020). Varying socio-­ demographically, and in terms of causes, goals, and timing, these phenomena have been described in several studies and analyses (Corti & Sanfilippo, 2012; Bevilacqua et al., 2002). Moreover, Italian migration continued up to the end of the twentieth century and into the beginning of the twenty-first century, both within and outside the European Union, mainly involving both skilled and unskilled young people. Like other westerners living out of their own country, these people are defined (and self-labelled) as expatriated, and not as migrants.2 On the other hand, Italy has also become a country of immigration (Pugliese, 2006; Macioti & Pugliese, 2010), switching from a country of emigrants to a host country for international migrants. Since 1990 right up until to the present day (second decade of the twenty-first century), Italy has been host to a relatively important number of non-EU citizen immigrants.3 Recently, however, the flux of emigrants has resumed (Pugliese, 2018). The reasons for the current trends of Italian emigration can be mostly found in political and economic failings, specifically the lack of opportunities in a number of areas, including universities and research, due to scarce investment and funding to modernize existing structures (Brandi, 2006). Notably, at the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, Italy is only in a median position among EU countries in terms of research investment.4 In addition to its geographical strategic position for migrants, from Africa and the Middle-East, Italy became a significant landing place for immigrants due to specific immigration policies,5 under the Schengen agreement (June 1985), and the Dublin Regulation (2013), with regards 2  Despite the positive new labels commonly used today, such as the term expatriate (commonly “expat”), seemingly replacing the stigma attached to the term “immigrant”, Italian emigration still encompasses emotional fractures, social and cultural fraying, and sense of absence (Sayad, 1999). 3  At the end of the second decade of the twentieth century, Italy registered 3717, 406 regular migrants on January 1st 2019, rising to 3,615,826 the next year (ISTAT, 2020). 4  In 2020, Sweden is the first EU country in terms of research investment based on GDP, and Romania is on the tail-end with 0.5. Italy spends only 1.35% (updated data 21-06-2021). Source: Eurostat data, elaborated by Agi-openpolis. 5  Especially the n. 40 6 March 1998 law, the so-called Turco-Napolitano law, and the n. 189, 30 July 2002 law, known as the Bossi-Fini law—both laws concerning regularization of migrants and their rights.

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to asylum and asylum seekers. Hence, today Italy has become a country of immigration in a global contest characterized by demographic growth on a world scale.6

6.2   From Fear to Hatred As the population has grown and international migrations have risen, new groups, some networking and with common ground, have promoted ethnocentric discourses and mono-cultural loyalties aimed at reinforcing the “in-group” logic. Designation of out-groups, and the refusal of strangers are certainly not new phenomena. However, the new forms of in-groups now cut across social classes and status, “membership” perhaps being mainly due to the use of communication technologies. The new population makeup indicates a more diverse country, where new topics such as integration, integration models, and immigration strategies have become the leitmotiv in politics and in the public sphere. As in other Western European countries, immigration has always raised crucial issues: in the second half of the twentieth century, it reshaped both the political spectrum and agenda in Italy, particularly when the anti-southern political party, the Northern League (NL), entered the political arena as a pro-independent/regional and xenophobic party (Patriarca, 2015, pp. 69–73). In the second decade of the new century, they have partially abandoned, or at least watered down, earlier discriminatory narratives aimed at domestic migrants from Southern Italy, turning their attention to and directing their anti-migrant rhetoric against, international immigrants, particularly Muslims. However, only after 2000 did immigration in Italy become the fundamental subject of a winning-political agenda. The topic of immigration, regarding the safeguard of safety and security, cultural identity, and economic force, has gained public attention, while other practical and urgent issues, as yet unresolved, are seen as marginal. Although immigration issues are debated on a national scale and have shown their efficacy in tipping the balance in favour of the right-wing,

6  World population consists of 2.536.431.000 individuals in 1950, 3.034.950.000  in 1960, 3.700.437.000  in 1970, 4.458.003.000  in 1980, 5.327.231.000  in 1990, 6.143.494.000  in 2000, 6.956.824.000  in 2010 and 7.794.799.000  in 2020 (United Nations—World Population Prospect, 2020). In 1990 worldwide international migrants were 153.011.473 and 271.642.105 in 2019, significant given the world population growth.

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ethnic relations (autochthones-migrants) and practice must also be taken in account and analysed in their local context. We know that migrants arrive in Italy in international flights, over land and by sea. Immigrants mainly enter the country undetected, through legal or illegal entry, via international networks spanning continents, mainly Asia and Africa. As previously noted in this volume, unlike in other western European countries, where specific national and ethnic groups emerge (Algerian and Portuguese in France, Turkish in Germany or Indian, Pakistani and Polish in UK), no such group emerges in Italy, with the country housing immigrants from different origins and with varying religions, in similar numbers. In 2019, the most represented nationals was the Romanians, three-fold more than the other national groups, these being, in descending order, Albanians and Moroccans (both around 400,000), Chinese (almost 300,000), Ukrainians (almost 240,000), Philippine nationals, and Indians, and Bangladeshi, with similar numbers, 140,000–170,000.7 The metropolitan area of Rome holds the record of the highest number of immigrants in Italy, followed by Milan. In Rome, during our fieldwork in both central areas and urban areas on the outskirts of the capital, we witnessed different reactions to refugee camps, and authorized and unauthorized migrant shelters. At the time of our research in Rome, television and other media coverage were constantly portraying a sort of immigration crisis, while the government implemented a form of state-of-­ emergency on the southern coasts, which represented the invisible border separating Italy, and the rest of Europe, from the misery of war, turmoil, poverty, instability, and the lack of freedom and opportunities. Fear of an unchecked number of migrants arriving had been felt since the Arab Springs, particularly in the second half of March 2011, when thousands of undocumented Tunisians—taking advantage of the fall of the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali—reached the coast of Lampedusa island aboard makeshift vessels and boats, quickly overwhelming the island’s capacity (Esu & Maddanu, 2017). Similarly, in 1991, there had been a huge first wave of immigration from Albania, in the aftermath of the fall of the Enver Hoxha communist regime. It was the first time in modern history that Italy had to face such levels of immigration. On a single day— August 8th, 1991—around 18,000 Albanians aboard the Vlora disembarked in Bari. The images of thousands of people huddled together 7

 Source: Dossier Statistico Immigrazione.

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on a ferry landing in Apulia harbours, recalled the Italian emigrants approaching Ellis Island in New  York.8 Initially, the overcrowded boats and crafts were presented as a journey of despair, causing a wave of solidarity in the country. In the next few years, however, sentiments of sympathy and solidarity quickly transformed into feelings of fear and distrust, with the Albanians being seen as invaders, and consequently suffering discrimination and racism (De Cesaris, 2018). This shift from solidarity to distrust was even faster in all the following migration crises, in the aftermath of the Tunisian unrest and the Libyan conflict. 6.2.1  The Renewal of Xenophobia Over the last few decades, images of overcrowded makeshift crafts and vessels have incited other feelings and concerns. Pictures and videos, displaying young males coming from Africa, have provoked contradictory reactions and stances within the public, polarizing debate and opinion. The 2008–2009 economic crises and consequent effects, the resulting sense of insecurity and deterioration in the cities, were then associated with the presence of migrants, immigrants, refugees or asylum seekers, alike. As constantly publicized arrivals continued on the southern coasts, mostly in Sicily and Calabria, right-wing parties advanced in European countries. At 35th parallel north, the island of Lampedusa is de fatto Europe’s border, and a chief gateway for undocumented migrants. During the first huge wave of migrant landings in 2011, Lampedusa received considerable political attention by, on the one hand, the European extreme right9 and, on the other, by pro-migrant activists and solidarity movements. As seen in the previous chapters, the xenophobic and Anti-­ European battle typically takes place in  locations most directly affected, where citizens are possibly swinging from one side to another. Wherever there is contact between autochthonous and migrants, whether in neighbourhoods, cities, or the island as a whole, local citizen concerns, risks, and fears, are constantly instigated.  The Gianni Amelio’s movie Lamerica, 1994. Also see Gian Antonio Stella (2003).  On March 14th Mario Borghezio, member of the European Parliament and Northern League, accompanied Marine Le Pen, leader of the French Front National, to Lampedusa where she addressed the citizens of Lampedusa in a very televised speech. Marine Le Pen stated that she wanted to “support Lampedusa citizens, who must feel totally abandoned, by the institutions, starting with the European Union.” 8 9

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In contrast, however, these same places have also demonstrated acceptance, and asserted human rights. In 2012, Giusi Nicolini, a progressive iconic figure who fervently defended migrants’ rights and dignity10 both in Italy and in Europe as a whole, became the Mayor of Lampedusa. Nicolini had come to the fore following the “Tragedy of Lampedusa”, when least 368 people (mostly from Eritrea, Somalia, and Ghana) died at the sea when their vessel sank, October 2013. Her election as mayor—an institutional role she kept until 2017—represented a concrete anti-­ xenophobic response.11 Nevertheless, up until 2019, anti-migrant sentiment continued to rise. By instrumentalizing the increasing numbers of arrivals by boats on the southern coast (see Fig.  6.1) some right-wing political leaders gained popular support, even in districts and regions where they were totally absent or under-represented. The Northern League—whose very name comes from its pledge to promote Northern Italy-oriented policies—won parliamentary seats in parts of Southern Italy in the political elections. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, a main advocate against immigrant landings, then became Minister of Home Affairs.

Fig. 6.1  Migrants arriving in Italy by boat from 2013 to 2019. (Source: Home Affairs)

10  In 2017, Nicolini was joint recipient of the UNESCO award for Peace together with migrant rescue association SOS Méditerranée, for efforts in protecting rights and dignity of migrants. 11  She ran for a second turn but failed to be re-elected.

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6.3   Local and National Northern League In first two decades of 2000, the Italian governments set up, implemented or conversely, suppressed, several centres for undocumented migrants, asylum seekers or refugees. A fair amount of confusion reigned concerning migrant statuses, a multitude of immigration detentions, devices, and procedures being enacted (and renamed over the years)—First Aid and Reception Centres, Provisional Stay Centres, Reception Centres for Asylum Seekers, Identification and Expulsion Centres, Permanence Centres for Repatriations (renamed in 2017).12 This state of affairs indicates a fluctuating immigration policy and legislation, and reflects a lack of understanding and confusion in the general public. In semantic shifts, terms like immigrants, illegal immigration, “illegal migrants”, and refugees, are generally open to ambiguity or misunderstanding, leading to stigma (Duvell, 2006; Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008; Bacon, 2008; Becucci, 2019, pp. 101–113). This semantic process seems to be reinforced, if not created, by a security-orientated, even xenophobic narrative that has immigration at the heart of a political agenda (Lochocki, 2018, pp. 23–27). In 2014, the number of migrants landing on the Italian coast shot up from less than 5000 to 170,000, reaching a peak in 2016. Their arrival, however, was substantially different from the previous waves, which were characterized by self-landing boats on the seacoast. To prevent further catastrophes, such as the October 2013 sinking, the Coast Guard, the Navy, and NGOs began implementing sea rescue operations in the Mediterranean. Notably, the government launched the military and humanitarian operation Mare Nostrum in 2013. Criticism over the costs and European non-participation (besides Italy, only Slovenia participated in sea rescue operations) led to the end of the programme, and was eventually replaced by Operation Triton in November 2014.13 In the following years, before and after the political election in 2018, issues such as border control, expulsion of undocumented immigrants, and security measures became central to a rising right-wing populism. Despite being a “narrative” more than a clear political project, such positions grew in popularity (Farro & Maddanu, 2020) in many countries. 12  See the Minister of Home Affairs website (accessed on October 12, 2020) https:// www.interno.gov.it/it/temi/immigrazione-e-asilo/sistema-accoglienza-sul-territorio/ centri-limmigrazione 13  Originally called Frontex Plus, conducted by Frontex (Frontières extérieurs: external borders), the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

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In 2015, the NL organized a rally in Rome with the participation of the nationalist party Brothers of Italy (Fratelli D’Italia, FdI), and the local neo-fascist movement CasaPound.14 This protest marked a wider alliance between the NL regional party and the more traditional nationalist right-­ wing, including the parliamentary group FdI, as well as a non-­ institutionalized grassroots-based neo-fascist movement—CasaPound.15 CasaPound, made up of youths and young adults, occupied a building in the central neighbourhood of “Esquilino”, enacting its policies of Anti-­ conformist Occupations and Housing (“Occupazioni Non Conformi e Occupazioni a Scopo Abitativo”). This far-wing endorsement contributed to a political reversal of the NL, with its leader, Matteo Salvini, attempting to shift the party from a regionalist one aimed at independence for the North, into a national party. The NL-CasaPound alliance partly legitimated the neo-fascist group(s), while somewhat positioning the NL on far-right. However, within the NL, the role of the State and regional autonomy, the nationwide economic policies, and international alliances, remained the key issues. The NL historic regionalist approach, which promoted a combined secession/autonomous claim, was quickly replaced by a chauvinist rhetoric cognizant of the political nationalist array. By conducting an anti-­ migration and border-control campaign, in the 2018 general election the NL obtained 17% of the vote, enabling Matteo Salvini to enter into a government coalition with the party Five Star Movement (M5S). He became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs until August 2019. But his real legitimization as a nationwide right-wing leader came with NL obtaining 34% consensus during the European Parliament election of May 2019. This NL performance was likely due to Salvini presenting himself, both on mainstream and social media, as an aggressive,

 See Chap. 3.  During the 2014 European elections, the Northern League received the support of one of the leaders of CasaPound, Gianluca Iannone. In the same elections, the leghista Representative Mario Borghezio—well known for his recurrent racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic statements and deeds (in this volume Chap. 3)—was elected to the European Parliament for the Centre Italy Constituency. See https://www.ilsecoloxix.it/ital i a / 2 0 1 4 / 0 5 / 2 6 / n e w s / b o r g h e z i o - l e g a - e l e t t o - a l - c e n t r o - c o n - i - v o t i - d i -­ casapound-1.37716332 (accessed on April 22, 2021). 14 15

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non-politically correct Minister of Home Affairs, and inflammatory populist speaker.16 Even before the success of NL in the 2018 national general elections and the 2019 European elections, however, the previous government had already taken a new approach in dealing with migrants and asylum seekers. Between 2016–2018, the Minister of Home Affairs began to tie immigration to security (Gargiulo, 2018). Hereafter, by fostering concerns about new arrivals via the sea, right-wing parties attempted to appear as the bastion of Italian sovereignty and border control, as criticism about refugees and asylum seekers management increased. Cities, such as Rome and Milan, were portrayed as besieged by undocumented migrants, who, it was claimed, were taking advantage of hosting policies, while Italians themselves struggled to find a job and survive on a daily basis. Right-wing parties also assumed an antagonist role towards European institutions, and, on a broader level, globalization, during a period of economic crisis. In terms of policy, though their general opposition to immigration and refugee policy was clear, with the aim of quickly interrupting migration, how they intended to address economic issues in the country remained undefined and ambiguous, though within the umbrella of neoliberalism. Despite Salvini’s efforts to turn the NL into a nationalist party, its regionalist legacy against Southern Italy, labelled a land of corruption, backwardness, and indolence by the party, remained in people’s minds in the South. NL’s call to separate the North from the rest of Italy—an unconstitutional attack against the indivisibility of the State-nation entity—was also difficult to erase. Despite the continued support from the traditional Italian right-wing (nationalist and far-right groups) for the new NL approach and political agenda, as promoted by Salvini, the party is aware that political ground still needs be covered, especially in the southern regions where voters and local representatives recall decades of humiliation and divisive speech from previous NL leaders. In the meantime, other conservative political parties, like Forza Italia, have lost votes to the nationalist far-right party the FdI.17  In the attempt to define the terms and extents of the term populism today, the next chapter will give an in-depth analysis of the different forms of populism today, which will include the cultural and political aspects of anti-immigrant narratives we are witnessing on a global scale. This will enable us to trace today’s new collective actions in the midst of a popular populism (Farro & Maddanu, 2020), the pandemic, and new anti-racist movements. 17  New polls in 2020 show a constant rise of FdI under Giorgia Meloni’s leadership at the expense of NL: See https://www.repubblica.it/politica/2020/06/04/news/sondaggio_ agi_you_trend_in_calo_pd_e_lega-­258412996/, last access June 13, 2020. 16

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In an attempt make an aggressive approach concerning the arrival of new migrants on the southern Italian coasts the norm, most of the right-­ wing parties and part of the Five Stars Movement began delegitimizing NGO sea rescue operations. Labelling NGO actions as “illegal”, or supportive of illegal activities (i.e. smugglers), provoked a new public controversy, which no longer merely involved differences in pragmatic intervention, but also values: as migrant lives were at stake, one side declared the solemn obligation to intervene at the sea and rescue all passengers, guaranteeing their safety to the closest available port; the opposing side put forward and then tried to implement, a zero tolerance policy concerning the sea by preventing NGO boats and other sea rescues from landing at Italian harbours. Before entering office, the NL leader had declared: I am increasingly convinced that an attempt at ethnically replacing people with other people is underway.18 This is not an emergency but an organized immigration that aims to replace Italian population with another ethnic group, Italian workers with other workers. Even the District attorney Zuccaro19 said as much: it is an immigration that aims to economically dismantle the Italian and European system. It isn’t about wars, human rights and despair. It’s just an economic and trade operation that is financed by people like Soros. As far as I am concerned, these people should not even be allowed to step foot onto Italian shores, and neither should any organization or association run or financed by people like him. (2 May 2017).20

Meanwhile, the Vatican have called for Christian hospitality to be given to all migrants looking for shelter and a better life, in the name of humanity. In the Italian tradition, though the Church’s moral imperative in  Also known as Kalergi Plan (Uscinski, 2019).  Carmelo Zuccaro has been a Catania’s District Attorney since 2016. Among Zuccaro’s accusations was the theory that some NGOs were possibly financed by smugglers, perhaps related to terrorist organizations. Moreover, the District Attorney lashed out with other conspiracy theories concerning a hypothetical strategy, on the part of financial forces, aimed at destabilizing the Italian economy in order to speculate on the bid–ask spread. See https:// www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/media/Migranti-ad-Agora-Rai3-il-procuratore-di-Catania-­ Carmelo-Zuccaro-Alcune-Ong-finanziate-dai-traf ficanti-e44f464e-fb75-4124acfc-61851f6152cd.html last accessed on June 13, 2020. 20  https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/topnews/2017/05/02/salvini-fuorilegge-ong-­ pagate-da-soros_0736a1f5-282f-475f-a071-9a0ca5a6ebe4.html (accessed on May 05, 2020). 18 19

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favour of migrants had always affected Italian policies, both on left and right, the NL appears to think this moral ground does not concern them, despite claiming a Christian identity. The NL has always supported swinging conservative values to give itself an identity, Christianity serving as cultural marker and ethnocentric element to reinforce differences between autochthones and Muslim immigrants. Since the end of the twentieth century and increasingly so after September 11th, references to Christianity have been used by many NL representatives to create in-group dynamics against Islam and Muslim practices concerning public space. The strenuous defence of Crucifix in public school classrooms,21 as well as the demonstrations against the creation of both formal and informal mosques in the city, echo NL Islamophobic rhetoric. By using Catholic symbols, supporters and NL leaders exalt their ethnocentrism in opposition to the “Islamic threat” (Massari, 2006; Allievi, 2000), sometimes touting anti-­ Islam essays.22 While supporters raise their alleged concerns about Muslim presence in Europe (Dassetto, 1996), representatives implement shortand long-term strategies that incite fear and hate to claim separation and exclusion. Fed by both local and national controversies, these dynamics have been constantly emerging in different European public spheres (Göle, 2014, 2017). Sometimes they address concerns about European values and identity vis-à-vis Islam; sometimes they just retrace the infamous path of the classic invention of the enemy (Ceri & Lorini, 2019). In this new wave of xenophobia, values and pragmatism are polarized. Despite the Pope’s steadfast defence of rescuing migrants, a counter crusade was initiated by the NL leader—future Minister for Home Affairs. From this point onward, the NOGs and the Church are portrayed as being in cahoots with smugglers, or at the very least, being naïve. The populist narrative portrays the juxtaposition of: on the one hand, a so called 21  The controversy started in 2004 after a mother’s legal complaint against the presence of a crucifix in her children’s primary public schools—a Ministerial rule in effect in Italy since 1924 and 1927. The mother, with dual Finland-Italian citizenship, and an atheist, demanded the removal of the religious object in defence of secularism. Although the case went viral, only after a Muslim father, a convert and leader of an own-run small Islamic association (Allievi, 2003) publicly supported the call to remove crucifixes did the question become the main target of NL narrative in “defence of Catholic tradition”. See Corriere della Sera (2006, February 15). 22  The most famous is the press article and book “The Rage and the Pride” by Oriana Fallaci, a successful Italian and international journalist and author. In the meantime, other intellectuals have debunked such approaches (Allievi, 2004; Cardini, 2000).

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“bleeding heart”—undocumented migrants are being allowed to endanger Italian population and its economy, due to the “folly” of Public Prosecutors, the Vatican, the leftists, and the liberal media, as related by the NL leader and his megaphones; on the other, a resolute pragmatic approach that will stop the arrival of migrants, and make Italian cities safe, through a new zero tolerance approach to “finally” defy illegal immigration, the European Union, and the national and international laws and rights. When the NL leader took up office as Minister of Home Affairs in 2018, two different protections and integration systems for refugees and asylum seekers existed. In a first stage, they would be received in the Urgent Reception Centre (CAS). Thereafter, they would be enrolled in the Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (SPRAR), which was designated to implement integration policies including accommodation, housing services, supply of food vouchers, orientation concerning local services, linguistic and cultural mediators, educational and school services, training courses, legal support, and health care, including mental health and psychological support. On November 2018, the “Security Decree-Law”23 orchestrated by the Minister of Home Affairs, modified many aspects of the reception of migrants, especially the implementations of specific local policies that were supposed to help these people after the first reception protocol in the CAS. By disempowering the role of SPRAR and reducing its access only to Beneficiaries of International Protection and for Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (from SPRAR to SIPROIMI),24 the new “Security Decree-Law” aimed at undermining reception and integration policies, interpreted as “privileges”. The law came about in a context where narratives portraying asylum seekers (and undocumented migrants) as parasites and enemies of ordinary Italian people were being blasted through political megaphones. As a result, thousands of disoriented and penniless migrants would face an extended stay in first aid reception centres (CAS), in Reception Centres for Asylum Seekers (CARA), or on the street. The decree increased the number of unregistered asylum seekers and deprived them of humanitarian protection, making them more likely to enter into illegal activities. Essentially creating exclusion, the new norms would encourage unlawful and unregulated work, recruitment by the mafia, and other clandestine activities. Ironically,  Decree-Law no. 113 of 4 October 2018, enacted as Law no. 132 of 1 December 2018.  See https://www.siproimi.it/english

23 24

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the “Security Decree-Law” actually exacerbated a situation it was meant to oppose, creating further problems of security in cities, and burdening local administration.25 Led by Matteo Salvini, Minister of Home Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister, the campaign against sea-borne migrants reached a milestone with the [second] “Security Decree-Law bis”. On August 5th 2019, the Senate approved a decree on new sea-rescue rules and public order during protests. The Minister wrote in a tweet: “Thanks to Italians and the Blessed Virgin [Mary]”. After a long aggressive campaign against NOGs, the NL leader’s rhetoric seemingly obtained the legal tools to finally delegitimize NOG organizations operating in the Mediterranean under a humanitarian and non-profit umbrella. For the sake of “public security and safety”, the Minister of Home Affairs arrogates the right to “limit and forbid the entry, transit, or stay of ships in the territorial sea […] for public order and security purposes”,26 and when alleged aiding and abetting of illegal immigration are suspected. Enforcement of these rules directly targeted sea-rescue vessels that tried to reach Italian harbours: a law was made with the intent of criminalizing in their actions in some form. From now on, the Minister could use legal leverage against NOG operations, while attempting to obtain a major mediatic gain in his crusade in preventing legitimate landings of migrants rescued at sea. The Second Security Decree-Law was already in the pipeline when the battle broke out against the Sea-Watch Captain Carola Rackete, a 31-year-­ old German woman. On June 28, 2019 the captain docked her migrant rescue ship at Lampedusa harbour with 42 migrants on board without authorization. Though immediately arrested, she was released a few days later, on July 2. According to the State Prosecutor of Agrigento (Sicily), the captain only violated the no-entry warning to fulfil the obligation of rescuing people lost-at-sea and taking them to the safest nearby harbour. By doing so, the Sea-Watch captain (an NOG) did not violate the Navigation Code. The episode gained public attention and led to two polarized positions: an anti-Rackete stance was taken by the anti-migrants, the right-wing, and “justicialists”, including important members of the Five Stars Movement, while, an opposing pro-Rackete position developed, 25   See Matteo Villa’s report https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/i-nuoviirregolari-italia-21812 26  Article 1, Decree-Low June 14th, 2019, n. 53 “Urgent regulations concerning counter-­ action against illegal immigration and public order and security”.

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spurred on by the decision of the Agrigento State Prosecutor not to prosecute, a moral decision, in their view, which could not be overthrown by decree. On one side, Captain Carola Rackete became the brave public figure standing for migrant rights, and as such, human rights, while on other, there were moves to try and delegitimize rescue operations by declaring them illegal. In the social media, the anti-Captain Rackete supporters used a certain language to discredit her—the same fate faced by other Italian female politicians27—a typical array of insults for a leftist woman, often including body shaming or comments on physical appearance. On the far right and conservatives view, she represented everything they hate—a well-educated leftist, feminist, cosmopolitan environmentalist, an anti-border position, and pro-immigrant. During her house arrest, she received threats on the social media, and some Salvini supporters describing him as “our captain”. Conversely, support for the Sea-Watch captain was more orderly and came from both social media and mainstream media: an intergenerational opinion-based-movement began to take form and gain awareness of its importance and indispensable role in confronting a so-called populism, and xenophobic and authoritarian political trend corrupting the public opinion with a dangerous messages of hate and divisiveness.

6.4   A “School of Sardines” During the campaign for the local election in the Italian region Emilia-­ Romagna, a group of university students organised a Facebook event, which then took place in Piazza Maggiore, a square in the historic part of Bologna, on November 14, 2019. Calling itself the Sardines, this group supported the Democratic Party (DP) candidate28 as governor of Emilia Romagna, against the extreme right NL candidate. Politically, the Sardines saw itself as a pressure group to reinvigorate the DP, embodying a resounding plea to the left and to the moderate electorate—in a 27  For years Laura Boldrini has been the preferred NL target. Former Spokesperson to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for Southern Europe and former President of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, Ms. Boldrini has been the victim of fake news often reiterated by NL representatives. During a speech on July 2016, the future Minister Salvini stood on a stage next to an inflammable doll that he defined as “Laura Boldrini’s lookalike”. On January 2018, a group of NL young supporters burned down a puppet representing President Boldrini. 28  The Democratic Italian Party, Partito Democratico.

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traditional left-­leaning Region. Building enthusiasm for civic, political participation, and active citizenship, the Sardines follow previous collective actions in Italy, such Girotondi,29 and Popolo Viola30 (Toscano, 2016), while taking a generational position on migrants, contrasting populist rhetoric. The event was meant to pit against the simultaneous political rally organized by the NL leader Matteo Salvini in an indoor sporting arena in Bologna, with a seating capacity of 5.721 people. By attempting to gather a higher number of anti-Salvini supporters, the Facebook event took the name “6000 sardines against Salvini” and succeeded in stealing the spotlight from the NL rally. Encouraged by this success, spontaneous gatherings were organized in other Italian city squares and, later, abroad. After Bologna, Modena, Florence, Milan, Turin, Naples, and Palermo, on December 14, 2019 the “Sardines” organised the “Global Sardine Day” in Rome.31 Mostly Italian students and expatriates organised other flash mobs in other countries, for instance, Belgium (Brussels), France (Paris), Germany (Berlin), and USA (New York).32 Waving Sardines signs, the demonstrators managed to gain some international attention, though the events were mostly reported in Italian media as an antidote against current populism.33 Based on an idea of a few graduates, a group of friends in their thirties living in Bologna, the collective Sardines action developed its campaign via social media, Facebook and Twitter, but gained the attention of the 29  The Girotondi mobilization started in January 2002 in Milan, followed by several rallies in other Italian cities. During the rally, protesters denounced the right/far-right Government, and its activities, which they considered illegal and anti-democratic In Rome, a famous Italian filmmaker publicly criticized the left party leadership for its lack of opposition against the Berlusconi Government. 30  Literally “Purple People”, was an organised mobilization against the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2009. The rally, called No-Berlusconi Day, called for the Prime Minister’s resignation for alleged corruption and misconduct. 31  According to the organisers, more than 100,000 peaceful protesters attended the gathering in the popular square Piazza San Giovanni. 32  Also, London, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid, and Dublin. 33  See https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2019/12/14/news/sardine_atlantiche_movimento_estero_europa_stati_uniti-­243472563/; https://ilmanifesto.it/le-sardine-­ atlantiche-­nella-grande-mela-populismo-e-intolleranza/; https://www.ilfattoquotidiano. it/2019/12/03/sardine-raduni-nel-mondo-e-analisi-sui-giornali-stranieri-modello-da-­­ emulare-oltre-litalia-per-vincere-dove-la-sinistra-ha-fallito/5590196/ (accessed on June 3, 2020).

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public by physically filling up city squares with spontaneous participation, in the form of flash mobs, silent sit-ins or chanted protests, projecting a sort of “school of sardines”. The metaphor suggests a high number of people peacefully gathered, packed together, silent, and opposed to yells of vulgar verbal politics—tantamount, in their view, to physical violence. By outnumbering the NL’s leader rally, the collective action wanted to drive home a fundamental point—the people who are inclusive, anti-­ populist, anti-xenophobic, and anti-hate constitute the majority. On November 24, 2019 in their Facebook page “6000 Sardines”, the Sardines published a Manifesto that addressed the NL and other far-right groups as “populists”: Welcome to the open sea. Dear populists, you understood right. The party is over. You have been trying our patience for a long time. And now you have pushed us over the edge. Enough is enough. For years, you have been subjecting us and our fellow citizens to your lies and hate, […]. We’ve finally woken up. […].We are normal people of all ages: we love our homes and families; we try to work hard, volunteering, in sport or free time. We are committed to help others, when we can. We love amusing things, beauty, non-violence (both verbal and physical), creativity, listening. We still believe in politics and politicians with a capital P: in those who try, even if making mistakes; in those who think about the interests of others above their own. They are not a lot, but they still exist. And we will continue to encourage them, thanking them. You don’t need to get rid of anything for us—instead, we need to get rid of you, your oppressive omnipresence, starting from the Internet. And we are doing it. Because thanks to our fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, you have free speech, but you do not have the right to force someone to listen to you. You went too far from your murky waters and from your safe harbour. We are the sardines, and now you will find us everywhere. Welcome to the open sea.34

34  The Manifesto ends with a famous Lucio Dalla’s song quotation “Clearly, free thought disturbs, even though one who thinks is silent like a fish. Actually, they are a fish. And as a fish, fairly unstoppable, as they are protected by the sea. How deep is the sea” [our tr. from the original: E’ chiaro che il pensiero dà fastidio, anche se chi pensa è muto come un pesce. Anzi, è un pesce. E come pesce è difficile da bloccare, perché lo protegge il mare. Com’è profondo il mare].

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Artists—actors and musicians—and public figures attended the Sardines events, which were often accompanied by the anti-fascist song “Bella Ciao”.35 Indeed, the group of organizers publicly positioned itself as anti-­ fascist, anti-racist, anti-populist, and anti-sovereigntist. The Sardines see populism and sovereignty as particularly dangerous, with their association with extreme anti-European positions, exalting a revival of nationalism, coupled with anti-immigrant, and authoritarian policies. The Sardines collective action, then, opposes right-wing parties and movements in Italy and elsewhere, including the NL. Moreover, the Sardines directly criticized the Minister of Home Affairs, and interpreted his recent significant success at the polls (38% at that time) as the result of a moral regression of public opinion, mostly due to social media overexposure of Salvini. The Sardines expressed their expectations from politics and politicians through six political points: 1. We expect who has been elected to attend the appropriate institutional forums in order to do politics, rather than campaigning permanently. 2. We expect that whoever is the incumbent Minister to only communicate through official means by using institutional channels. 3. We expect politics to be transparent in using social networks. 4. We expect the media to protect, defend and get as close as possible to the truth. 5. We expect violence, in all its forms, to be banned from political language and political contents. 6. We ask politicians to review the concept of “security”, and repeal the current security Decree-Laws.36 These demands seem to directly address the statements and position of the NL leader, the constant governmental policies regarding the arrival of immigrants and migrants, but also Romani people,37 and public order 35  See https://www.open.online/2019/12/14/sardine-a-roma-piazza-piena-siamo-i-­ partigiani-­del-2020 and https://www.open.online/2019/12/14/sardine-a-roma-la-partigiana-luce-ascoltarli-­ cantare-­bella-ciao-e-un-regalo-bellissimo/ (accessed on June 3 2020). 36  See https://www.adnkronos.com/fatti/politica/2019/12/20/sardine-punti-­ programmatici_GK1QOO6t3TnOeBYEzSfYsO.html (accessed on June 6, 2020). 37  For years, Matteo Salvini has been dedicating significant space in his speeches to his fight against Romani people (Diamanti & Pregliasco, 2019). In particular, Salvini focused on dismantling—more accurately “levelling”—Romani camps by using a bulldozer, which is

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restrictions. The statements number 2 and 3 aim to point out Salvini’s communication strategy through social media, especially Facebook and Twitter.38 This criticism is coherent with the following point 4, in which the movement calls out the role of media in fighting and challenging fake news and the production of an alternative reality.39 The movement seems to endorse a critical reading of social media and their effects, while using and praising them as an efficient communication platform that could reinforce democracy. Since the rise of movements like the Pirate Party of Germany (PPG) and the Five Stars Movement, which both rely on Internet and its potential for direct democracy (Deseriis, 2019; Postill, 2018; Gerbaudo, 2012), activism and political communication through social media and internet can be considered a double-edged sword: on the one hand, their power can reach and empower an activism that challenges elites by revealing global systemic forces. Common creativity and open sources can help connect them to E-democracy, emboldening a sort of Wikidemocracy; on the other hand, social media communication appeals to populist characters looking for a quick propaganda drive or fast marketing research on popular feelings, fears, concerns, and other gut feelings to exploit. Wiki (meaning “fast”, in this case) statements and information can be shaped in order to reach the “ordinary people” who, in turn, will spread them, eventually contributing to the populist agenda. By declaring a collective awakening, the Sardines are asking for a more critical use of social media and are condemning political manipulation that generates misleading information while arousing hate and violence (point 5). The Sardines’ final expectation addresses the authoritarian language chosen by politics that associates security with immigration (Bacon, 2008; often mentioned in comments by Salvini, as well as his supporters, via interviews on media, twits and other social networks (Renzi, 2015). See https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-­ edicola/ar ticoli/2020/02/19/salvini-in-r uspa-a-napoli-sembra-un-campo-­ rom/5710200/ (accessed on June 6, 2020). 38  It is worth noting that the huge expenses for Salvini’s communication on the social media (mostly Twitter and Facebook) have been a subject of great controversy (Giangrande, 2020, pp.  47–49). See also https://espresso.repubblica.it/palazzo/2018/08/23/news/ la-propaganda-social-di-matteo-salvini-ora-la-paghi-tu-e-ci-costa-mille-euro-algiorno-­1.326194 (accessed on June 6, 2020). 39  Similarly, in USA the counsellor to the President, Kellyanne Conway, during an interview on CNN launched the concept of “alternative facts” to justify some false and misleading comments of the President of the United States. Since then, the idea of “alternative facts” is associated with a more general analysis of the extent of the “Fake News” in contemporary society (Otto & Köhler, 2018, p. 175; Stockemer, 2019, p. 119).

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Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008). As a direct reaction to the rise of xenophobic leaders, the Sardines repeatedly refer to sea-borne migrants, migrant rights, moral and ethical questions concerning refugees and asylum seekers, and a general rejection of racism and fascism. The Sardines place themselves on the left of the political spectrum and operate as a pressure group on the DP. 6.4.1  The Black Sardines In the framework of the global sorting of the population, the flux of migrants, temporary or permanent residents, contribute to the general transformation every country is facing today. Being part of that process means that migrants are both active actors and exposed to domination, both in their intimate world, and in the public sphere. The cartography of Italian activism shows a wide range of different voluntary associations, from North to South. In this book we have described a few of them—associations based on neighbourhoods, religion, parenthood, and more formal political and cultural associations. Active in both real and virtual public spheres, they often bring up the theme of citizenship.40 On the one hand, citizenship represents the embodiment of the ethics that lie in everyday social practices, where people actively pursue the common good. In this sense, they experiment with, and put into practice, the ethical principles of the res publica. Since they want to act as agents of socialization, they embody and uphold the institution through their own agency, affirming their role as citizens. As such, citizenship takes root in dwelling: being a resident also means taking care of the common space, which includes physical properties as well as the social fabric and its development. People’s identity as citizens lies in the physical space they live in, the urban constructions in the city, as well as the natural landscape in rural areas. Their city, their common lands, and in general their residential space, complete their sense of identity. They take care of their space as they define themselves as citizens. On the other, how can someone fully exercise their citizenship when their identity is neither publicly recognized nor legally legitimate? What about having the means to create an agency—a collective action to claim 40  Classic citizenship studies highlight three dimensions of citizenship: Status, Identity, Rights (Joppke, 2007)

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rights and express out loud a “self”? Some migrants have remained hidden and marginalized.41 Citizenship represents the access to more formal rights, civil rights, which—at least for some—have been suspended in limbo or denied. What is meant by “citizenship” when it comes to asylum seekers, undocumented clandestine migrants, or even immigrants who have been living in the country for several years and are still not Italians, and neither are their children who were born or grew up their entire lives in Italy? Citizenship represents legitimation in the public sphere, where finally someone can take the floor and assert their subjectivity (Touraine)— and claim their role as citizen, as occasionally happens with undocumented migrants and activists organize a collective mobilization (Lapeyronnie, 1992; Zepeda-Millan, 2017). Made up of a more or less connected network of associations, immigrants have been working to organize their respective community in order to help them deal with administrative tasks, cultural and religious needs, housing, financial and job-related issues. Nevertheless, on a national scale their presence remains silent compared to other western European countries (e.g. France, UK, Germany, Belgium). Except for Islamic organizations, which also provide youth organizations both in Italy and in Europe, few channels of representation are available for permanent immigrant residents, as well as those undocumented. Leftist groups, institutionalized or informal groups, unions, culturally/religiously oriented or political radical groups are their main vectors of representation, approximately advocating their interests. As seen in the previous chapters, social centres and leftist squatters operate in direct contact with the most marginalized population (i.e. migrants). According to a classic militant view, supported by André Gunder Frank, these activists represent the revolutionary class in affluent societies. They offer shelters and informal protection for migrant activities, and promote an “integrational narrative” through communal forms of socialization in occupied spaces.42 Political activists speak up for migrant rights and relate migrant stories and needs to the public, while praising a living-together model: these “integrational narratives” emphasize how 41  By encompassing coloniality and postcolonial conditions, Suzanne Hall (2021) observes similar forms of migrants’ marginalization in some UK cities. 42  More examples of this can be found here in Chap. 2 on the Metropoliz, and Chap. 4 on the Spin Time. Both experiences provide self-protected housing (reorganized occupied spaces) for migrants, whose statuses are unknown. By doing so, they function as “sanctuaries” (sanctuary cities in the USA) that, in addition, protect the occupiers, while guaranteeing the political and cultural activities of these squats.

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there are on-going experiments of multicultural socialization and communitarian solidarity in occupied spaces. These informal, almost ­ underground, institutions are particularly active in the major cities, like Rome,43 but mostly absent in suburban and countryside areas. However, immigrants, as well as people of colour, rarely get to be heard in the Italian public sphere. More often, and only recently, the Second Generation can gain the spotlight, through their ability to communicate in a contemporary way: they are perceived as integrated on all levels of society. By perfectly speaking in Italian, including regional accents and dialects—which add a sense of familiarity in the public arena, in the media—the Second Generation is challenging stereotypes and stigma, and contributing to the public debate about multiculturalism, multiethnicity and racism. They were born in Italy or went through primary school education in Italy. In the last decades, through different associative channels, including left-wing parties and groups, this generation is seeking recognition and the formal ius soli right,44 which is still contested by a large number of representatives in the two parliamentary chambers.45 Based on the data provided by the Minister of Home Affairs, the ISPI46 study shows how the policies introduced by Mr. Salvini in Fall 2018 have enormously decreased the number of humanitarian protection grants, reducing them to a handful,47 while raising the number of migrants considered irregular in Italy. According to some estimates (Villa, 2021), there are more than 600,000 undocumented migrants in Italy. Among these are 43  Among the most important experiences of that kind, this research has unfortunately left out “Baobab Experience”, a migrant shelter organized by a group of volunteers near Tiburtina Station, in Rome, that offers a wide range of free services, including basic needs (food and clothing), medical and psychological support, legal assistance, and cultural activities. See https://baobabexperience.org/chisiamo/ 44  In Italy, the ius sanguinis is the main attribute for obtaining citizenship. The ius soli in Italy is still conditioned to exceptional circumstances or achievable after formal request one year before the legal age but obtainable after 18—and only if the applicant has been living without interruption in the Italian territory. 45  Ius soli petitioners have been asking for several years for an update of the Italian citizenship requirement. The proposal is defined as “ius culturae”, which would include the recognition of those that were educated in Italy before they turned 12. After an illusory parliamentary process in 2017, the law was filibustered by right-wing parties and eventually failed with the abstention of M5S senators. 46  Italian Institute for International Political Studies, https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/ispitel-fact-checking-migrazioni-2021-31027, last access December 10 2021. 47  At the end of August the 25% of applicants were granted humanitarian protection. In September 2019 only 1% of applicants were successful. See https://www.ispionline.it/it/ pubblicazione/migrazioni-italia-tutti-i-numeri-24893, last access June 10, 2020.

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housekeepers, caregivers, and, according to the Agricultural Minister, 150,000 are working off-the-books as day labourers in farms, or vineyards. Their legal invisibility makes them easily exploitable: undocumented migrants in southern regions like Puglia, Campania, and Calabria, but also in the North, are used as low wage day-to-day labourers. The relationship established between the caporalato (a form of illegal hiring, directly mediating with the workers) and these migrant workers creates a form of bonded labour, the debt itself embodied in the illegal status, leading to precariousness, instability, dependence, and general lack of freedom. In a country like Italy, that aspires to be recognised for its quality products, the production chain has its major failing in the treatment of day-labourers. Their exploitation is only possible due to their trapped status of undocumented migrants, and in the condition of illegality, they finally become designated as “criminal”. Thus, exploited migrant workers are seen as “guilty” due their immigrant status, while being obliged to accept inhuman conditions and no legal protection. They live in shacks or abandoned slums, sometimes unhygienic and overcrowded apartments, on the periphery of towns. Recruited by the caporalato on a daily or weekly basis, they are transported by vans and trucks to their workplace. Abubakar Soumaoro, an Ivorian naturalised Italian, trade unionist for the USB (a small independent Union founded in 2010), has become the most important defender of day-labourers and left-wing public figures. By putting day-labourer conditions in the spot-light, especially those exploited and most vulnerable due to their migrant status, Soumaoro has gained status as a moral public role. He has also taken on the role of civil figure and political voice for people of colour in Italy. His public figure counters the rhetoric of the NL leader and attempts to reach out to silent and invisible immigrants in the country. The people of colour in Italy can also finally be heard through the so-­ called Black Sardines. Inspired by the Sardines’ keywords and their struggle against hate speech, discrimination, and securitarian policies, the Black Sardines were founded in December 2019, with the protest march of hundreds of migrants, mostly from Africa. Their claims included the right to obtain documents in a reasonable amount of time, the recognition of their legal status and, in some cases, the international humanitarian protection they lost or got endangered by the Minister of Interior Decree. The Black Sardines are an offshoot of the Sardines’ Movement, required for the peculiarity of their experience and the necessity of being heard with their own voice.

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6.5   Conclusions The coordinated flash mobs outside Italy demonstrate two main aspects of the Sardines. First, they highlight the current transnational spread of authoritarian, xenophobic, nationalist and populist trends. By organizing a global day of protests, the Sardines acknowledged that the politics they are opposing not only concern Italy but are, in effect, a result of globalization, and the resulting economic instability and international migrations. Difficulties in facing these issues have led to the rise of reactionary movements based on nationalistic ideologies, and sovereignty. Second, the Sardines are mainly university and graduate students. The international participation of Italian expatriates to the Sardines movement indicates a cultural diaspora of a well-educated middle class searching for academic and highly professional opportunities. By participating in the Global Sardine Day, these young Italians were asserting their cultural, more than political, distance from those popular politics and policies—in Italy and elsewhere—viewed as a cultural regression. Hence, the generational gap is also a manifestation of a different cultural orientation, which, for the highly skilled expatriates, is cognizant of global diversity, integration, and innovation. Their criticism of hate speech, bigotry, and the manipulation of truth encompasses their claim to a representation they are struggling to find in the current political arena. Representing a generational change, another aspect of the Sardine movement is how it acts as an organized pressure group to revitalize the DP, while attempting to shift the party further left. Finally, the Black Sardines represent a collective action that aims to affirm migrant rights and claim rights of residency and citizenship. They highlight situations of bonded labour and call for dignity of work and the rejection of racialization: in opposing the populist narratives, they aim to tackle the criminalization of undocumented migrants and any kind of discrimination based on their status and colour.

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Amara, S. (1998). The Rise of Capitalism on the Pampas. The Estancias of Buenos Aires, 1785–1870. Cambridge University Press. Bacon, D. (2008). Illegal People. How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants. Beacon Press. Baily, S. L. (1999). Immigrants in the Lands of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and New York, 1870–1914. Cornell University Press. Becucci, S. (2019). Dinamiche sociali di inferiorizzazione: richiedenti asilo e rifugiati in Italia. In P. Ceri & A. Lorini (Eds.), La costruzione del nemico: Istigazione all’odio in Occidente (pp. 101–115). Rosenberg & Sellier. Bevilacqua, P., De Clementi, A., & Franzina, E. (Eds.). (2002). Storia dell’emigrazione italiana (Vol. 2). Donzelli. Bigo, D., & Tsoukala, A. (Eds.). (2008). Terror, Insecurity and Liberty. Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes After 9/11. Routledge. Bonifazi, C. (Ed.). (1999). Mezzogiorno e migrazioni interne. Irp-Cnr. Brandi, M. C. (2006). Le migrazioni delle alte professionalità tra mobilità internazionale e brain drain. Affari Sociali Internazionali, XX–XIV(3), 69–76. Cardini, F. (2000). Europe et islam. Histoire d’un malentendu. Le Seuil. Castles, S., Alcorso, C., Rando, G., & Vasta, E. (Eds.). (1992). Australia’s Italians Culture and Community in a Changing Society. Allen & Unwin. Ceri, P., & Lorini, A. (Eds.). (2019). La costruzione del nemico: Istigazione all’odio in Occidente. Rosenberg & Sellier. Corti, P. (2003). L’emigrazione italiana in Francia: un fenomeno di lunga durata, in Altreitalie. International Journal of Studies on the People of Italian Origin in the Word, January–June 2003, 4–26. Corti, P., & Sanfilippo, M. (2012). L’Italia e le migrazioni. Laterza. Dassetto, F. (1996). La Construction de l’islam européen. Approche socio-­ anthropologique. L’Harmattan. De Cesaris, V. (2018). Il grande sbarco. L’Italia e la scoperta dell’immigrazione. Guerini e Associati. Deseriis, M. (2019). Digital Movement Parties: A Comparative Analysis of the Technopolitical Cultures and the Participation Platforms of the Movimento 5 Stelle and the Piratenpartei. Information, Communication & Society. https:// doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1631375 Diamanti, G., & Pregliasco, L. (2019). Fenomeno Salvini: Chi è, come comunica, perché lo votano. Castevecchi. Duvell, F. (Ed.). (2006). Illegal Immigration in Europe: Beyond Control. Palgrave Macmillan. Esu, A., & Maddanu, S. (2017). The Controlled Heterotopia: the Tunisian Migration Journeys Through the Mediterranean. In H. Bousetta, C. Zickgraf, & L. A. Bernes (Eds.), Migration in the Western Mediterranean: Space, Mobility and Borders (pp. 94–112). Routledge.

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Farro, A. L., & Maddanu, S. (2020). Popular Populism. In L. M. Daher (Ed.), Understanding Social Conflict. The Relationship between Sociology and History (pp. 119–130). Mimesis International. Gargiulo, E. (2018). Una filosofia della sicurezza e dell’ordine. Il governo dell’immigrazione secondo Marco Minniti. Meridiana, 91, 151–173. Gerbaudo, P. (2012). Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. Pluto Press. Göle, N. (Ed.). (2014). Islam and Public Controversy in Europe. Ashgate. Göle, N. (2017). The Daily Lives of Muslims: Controvery and Islam in Contemporary Europe. Zed Books. Guglielmo, G., & Salerno, S. (2003). Are Italians White? How Race Is Made in America. Routledge. Hall, S. (2021). The Migrant’s Paradox: Street Livelihoods and Marginal Citizenship in Britain. University Minnesota Press. Joppke, C. (2007). Transformation of Citizenship: Status, Rights, Identity. Citizenship Studies, 11(1), 37–48. Lapeyronnie, D. (1992). De l’intégration à la ségrégation. Cultures & Conflits, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.4000/conflits.674 Lieberson, S. (1980). A Piece of the Pie. Blacks and White Immigrants Since 1880. University of California Press. Lochocki, T. (2018). The Rise of Populism in Western Europe. A Media Analysis on Failed Political Messaging. Springer. Lopreato, J. (1970). Italian Americans. Random House. Macioti, M., & Pugliese, E. (2010). L’esperienza migratoria : immigrati e rifugiati in Italia. Laterza. Massari, M. (2006). Islamofobia. La paura e l’Islam. Laterza. Otto, K., & Köhler, A. (Eds.). (2018). Trust in Media and Journalism. Empirical Perspectives on Ethics, Norms, Impacts and Populism in Europe. Springer. Park, R. E., Burgess, E. W., & McKenzie, R. D. (1925). The City. The University Chicago Press. Patriarca, S. (2015). A Crisis of Italian Identity? The Northern League and Italy’s Renationalization Since the 1990s. In R. Kaiser & J. Edelmann (Eds.), Crisis as a Permanent Condition? The Italian Political System Between Transition and Reform Resistance (pp. 61–78). Nomos Verlag. Postill, J. (2018). The Rise of Nerd Politics: Digital Activism and Political Change. Pluto Press. Pugliese, E. (2006). L’Italia tra migrazioni internazionali e migrazioni interne. Il Mulino. Pugliese, E. (2018). Quelli che se ne vanno. La nuova emigrazione italiana. il Mulino. Renzi, V. (2015). La politica della ruspa. La Lega di Salvini e le nuove destre europee. Edizioni Alegre.

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Ross, E. A. (1914). Italians in America. The Century. Sayad, A. (1999). La Double Absence. Des Illusions de L’émigré aux Souffrances de L’immigré. Seuil. Scarpaci, V. (2003). Are Italians White? How Race is Made in America. Routledge. Sowell, T. (1981). Ethnic America. A History. Basic Books. Stella, G.  A. (2003). L’Orda. Quando gli albanesi eravamo noi. Biblioteca Universitaria Rizzoli. Stockemer, D. (2019). Populism Around the World: A Comparative Perspective. Springer. Toscano, A. (2020). Gli italiani che hanno fatto la Francia. Baldini Castoldi. Toscano, E. (2016). ‘Yo soy mi revolución personal’: Web 2.0, subjetividad y activismo en Il Movimiento Viola en Italia. In J. Candón Mena & L. Benítez Eyzaguirre (Eds.), Activismo digital y nuevos modos de ciudadanía: Una mirada global. InCom-UAB Publicacions, 12. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Uscinski, E.  J. (2019). Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them. Oxford University Press. White, W. F. (1943). Street Corner Society. The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. The University of Chicago Press. Zepeda-Millan, C. (2017). Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Racialization, and Activism. Cambridge University Press.

Reports Centro Studi e Ricerche IDOS. (2020). Gli italiani all’estero: collettività storiche e nuove mobilità. Affari Sociali Internazionali, n. 1–4/2020. Destatis. (2021). Population in Private Households According to Migration Background in the Broader Sense According to Selected Countries of Birth. Retrieved December 10, 2021, from https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/ Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoelkerung/Migration-Integration/Tabellen/migrationshintergrund-staatsangehoerigkeit-staaten.html Giangrande, A. (2020). L’Italia Allo Specchio. Il DNA Degli Italiani Anno 2020. L’Amministrazione Prima Parte. ISTAT. (2020). Cittadini non comunitari in Italia: Anni 2019–2020. U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2019. United Nations. (2020). World Population Prospects 2019. https://doi. org/10.18356/7707d011-en

Online Article Villa, M. (2021). Fact-Checking: Migrazioni 2021. ISPI. https://www.ispionline. it/it/pubblicazione/ispitel-fact-checking-migrazioni-2021-31027

CHAPTER 7

Popular Populism and New Collective Actions

7.1   Popular Populism In the previous chapter we observed the rise of right-wing parties, both the NL and the nationalist FdI. In 2015, in Rome, an alliance was formed between all far-right-wing forces (including the neo-fascist CasaPound), partially based on a political agenda, given some important differences between the parties, but all sharing similar rhetoric and positions against migrants, refugees or asylum seekers. The so-called “national preference”, a placing of the autochthonous population before all others, to see a country “great once more” is a position characterizing many right-wing parties and movements around the world, encapsulating one of the main populist messages in the contemporary political sphere. After decades of mainstream progressive narrative that led to the assertion of politically-correct political policies and language in most democratic countries, far-right-­ wing populism has largely made headway and gained consensus in the public opinion of many Western countries (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018; Lochocki, 2018). 7.1.1  Understanding Populism Today: Popular Populism There are no few problems in attempting to define “populism“ since a definition is not provided by either a political agenda, positioning, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_7

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doctrine, or even an ideology. In trying to establish a social science category of populism, Margaret Canovan traced the significance attached to various references to “the People” as they arose in recent history (Canovan, 2005). Distinguishing agrarian from political populism, Canovan identified some common aspects of communitarian grouping claimed to be natural and traditional compared to the modern structuration of society brought about by new elites (Canovan, 1981; Hofstadter, 1969). These groups or movements criticized the new composition of society, with its emphasis on accelerated industrialization and urbanization. The right to govern in the name of a community, in opposition to hierarchical and selfelected bureaucratic groups, encapsulates the political foundation of populism as either a reactionary force or a genuine anti-establishment movement. Among the agrarian populism, Canovan counts farmers’ radicalism like the U.S. People’s Party, the peasant movements like the East European Green Rising, and the intellectual agrarian socialism like the Russian Narodniki in the second half of the nineteenth century; among the political populism, dictatorship like Peron1 in Argentina (Germani, 1978), referendum movement, reactionary leaders and groups in Western democracies like George Wallace in the US, and a wide category of politicians and groups that attempt to create unifying coalitions (Canovan, 1981, p. 13). These early analyses on populism show how generic, malleable, and volatile the term is in political science and, even more, in sociology. In the light of new political trends, especially in the second decade of twenty-first century, we observe multiple discourses, actions and individual actors described as “populist”. Journalism and intertwined social sciences have mostly been applying this adjective to an array of political expressions in the public sphere all around the world. On the political spectrum, some scholars distinguish between right-wing populists, social populists, and neoliberal populists (March & Mudde, 2005; Mudde, 2007, pp. 29–30). Several present-day approaches, particularly those on the left, see populism as a positive force, useful in contrasting current neoliberalism and its global economic monopolies and its effect, both globally and locally. A growing awareness of the undefined or “blurry” power of financial capitalism, and the concentration of power globally might represent an opportunity to address some global inequalities (Kaltwasser, 2012; Kaltwasser & Mudde, 2017; McKnight, 2018; Mouffe, 2018; Gerbaudo, 2017, 2019). 1

 This populism is particularly applied to the category of unskilled workers and their unions.

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Right-wing populism, on the other hand, appears to be the main driving force behind criticism of liberal democratic institutions. Indeed, substantial differences between populist positions concern issues such as migration and cultural identities in contemporary society (Lochocki, 2018, pp.  6–11)—inclusion versus ethnocentrism, or nativism. In the present world-wide populist narrative, xenophobia, cultural racism, and conservative claims are factors associated with authoritarian figures and the far-right (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018). In conditions of a high level of social reflexivity, there is a democratization of scientific knowledge, including social sciences theories and analysis, through different levels of traditional and new education and Media. Societies become more aware of inequalities and forms of stratification. The tendency to believe that individuals are living in a “just world”—to use a social psychology concept—seems to decline as a more critical and sceptic perspective on the mission and actions of social institutions grows, particularly regarding politics and economy. According to Pew Research (Spring 2019 Global Attitudes Survey), an elevated number of people are dissatisfied with “how democracy works”, in countries like France (58%), USA (59%), Italy (68%) Spain (68%), UK (69%), and Greece (74%). These percentages rise when “dissatisfaction” is associated to the “elite” or ruling class (Italy 78%, UK 79%). The same research indicates a strong dissatisfaction with elected officials, as well. In Italy, the research recorded that in 2002, 88% of the population thought that “the state is for the benefit of all people”, while the percentage dropped to only 30% by 2019. In Europe, Italy is not alone with this trend, the research noting that, discontent is often found among supporters of right-wing populist parties. Specifically, in Sweden, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and France, people with a favorable view of out-of-power right-wing populist parties are more likely than those who rate these parties unfavorably to say the democracy is not working well. However, in Poland, supporters of the governing right-wing populist Law and Justice Party are more satisfied with the functioning of democracy by 40 percentage points.2

Criticism and general suspicion of the social control exercised by the authorities (even more so in the midst of pandemic), information 2  See https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/02/27/satisfaction-with-democracy/ (last access 25/4/2021).

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manipulation, and elitist privileges seems to be coming from various directions. The vulgarization of social sciences in fields like entertainment, culture, and arts, as well as in secondary education, has rendered very controversial social issues popular, without, however, providing an adequate space for public debate—a situation of Habermasian ideal speech communication. As observed, this space has been filled by the diffusion of communication platforms (Trottier & Fuchs, 2014; Lochocki, 2018): extensive, democratised use of social media has become the megaphone for an anti-system narration, where society appears corrupt and separated from the individuals. To stem the growing popular belief that prevailing conditions are unjust, an ever-greater distance being created between the “system” and “individuals”, democratic leaders are needed to harmonize rhetoric, and create a consensus based on unity, diversity acceptance, and respect. In the absence of democratic leaders, however, or under the seductive appeal of authoritarian leaders, demagogic explanations and solutions attract polarizing sentiments. Minorities and gender roles also become mainstream topics where activist claims and ordinary life experiences can be superimposed. Reflexivity of social sciences, including sociology, is part of modernity (Giddens, 1990, pp. 15–17). In their everyday life, referring to sociological, but also psychological theory, people might engage with conflict theories connecting postcolonial, stratification theories, and gender theories.3 Vulgarized sociological and psychological concepts can be used in a daily-­ based interaction, but can also be at the centre of news channel panels. How public figures behave, their role and speeches can be criticized and judged on the bases of some social sciences interpretations and analysis. Though such developments of the public sphere can be seen as a positive, resulting in a more educated public, digital democratization admits a much larger audience to the public sphere, where reality, however, is often transformed, corrupted, and demystified on a polarized partisan-line (Nahema et al., 2018; Tucker et al., 2018). A more conscious public has certainly not caused the rise in populism. A section of the population has not benefitted from either higher level of education or from intellectual skills and material prospects. These people may feel disoriented and resent what they see as an unwanted 3  Anthony Giddens notes that “Sociological knowledge spirals in and out of the universe of social life, reconstructing both itself and that universe as an integral part of that process” (Giddens, 1990, pp. 15–16).

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transformation of society, based on cultural values they do not automatically share. According to the theory of cultural backlash, transformation of values in society might be at stake, nourishing sentiments of populism (Norris & Inglehard, 2019). In what has been defined as “digital democracy” (Hacker & van Dijk, 2000), an enlarged network of internet users can now publicly challenge governments (including European institutions and foreign countries), public figures (including scientist and experts), and undefined elites (including multinationals and news-channels), through messages and new controversies on social media. On the one hand, this transformation helps popularize political issues through different social networking services. On the other, this e-participation can increase consensus around conspiracy theories, fake news and a large array of misinformation. According to some studies, a positive correlation exists between conspiracy theory believers and authoritarianism (Bruder et al., 2013), conservatives (Cox & Halpin, 2020; Wagner-Egger et al., 2018), and Trumpers (Marchal et al., 2018). Current conspiracies generally serve the cause of rampant right-­ wing populism (Bergmann, 2018). By refusing scientific certitudes (for instance on climate change), encouraging misinformation, spreading unscientific statements about vaccines, medical treatments, journalism and “dark progressive global forces”, populist leaders (the real protagonist of current populism) are able to delegitimize institutions and other voices that could stop, undermine, or damage their agenda. The classic reference to “The People” appears more than a case of euphemism today in Western countries. Obviously, sociology does not consider “the people” an appropriate research category. Once again, the definition leads us into other fields of analysis, cutting across communication studies and imaginary communities. As discussed elsewhere (Farro & Maddanu, 2020), populism today must be analysed in terms of narrative, style, and any other form of communication that targets an imaginary societal body. Inspired by current populism, a vulnerable part of the population can elect and base their trust in populist leaders who create the illusion of a homogeneous and ideal majority in opposition to a small over-controlling elite. Feelings of hostility towards new migrants and recent immigrants are transliterated into a language revealing classic narratives of xenophobia and cultural racism. These narratives fuel the imaginary of an ideal homogeneous social body—an in-group sharing a past of both certainty and simplicity. Cultural changes, more inclusive and differentiated, are part of

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the unwanted transformations. Economic relations—now including uncontrolled flux of capitals, uncertain standards of living, and global competitiveness—contribute to a sense of powerlessness. This can explain why populism is so popular today. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020 may well have created a greater sense of insecurity to an already insecure and precarious modern life around the globe (Akil & Maddanu, 2022): at that occasion, populist leaders faced a global testbench. Right-wing narratives can easily be applied to both national and local collective actions (town cities or neighbourhoods), social media, online platforms, and other virtual social networks operating as connectors as well as producers of populist narratives. Several studies have monitored or are still monitoring how false information is made and spread, including data about refugees, immigrants’ activities and how people react to these information.4 Among these phony stories, some popular misconceptions appearing in both social media and some politician statements can be listed: • Refugees and seekers are living in hotels paid by the European Union or the Italian government. • Refugees and asylum seekers are paid 35 euros per day. • Immigrants do not pay taxes. • Migrants are responsible for most criminal activities, especially drugs and drug trafficking. • Migrants, especially from Africa, are more likely to commit rape and sexual aggressions. • Muslim immigrants want to impose Islam and conquer Europe. • There is a connexion between international migration and terrorism. • Immigrants are stealing jobs from the autochthonous population. • Immigrants are responsible for low paid employment. As many populist leaders and narratives demonstrate, anti-immigrant rhetoric is not the only storytelling that engenders collective support and actions. Based on a simplification of a complex globalized world, the populist narrative encompasses several oppositions that go beyond the 4  According to Eurispes polls, in 2020, 35.2% of Italians thought that immigrants “stole” their jobs (10% more than 10 years ago), 33% thought immigrants were a threat to national identity (3% more than 10 years ago). The percentage of Italians who thought that immigrants brought cultural enrichment into the country decreased by 17 points compared to 10 years ago (42%). See https://eurispes.eu/news/eurispes-risultati-del-rapporto-italia-2020/ (accessed on March 15, 2021).

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Table 7.1 Homogeneity and ethnocentrism

vs

Cultural relativism and multiculturalism

Informal relation and self-government Perceived authenticity Common knowledge and vulgarization

vs

Formal and bureaucratized relations

vs vs

Technocratic organization Standardization, scientific method and knowledge

right-wing spectrum and show how wide and popular the divide can flourish. We attempt to summarize them in Table 7.1. These oppositions have been identified in both in the real, as well as in the virtual world. The frame defined by these oppositions represents a main cultural and societal divide, endangering the very foundation of creating a global, modern, composite society.

7.2   Populism and the City Many studies on populism have pointed out correlations between the use of spaces and both cultural and political views. However, every study aimed at identifying urban v. rural factors, and explaining political choice and, more specifically, populism, has dealt with multifactor variables— those related to economic relations, historical context, identity, and unique legacies. More specifically, studies point out the relevance of density associated with a diverse population. In June 2019, the Niskanen Center published a research paper by Will Wilkinson in which the author focuses on the correlation between population density and political views, including populism. The concept of “density” has been chosen over the urban-rural binary, due to the ambiguous definition of what is urban, sub-urban and what is rural, in the American context (Wilkinson, 2019, p. 14). In the American context, “density” theory support the hypothesis that the presence of racial/ethnic, and cultural differences5 (due to the permanent settlement of immigrants or domestic migrants) can be a driving force for the development of a more liberal, progressive, and tolerant mind-set. 5  “American rural areas are 79% white. Suburban areas are 68% white. Urban areas are 44% white. So, as population density rises, so does the non-white population share”. (Wilkinson, 2019, p. 27)

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“Density” also encompasses other contributing factors, such as economic opportunities, created through the dynamics of metropolitan areas, where higher education, skills and creative talents are wanted, attracting a younger and more liberal and well-educated population. Low-density areas risk being left behind, drained of economic opportunities and cultural interests.6 Following other political studies, Wilkinson observes that the density divide—high-density cities areas vs. low-density rural areas— has resulted in a political sorting, never seen before. He concludes that, since 2016 and particularly during the mid-term election in 2018 “there is now no such a thing as a republican city” (2019, p. 12). All metropolitan areas, including those in Red (Republican) States, lean towards a Democrat position. What is new in Wilkinson’s argument, though, is how populism is related to the sorting. If, as the author observes, progressive and liberal views are to be found in big cities in the USA, an unprecedented divide can arise when a populist leader clearly redefines the right-­ wing narrative in the public mind, effectively suffocating the political tradition of one party. According to the author, […] stagnant or declining material prospects tend to generate a rising sense of anxiety and threat, leading people to adopt a zero-sum, “us or them” frame of mind. […] rural stagnation is widening the already significant gap in cultural and moral values produced by the increasing spatial separation of urbanizers and rooted holdouts. […] Diversity does not breed distrust, but racial segregation does. Moreover, spatial segregation along ideological/ values lines is itself radicalizing. A lack of exposure to intellectual diversity pushes people’s views to extremes. (pp. 5–6)

References to preferring “nationals” to others, conjures up images of the “greatness of the past”—mostly a romanticized past that some, for age reasons, have never experienced. This narrative, in addition to appealing to the extreme-right, helps shape an imaginary of homogeneity, nativism, natural rights and renewed privileges for one group. It also fuels a sense of revenge for the economic, cultural, and spatial marginalization that low-­ density areas are suffering today. According to Wilkinson, and not so differently from what we observed above (Rahn, 2019; Kaufmann, 2018), 6  “Changes in the technical structure of the economy have increased the productivity and wage bonuses to higher education and the geographic concentration of talent. […] Smaller towns, rural areas, and cities with an outdated mix of industries have been left with economic stagnation or decline.” (Wilkinson, 2019, p. 5).

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“strong ethnocentric attitudes are clearly visible among today’s Republican voters, and especially among Trump’s most ardent supporters, who are heavily rural” (Wilkinson, 2019, p. 53). Can the “mono” versus “multi” cultural, and ethnic/racial nature of metropolitan areas be a contributing factor in tackling populist claims and their political leaders? Is the presence of a diverse population, per se, a driving factor for liberal views and the acceptance of minorities? Conversely, is the fact some areas are mono-cultural enabling populist rhetoric to rise? Cities and new urban areas are characterized by different economic trends and opportunities, sometimes only seasonal. Though we cannot measure how immigrants could affect voting patterns (immigrants in Italy cannot vote in local/national elections), we can note that their presence is used to trigger populist narratives, which certainly influence electoral results. In the twenty-first century, the presence of migrants in Western Europe affected both EU member states such as France, Germany and Italy, as well as other countries such as the UK. At the end of the twenties, the migrants registered in France mainly come from non-European countries, a part of them coming from EU states such as Portugal Spain, and Italy. Today, they make up 9.9% of the population, and 37% have acquired French nationality. The cities and metropolitan areas of the country are particularly affected by the presence of immigrants. In the mid-twenties, 40% of migrant citizens settled in the metropolitan area of ​​Paris. Other major metropolitan areas affected belonged to Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse, Lille, Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Grenoble. These migrants mainly originated from North African countries, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, but also Turkey, as well as from EU countries such as Portugal, Italy and Spain (Brutel, 2016). The presence of these migrants, particularly those not originally from Western countries, caused concern among national citizens for cultural, economic, and social reasons. National citizens perceived cultural differences, a divide, in terms of ways of behaviour and social practices between themselves and migrants. There are also economic concerns related to employment issues and the labour market. Cultural and economic issues have traditionally been fuelled by the populist far right of the Front National (FN), a party founded by Jean-­ Marie Le Pen in 1972, and chaired by him until 2011, when his daughter Marine Le Pen took over the presidency. Subsequently, in 2018 Rassemblement National (RN), under the leadership of its leader Marine Le Pen, the party tried to break away from the strongly reactionary image

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it had acquired based on hostility towards migrants, especially Arabs and Muslims, originally one of its reasons for its success among some voters. That hostility still persists today, though it is now more directed at undocumented migrants illegally arriving in the country. Denouncing the presence of these migrants is part of the political discourse that Marine Le Pen has constructed in defence of the nation, its interests, its culture and its independence, even with respect to the EU. As a result, FN becomes the first French party in the 2014 European elections. However, the FN lost the 2017 presidential elections, where Le Pen gained 33.9% consensus, but was clearly beaten in the second ballot by Emmanuel Macron, who took 66.1% of the vote, supported by his party “La République en marche”, and voted by the traditional electorate of the republican right and a large part of the left. The end of World War II marks the beginning of the division of the German territory into two states. To the east, German Democratic Republic (GDR) was formed by a socialist Soviet-inspired regime, which oversaw the social and economic reconstruction of the country. In the West, the Federal Republic of Germany (RFT) was founded, several countries, including the USA, France and the UK, maintaining a military presence. The country became part of the West and entered a phase of expansion and development. Immediately after the war, the country had to deal with aftermath of the destruction of the cities. The RFT then started a process of reconstruction of urban areas and industrial installations, starting an economic expansion and a significant subsequent rise in employment, which involved immigrants, as well, and not only nationals. In this important flow of immigration, already begun in the 1950s, the migrants were defined as “Gastarbeiter” or guest workers. Their arrival in Germany peaked in the seventies of the last century, with immigration continuing, at different rates, until the first decades of the twenty-first century. The presence of migrants became a significant component of the German social life, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the German reunification, marked by the inclusion of the East of the country into the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, with its capital in Berlin. Following unification, Germany continued to immigrants, citizens from Europe, but also from other continents. At the end of 2018, Turkish citizens present in the country constituted the largest group of foreigners residing in Germany, followed by EU citizens, Poles, Romanians and Italian, and citizens from other continents such as Afghanistan, India and

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Iran.7 During the same period, the presence of foreign citizens was most felt in the urban areas of the capital, Berlin, followed by other metropolitan areas.8 Their presence involved the emergence of significant hostile initiatives against them by groups of national citizens, mainly aligned to the extreme right, as in the case of Pegida, Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West). In January 2015, this group organized a national demonstration in Dresden in Saxony, Eastern Germany, and attracted 18,000 participants, mainly far-right people, neo-Nazis, and football hooligans, but also citizens of other leanings or without any particular political affiliation (Smale, 2015). Other xenophobic and anti-Islam mobilizations then took place during the same year, with others following in the next few years. A particularly significant one organized by Pegida and the neo-Nazi AfD group, Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany), took place in August 2018 in Chemnitz, Saxony. About 8000 people took part, the demonstration spilling into strong forms of violence (Bennhold, 2018). These events illustrate a particular political climate in east Germany, with the same neo-Nazi AfD formation obtaining 27.5% of the votes in the elections of the Landtag (Parliament) of Saxony held in 2019: the Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands—(Christian Democrats— CDU) took 32%, while the Die Linke (The Left) only drew 10.4% of the votes. During the second decade of the twenty-first century, demonstrations and other protests, including violent ones, held in various urban areas, indicate opposition, if not hostility, to the presence and further arrival of migrants in Germany. Hostility appears heightened in the case of migrants from outside Europe, and particularly if they are Muslims. These positions 7  On 31 December 2018, the foreign residents in Germany originated from (in descending order): Turkey (1,476,000), Poland (860,145), Syria (745,645), Romania (696,275), Italy (643,530), Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo (471,660), Croatia (395,665), Greece (363,205), Bulgaria (337,015), Afghanistan (257,110), Russia (254,325), Iraq (247,800), Hungary (212,360), Bosnia e Herzegovina (190,495), Austria (187,370), Spain (176,020), The Netherlands (151,260), China (143,135), Ukraine (141,350), France (140,900), Portugal (138,890), India (124,095), United States (119,645), Iran (114,125) and the United Kingdom (106,155). See Destatis.de (2018). 8  Foreign citizens in absolute numbers and percentages, compared to national citizens in 2018 are as follows: Berlin 491,900 (13.1%), Munich 357,740 (22.7%), Hamburg 253,013 (13.4%), Frankfurt 188,509 (25.9%), Stuttgart 138,379 (21.9%), Düsseldorf 98,235 (16.6%), Dortmund 92,778 (15.7%), Mannheim 71,065 (21.6%), Essen 69,263 (12.1%) Destatis.de (2018).

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of hostility, however, have been criticized by the governmental political formations of the CDU and the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democrats—SPD).9 At the beginning of 2021, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) formed a coalition government (CDU-SPD), but also announced her withdrawal from politics after the legislative elections scheduled for September of the same year. Observers and specialists of German politics believe that, following favourable results for a centre-left coalition, the leadership of the country would probably pass to Annalena Baerbock, leader of the party Die Grünen, The Greens, who are expected, by pollsters and observers alike, to do well in the September elections. The significant presence of foreigners in Germany has led to political tensions to arise, especially in the eastern part of the country, where the presence of formations such as Pegida and the neo-Nazi Afd party has become a force to be reckoned with. Notably, however, these tensions are not found in urban areas and other territories of the country where the construction of a social life based on democracy and respect continues to be pursued. Moreover, up until today, there are no signs in Germany of a preponderant affirmation of extreme right-wing cultural and political orientations, and hostile policies towards migrants. In 2015, 3,929,916 foreign citizens with residence permits were registered in Italy. They originate mainly from Africa (1,214,025), non-EU Europe (1,737,852), Asia (1,122,798) and the Americas (415,989).10 The presence of foreigners has been particularly felt in the main cities of the North such as Milan, Turin and Bologna, in central areas of Italy, such as Rome, and in southern cities, such as Naples and Bari, as well as in the

9  Both the CDU and the SPD intend regulating refugees in Germany, including the approximately 4 million refugees, 3.6 Syrians, present in Turkey, whose stay has been accepted and supported, with a loan of over € 3 million from the EU (The European Council, 2018). As regards the SPD immigration policy, the party maintains the principle, even today. “If you want to stem illegal migration, you have to create legal ways to immigrants”. Such legal ways can be illustrated by the Canadian immigration model, which particularly takes into account the occupational contingencies of the labour market, the level of education, work experience, and language knowledge of the migrant who intends to settle (Bierbach, 2017). 10  There are 812,716 people from North Africa, 327,069 from West Africa, 48,832 from East Africa, 25,408 from Central-Southern Africa, 49,438 originally from West Asia, 545,151 from Central-Southern Asia, and 528,209 from East Asia. Then, 39,173 come from North America, and 376,861 from Central and South America (ISTAT, 2016).

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major island cities, such as Palermo in Sicily, and Cagliari in Sardinia.11 Migratory chains continue to be maintained, including family reunifications, not only in the more attractive (for economic opportunities) northern regions. Cities and metropolitan areas have become more relevant, but not the only destination for new citizens coming from Africa, Asia, and South America (Macioti & Pugliese 1991; Bonifazi, 1998). In the twenties of this century, in Italy, as in other EU states, left and right political parties have been tackling the issue of the presence of migrants from different and often conflicting cultural and political positions. Political parties themselves are subject to partial reshaping, sometimes even changing their names, and aiming to adapt to the modifications occurring in the social life not only of the country, but of Europe, and the world, as a whole. Political forces of ​​the left or centre-left, as they prefer to define it, manly adherents of the PD (Democratic Party), have become promoters of policies focused on a careful reception of arriving migrants and economic, social, political and cultural integration those already settled in the territory (PD, 2021).12 11  In 2015, foreign residents in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the total number of residents of the main Italian cities were: north of Milan 248,304, 18.57% of a total of 1,337,155; in Brescia 36,472, 18.60% of a total of 196,058; in Turin 137,963, 15.38% of a total of 896,773; in Bologna 57,979, 15.01% of a total of 386,181; in Genoa 56,262, 9.50% of a total of 592,507; in Venice 33,111, 12.51% of a total of 264,579; in Verona 37,578, 14.45% of a total of 260,125; in Padua 33,268, 15.75% of a total of 211,210; in Reggio Emilia 30,050, 17.51% of a total of total 171,655; in Parma 29,590, 15.55% of a total of 190,284; in Modena 28.64, 15.47 of a total of 185,148—in the Center in Florence 57,900, 15.20% of a total of 381,037; in Prato 34,171, 17.89% of a total of 191,002; in Roma Capitale 363,563, 12.66% of a total of the 2,872,021—in the South in Naples 48,565 4.96% of a total of 978,399; in Palermo 25,923, 3.82% of a total of 678,492. 12  The PD, founded in 2008, has its origins in a mix political forces, merging with previous formations from the dissolved PCI (Italian Communist Party) and groupings of political forces largely attributable to the left-wing area of ​​the dissolved DC (Christian Democracy). The DC, founded in 1942–1943, initially opposed Nazi fascism. After the war, the DC itself became the main force of a coalition government, which also included the PCI, though this government dissolved in 1947, following the division of the world into blocs, with the Western bloc headed by the USA to which the DC referred. The PCI, connected to the homonymous leading party of the USSR at that time, was consequently excluded from participation in the Italian government. Until the 1990s, the PCI was the DC’s main opposition, in parliament and in the country, and that of the coalition governments the DC formed. Subsequently, the dissolution of the DC in 1994 opened up new political phases in the country: a new right led by Silvio Berlusconi leader of the Forza Italia party—in alliance with the far-right formations Alleanza Nazionale (an attempted remodelling of the Italian Social

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The far-right political forces of NL13 and FdI,14 on the contrary, express a clear refusal to welcome irregular migrants arriving in Italy. As in France with Marine Le Pen’s party, they question Italy being in the EU, and propose nationalist economic and social policies. Some of these policies were implemented during the coalition government “Conte 1” of NL and Movimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement)15 (June 2018–August 2019). In particular, the leader of the League, Minister for Home Affairs in the government, denied access to Italian ports to vessels, including NGOs, transporting migrants from North Africa (see Chap. 6).

Movement along moderately liberal terms) and Lega Nord for the Independence of Padania opposed a left of which the PD became the main protagonist. 13  The Lega per Salvini originated from the far-right regionalist party Lega Nord for the independence of Padania founded in 1991—a regionalist and anti-southern party that still exists in parallel with the Lega per Salvini Premier. Salvini’s NL is a far-right party that has elected representatives in the European Parliament, the Italian Parliament and in several important regions and municipalities of the country. The party has been a member of the national executive on several occasions. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, has held the position of Minister for Home Affairs in a government called Conte 1, named after the prime minister Giuseppe Conte, a lawyer and university professor, politically positioned in the area of the ​​ 5 Star Movement, the main governmental political force of the time (cf. no. 15). 14  Fratelli d’Italia was formed in 2012, part of a centre-right political force alternative to the centre-left coalitions in electoral competitions of EU, national or local importance. It is a far-right party that historically follows on from the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a party founded after the Second World War by nostalgic of the fascist regime and veterans of the Italian Social Republic (1943–1945), a Nazi-fascist regime, also known as the Republic of Salò, established in the north of the country after the fall of the fascism. Giorgio Almirante, a veteran of the fascist regime and the Republic of Salò, was one of the founders of the MSI. For a long time, he was also one of its major leaders, as well as its representative in the Italian parliament: he was a member from 1948 to 1988, the year of his death. During the Fascist period, Giorgio Almirante was secretary of the editorial committee and author of several articles in the magazine Defence of the race, where the Manifesto of the race was published in 1938, used to start up the extermination camps of deportees from Italy. 15  The 5 Star Movement (M5S) party was founded in 2009 through the initiative of the actor Beppe Grillo and the IT entrepreneur Gianroberto Casaleggio. In the political elections of March 2018, the M5S, obtaining 32% of the votes in the Chamber of Deputies and 32.00% in the Senate, became the first political force in the country and together with the NL formed a coalition government, called Conte 1, after Giuseppe Conte, lawyer and university professor, who became Prime Minister. In 2019 the Conte 1 government dissolved and the Conte 2 government was formed, headed again by Conte and supported, this time, by an alliance between the 5 Star Movement and the Democratic Party. The government, then, had shifted to the left politically.

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7.3   Citizens and Action As part of the research conducted in Rome, we analysed the different ways citizens interpret what it means to take part in urban life. In particular, we selected three different forms of collective action, unlinked to political parties or institutions, and open to all, membership occurring through the direct participation of individuals or associated groups. The first concerned the experimentation of citizen participation promoted by the I Municipality of Rome: on urban planning, on the reclaiming and use of public spaces, or on the protection of green areas or waste management. The second involved participants operating within institutions but autonomously from them, with the aim of renewing the supportive role of the public, seen as at the service of the common good. We focused our attention on the parents’ association of a school in the 1st Municipality and two of the 5th Municipality of Rome (Chaps. 4 and 5). School participation constitutes a symbol of the need, in ethical and civic terms, to support and encourage the foremost institution of society—the place responsible for educating and preparing our future citizens to partake in society (Farro & Maddanu, 2015). Finally, the third form of collective action we investigated is part of a new urban participation expressed through culture and creativity. It involves setting up institutions to manage and promote artistic and cultural events, freely open to citizens, as well as artists of the sector. It represents a direct criticism of the government and the local cuts of support to the arts in general, and how the production and management of culture have been subject to the political arena in some way. Our field work involved meeting people who were directly involved in the occupation and running of the Valle Theatre in Rome (Maddanu, 2018). The occupation of the theatre symbolically takes on other meanings, representing subjective and political opposition to neoliberalism, in particular. Through collective alternative management of culture and entertainment, free from market forces, their experience and role in society within the context of an institutional crisis takes on a new meaning (Touraine, 2013). Richard Florida—known for his studies on the new creative class and the related forms of urban renewal—criticizes the analysis on globalization that predicted the end of the centrality of physical and social space, in an era of accelerating technological communication. Due to globalization, these theories envisage a contraction of space and time, “flattening out” places, cultures and economies. According to Florida, there is nothing further from the truth:

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Place has become the central organizing unit of our time, taking on many of the functions that used to be played by firms and other organizations. Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steelmaking. (Florida, 2012, p. 8). However, his description of the “rise” of the creative class “, to paraphrase the author’s best-seller, does not seem to fit the Roman case. Indeed, occupation of the Valle Theatre appears to be an agency (and be a movement) in a different direction—a desire to collectively transform the city around culture and revitalize the creative experience. While the case of the Metropoliz (see Chap. 3 §3.3.) represented collective action— artistic, social and political—rooted in the context of the city outskirts, encouraging discussion on what the city should be, starting from its marginal areas, the occupation of Teatro Valle represents an attempted “take over” of the historic centre of the capital (Maddanu, 2018). The change of makeup of the city historical centre provided a valid justification and compelling reason for the occupation of the theatre, as seen by the actors: the working-classes had been forced out through a gentrification of the area, which was then almost exclusively destined for tourists and state-­ employed white-collar workers. This had left the areas effectively without a nightlife, with consequent negative effects on commercial and catering business. Instead, according to the occupiers, their presence in the theatre has given new life to the surrounding area, now transformed into a busy and dynamic district. To date, the situation of the so-called “the performing arts workers” remains precarious and deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. If a “creative class” is on the rise compared to others, it does not seem to represent the condition of the artistic and cultural world. However, it is at the forefront of urban collective struggle and actively advances ideas and practices of alternative ideas of recognition, production, management, economics, and socialization. 7.3.1  A Protocol for Participation With regard to the first collective action investigated, we focussed on some neighbourhood associations or actors, individually or collectively, involved in urban redevelopment projects regarding the opinion of citizens and how (whether professionally or otherwise) they are notified. The local institutions themselves are promoting transparency and citizen-institution sharing. Citizen intervention is seen, therefore, as creating greater opportunity for taking part in the decision-making process in an urban context,

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by means of participation. But it also involves calling for the application of norms, environmental sustainability and due recognition of citizens, including architects or engineers but not only, who want to influence urban planning and regeneration. Institutions seem to be going through a crisis both in terms of planning and creating consensus. Neighbourhood associations and groups of individuals are carrying out forms of protest, creating pressure groups, and working towards informing the public. Their actions represent a challenge to top-down decision making and management of urban spaces, by intervening directly and encouraging participation, in order to meet the pressing needs of each citizen in their daily life. According to Elena, an activist from Piazza Vittorio Partecipata and Cittadinanzattiva, the average citizen no longer represents a “passive customer”, but wants to directly help solve problems concerning their living space. When the governing institutions do not deal with problems effectively, particularly regarding management of services, citizens should no longer just sit back or resort to protest, but should begin taking things into their own hands, and actively contribute, sending, in so doing, a symbolic message both to the interlocutors (the institutions) and to their fellow citizens. The research followed on from the work promoted by the I Municipality defining a protocol for participation, where access and participation are determined through assembly. This is the first document to lay down the rules and bases for citizen participation in the various local projects. The participation processes observed essentially appear to be an attempt to bring the institutions themselves closer to citizens, especially in a time when the institutions themselves openly show, to some extent, the difficulties they face in solving everyday problems, particularly those related to the simple provision of services. Further, particularly after accusations and confirmation of corruption and clientelism, affecting the image and the very missions of national and local institutions alike, governing bodies are also trying to bring institutions and citizens closer. During our research, one of the most active groups in experimenting participation—Piazza Vittorio Partecipata committee—was closely followed. Its members are aged between 35 and 60 years. The physical space of the neighbourhood, the Esquilino (see Chap. 5 for a description), is perceived as an integral part of daily life, with committee members forging direct links with the elected officials of the Municipality, in some instances. They work to encourage the local institutions to be responsive to citizens regarding urban redevelopment projects, landscaping or cultural activities

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that include locally housed migrants. There are professional figures who donate their knowledge and free time (architects, engineers, landscape architects, urban planners, intellectuals, artists, teachers) for projects integrating citizens and oriented towards inclusion and innovation through ideas and proposals for the care of common goods. The committee networks with other local associations sharing similar cultural and political vision, demonstrating a “pluri-belonging” that strengthens the network in moments of collective action and events. Within the committee, in tandem with collective action, some activists provide news and information through the periodical Esquilino News. The use of the internet (the website or blog) and Social Media is aimed at both informing and recording the development and “history” of the area. The extensive mailing list connects citizens and activists, for sharing documents or photos, and organizing and publicizing events. In some cases, for those wishing to publicize their urban projects, the internet provides the visibility they need.

7.4   School as Part of the Common Good The dynamics of participation are even more apparent when it comes to taking care of and showing support for a school, taken as part of the common good (Arena & Cotturri, 2010). It involves an intense sharing of physical space, and cooperation and mutual support between families of different origins and nationalities, as well as social class. Again, as observed in the Di Donato Esquilino institute (I Municipal), a website and social networking are used to inform and plan events, as is the case of the internal mailing list of the Parents Association. As before, the Facebook group gives greater visibility, aided by the sharing with other groups and associations promoting forms of bottom-up community participation, enabling citizens from all walks of life to participate. As we saw in the fourth chapter, the Parents Association was formed to help the school with its budget problems, but also to provide a place, in this case the school premises, where people can gather and socialize, not easy to come by given the local context. Media support and the Internet therefore provide a space for external legitimation, providing a model for other urban realities. Clearly, such collective action acquires meaning, whether in a neighbourhood school or in a public garden, through actively forming citizen relations and contacts. Though the type of contact and personal

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background can differ among the various local inhabitants, importantly, they share a common space, where both knowledge and culture can be exchanged, and, conversely, problems and conflicts felt. Parent action concerning the school requires support, and indeed, can be initiated or hinted at by the school administrators themselves, or at least part of the teaching staff. In all the schools observed, from the Esquiline to the various schools of the V Municipality (in particular the Pisacane), the headteachers and teaching staff generally responded positively, thanks to the choices and efforts made by individual representatives. Both parents and their children, and indeed the neighbourhood, can therefore experiment with new forms of aggregation and socializing, by making use of spaces the school makes available. Whether the school opens its doors to such experiences very much depends on the relationship the headteacher and representatives are able to establish. This mutual support between school and parents, or with the Parent associations having a more subsidiary function, to more accurately describe the relationship as described by the parents themselves, is seen as central to active democratic citizenship, rather than a merely passive one. The Di Donato school has attracted parents prepared to help deal with the problems the school faced, mostly attended by immigrant children until the early 2000s. By enrolling their children in the school, Italian parents are willing to invest their energies in and actively promote a social and political project. Parents provide concrete contributions by recovering spaces, providing maintenance, and promoting social activities for both parents and the children. The multicultural and multi-ethnic context the school provided is seen as enriching the education of the children. Care is taken that the roles of teachers are not encroached by those of the parents. However, the school management gives parents access to school premises to create more opportunities for the pupils. Notably, the Parents Association and its actions, go beyond the education and socializing of their children. It represents a claim on and identification with the actors’ own living space, and the desire to help train future citizens, starting from the point of departure—the school, a converging force, and part of the common good. The collective action, then, takes on a wider meaning, and involves laying the foundations for new socialites based on ethical principles.

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7.5   Common Goods Starting from the 2000s, what the common good should entail became the subject of political debate. In Italy, in conjunction with some civic struggles culminating in the Referendum against the privatization of water in 2011, the term Common Good has surfaced frequently in legal and academic texts and debates (the social sciences in general) and been used by associations and social movements. The relevance of this theme in jurisprudence goes back along way, in what defines public from private, what assets should be nationalized and collectivized, and what assets can be open to privatization, and what constitutes common good: there is the question of community or collective use, and then, state or private management. Semantically, legally and politically, the term “common good” (common good or commons) is fairly slippery and hard to pin down. This can be illustrated by how Elinor Ostrom criticized an article by the biologist Garrett Hardin, entitled “The Tragedy of the Commons”, published in renowned Science magazine in 1968. In the analysis carried out by Hardin, the concrete example of the collective use of the commons he gives is the exploitation of the oceans or forests that would lead to the inexorable exhaustion of their resources. In Hardin’s reasoning, individuals greedily and unsustainably access common resources (Hardin, 1968, p. 1244). The article makes no reference to how community could regulate access and use of disposable resources, but focuses exclusively on the risks of individual behaviour. The “tragedy” he talks about is the result of an irresponsible and unchecked use of common goods, requiring man’s relationship with nature to be redefined (Moscovici, 1972). The solution proposed by Hardin, however, lies in the regulation of common goods, through, for example, system of private property (“or something formally like it”: 1245). The academic debate around the commons resumed decades later, following the publication, in 1990, of the analysis of the Nobel Prize winner Ostrom. The economist refutes Hardin’s thesis by showing how neither the state nor private property have practised sustainable and renewable management of resources in the long term (Ostrom, 1990, pp. 1–5). A new front of academic debate then opened up, initially in economic terms, around the question of good governance and the management of common resources (Ostrom, 1990) to slip (Coccoli, 2012) on purely legal issues (Nervi, 1999; Hess & Ostrom, 2006; Rodotà, 2012; Napoli, 2014) and finally politics (Mattei, 2011; Hardt & Negri, 2009; Negri, 2012; Dardot & Laval, 2014).

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But what are the commons or the common good? Natural resources, forests, collective lands (pastures), seas, lakes, streams, and water sources (Mollinga, 2008; Kerr, 2007) are generally considered common goods. Today, other assets are considered part of the common good, in both rural and urban contexts, previously not generally considered, as the dynamics of citizen participation have only come to the fore recently. The concept of common goods is now attached to certain new political activities, giving meaning to new spaces of opposition created in multiple national contexts and on multiple levels. The common good is a term used and referred to in the context of cosmopolitan realities, where technology assumes a central role: If commons are creatures of (historical) time, they are also creatures of space, and not just of abstract geographical space, or homogeneous, Euclidean space, but also of the spaces defined by the reach of infrastructure systems, by technological capabilities” (Disco & Kanakis, 2013, p. 34) Unlike a public resource, the common good implies the direct participation of citizens in the management and care of an asset, whether it is subject to state or private management. Hence, even a private asset, such as a building or an archaeological site, can be seen as common goods by virtue of the interest they hold for citizens and the community in general: common (architectural, cultural, historical) heritage. In the urban context, when groups or collectives ask for a resource to be recognized as part of the common good, who should use it? What can legitimately be considered part of the common good? Are self-­legitimation and self-determination sufficient to decide on access to a resource and regulate its management? What institutional challenges, and other, are posed by the emergence of new forms of direct democracy and the governance of common goods? From a more traditional perspective, also legally speaking, as to how lands and natural resources are used collectively (Nervi, 1999; Masia, 1992; Cacciarru, 2013), we are dealing with different types or levels of application which may not coincide with one another with regards to principles of law and inalienable rights (Rodotà, 2012). An initial application identifies a “reference community” that manages collective goods according to the rules of civic use (Cacciari et al., 2012). Passing to the subsequent (certainly more widespread) level of application, urban areas are taken over, and seen as transnational or without a specific national ownership (Mattei, 2011; Dardot & Laval, 2014). Other forms of citizen participation look after common goods, but collocate their action as subsidiary

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to the main management, acting as a support to institutions as they are less able to fulfil their role (Arena & Cotturri, 2010; Moro, 2013). In other cases, the concept of the common good is expressed in purely political terms (Mattei, 2011; Hardt & Negri, 2009; Negri, 2012; Harvey, 2012) of self-management and self-legitimation. Self-management, an alternative to state institutions and the neoliberal system, represents a break from the collaborative, shared and civic approach which, instead, aims to support— and not radically change—institutions. So, the idea of the common good can give legitimation to an association of citizens or a community. From the original understanding of the commons in terms of inalienable natural resources and the (local) community of reference, we move to the commons being interpreted as a space, abandoned or subject to speculation, which is regained by citizens through their participation and care—“spaces of hope” for some (Harvey, 2012; Novy & Colomb, 2013). Common goods dematerialize, and create new spaces, such as on the internet (Bravo, 2001; Bernbom, 2000), with shared knowledge being created through open sources (Bollier, 2008) or culture in general. 7.5.1  Starting from the Commons At this point, we can distinguish two main forms of collective action based on the contemporary idea of the common good, organized around associations, political movements, or local committees. The first can be linked to the network of Active Citizenship, associative movements, committees, and associations that promote local civic engagement of citizens regarding different issues, from education on public health and education of the individual, from taking personal responsibility in making and promoting social and cultural policies, to contributing to urban renewal and protection of the environment. These actions are mainly based on a belief that each citizen is ethically and morally obliged to directly take part in defending and promoting projects of general and collective interest. Active citizenship brings citizens and political representatives closer, broadening access to political decisions and making local administration more transparent. This type of action can put pressure on institutions or can also act independently, planning and managing projects, sometimes directly referring to European or international institutions. The idea of the common good is indispensable in justifying and evoking citizen participation in the care of the public space. Action then is never in opposition to the institutions—whether present or not—but

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subsidiary to them (Arena, 2011; Arena & Cotturri, 2010). This form of collective action sees citizens protecting the common goods by looking after their own neighbourhood, their own living space, and places providing educational services—such as the local school—social, cultural, or other common spaces of the city (gardens, parks, fountains). In other cases, the idea of the common good is only implicitly understood or secondary to the very meaning of participation, which is seen as a personal and subjective commitment in helping to solve problems of everyday life. The second form of collective action identified can be traced back to the political movements of the seventies—political collectives with a radical or antagonist left position– but which today have extended their range of action to other areas of society. This activism continuously works to defend particular rights, and gain recognition of others, in a bid to contrast neoliberalism, and offer alternative ways of living. It operates within the arts, and aims to provide solutions for housing and immigration; ecology and urban regeneration. Even though some reference to political movements of the seventies (and following years) is made, with occasional re-proposing of leaders and interpretations related to the class struggle, this collective action does not see itself hostile or in total opposition to government bodies. The actors involved, depending on their short or long-term objectives, propose rebuilding institutions, some requiring reform, while others needing to be built from scratch, via self-legitimation based on jurisprudence. The management of common goods is an alternative autonomous to existing political institutions. Through a process of self-legitimation, collectives oppose public privatization, real estate speculation, financial capital, and neoliberalism in general (Mattei, 2011; Hardt & Negri, 2009). The common good can then be extended to culture and knowledge: symbolic places of common heritage, such as cinemas and theatres (Andò et al., 2017), and collective intangible assets, such as culture, art, open sources, or the Internet (Bollier, 2008; Bravo, 2001; Bernbom, 2000). In all the cases listed during the research, political personalities, intellectuals, academics, and artists are attracted to these collective mobilizations, sometimes inspiring them or providing them with direct support. On the one hand, their presence helps to produce and spread theories and ethics of action, according to the objectives and experiences of the groups. On the other, it gives form and visibility in the public eye, so networks and partnerships can be formed beyond the local context. Despite differences in objectives, and methods of participation, the two forms of collective

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action identified here both try to broaden the consensus among citizens, to legitimize their management of common goods. The main difference observed lies in the role attributed to the public institution, as the guardian of the rules of management and administration of the common good. In the first form described above, protagonists aim to enhance, not transform or reform, an asset and to participate in the decisions-making process concerning its use (management, protection, enhancement). In looking after the common good, citizen participation is seen as subsidiary to the main governing body, though this does not exclude criticism of that management or how the institution relates the public, and indeed, how the state intervenes (or not) in its running: the actors want to attribute a social and ethical value to their participation through collective action to support what they consider to be an inalienable asset of citizens. This does not involve calling into question the role of the state or the legitimacy of private property, but denouncing institutional inability to include citizens in the processes of management, control, recovery, and general mission of an asset. From a more antagonistic position, the second form of collective action identified holds up the common good as an appropriate way to stop the advance of private property and building speculation in urban areas and in the management of public resources. Private property, state sovereignty and the legal system are perceived as intrinsically linked to one another in upholding the present system of power (Hardt & Negri, 2009, pp. 5–15). At the same time, social struggle and mobilization around assets defined as common goods by the actors themselves through their political rhetoric, propose an alternative model—often experimented through specific practices (in occupied places, homes, cinemas, or theatres)—to the control and management of an asset by the State. The practices tested then try to implement alternative solutions to the market or to the neoliberal logic, defining the common good as a practice of collective use regulated by assembly processes, according to the logic defined as “direct democracy” (Gould-Wartofsky, 2015). As mentioned above, the current, more political, interpretation of the common good wants to revitalize old and new conflicts in an urban context, create spaces in which to experiment with different socialisations and forms of management (not only economic) that try to avoid neoliberal economic logic and the market. The legal position of the user of common goods, however, remains a bone of contention.

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The experiments resulting from these collective movements are manifold, depending on the professional background and life experience of the actual participants: • spaces of interpersonal interaction where actors form new social relations, while investing in city meeting places, and building platforms of action with different educational, social, and artistic themes of everyday life: these spaces include public squares and gardens, schools and theatres, cinemas, and other recreational centres. • Forms of direct democracy, tested through assemblies and management collectives, open to citizens and characterized by a conspicuous decision-making and budget management transparency. • Communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) founded not only on “saying”, but also “doing” (Wenger, 1998, p.  43), capable of strengthening the bonds between individuals and consolidating the group’s missions. Participation dynamics also provide a training ground, where specific knowledge and know-how can be shared. The community of practice favours collective grouping of individuals and plural identities. • Renewal, re-foundation or creation of bodies and institutions for the shared, democratic, and enlarged management of common goods. • Urban space recovery projects, programming of free-time, artistic or cultural activities aimed at neighbourhood social relations, integrating immigrant communities through intercultural interaction. • Alternative, eco-sustainable urban management and actions for renewing and recycling, so enhancing the environment and promoting ecological practices in an urban context. For some social actors, Europe can represent an opportunity to legitimize a democratic, personal, and collective way forward, in alternative to—but not necessarily removed from—local and national institutions (acting as sole actors). Europe can become a point of reference, a form of institution under construction, an integral and potential container for more ethical and progressive approaches and policies, sensitive and responsive to democracy needs, and open to new developments within a context of a greater sense of justice. Local associations, groups and committees, foundations and associative networks hope to obtain European funds with the aim of implementing economic, social and cultural development projects, while acting as direct interlocutors with supranational institutions. By

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doing so, associations such as Active Citizenship, Foundations and NGOs, or even simple organized groups of citizens are looking for alternative means to local institutional consent and funding, bypassing restraints of organization, planning, and finance. Acting independently, making use of individual knowledge and professional know-how, or even in collaboration with institutions, these citizens are trying to access economic resources to promote cultural projects, protection, enhancement, or regeneration of urban or rural public spaces aimed at environmental sustainability. In their endeavours, they follow development guidelines for the well-being of citizens and the enhancement of common goods, partly or completely neglected by the state governing bodies. As critics of the liberal and neoliberal system, participation could change and regenerate institutions. It is seen as an act of responsibility to regenerate the social fabric around participatory democracy. Apart from typically pressurizing institutions to act appropriately, these movements and associations for the protection and promotion of the common good, experiment new ways of making local policies to improve the daily life of individuals, and modify their own, in the process. Third sector groups that have undergone a process of institutionalization can then play an alternative role in producing welfare programmes (social economies and services) and promoting a culture of civic engagement (Roth, 2000, pp. 30–31).

7.6   Conclusions The present social and economic conditions have created a gap, with global systemic forces on the one side, and individuals and groups on the other. Within this break or opening, particularly in peripheral or semi-­ central areas of the city, relations between citizens and administrators are being built. In their administration of neighbourhoods and urban planning, governing bodies appear remote from or unaware of the real needs of the average citizen. Inadequate public transport and urban viability, housing shortages or problems of security and public safety, degradation and neglect, have become major problems in peripheral or semi-central contexts which need solving. In this problematic context, the working classes do not willingly share their lot with new migrants. The events of Tor Sapienza and Ostia, described in the first and second chapters of this book, are testimony to the precarious balance existing between immigrants and indigenous residents. Once again, the remoteness of the institutions, perceived as incapable of promoting and implementing effective

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policies for integration and for other social issues to alleviate the economic crisis, is a central issue for neighbourhood committees. The use of violence and blatant rejection, by individuals or groups, indicates how urgently these issues need to be addressed, in the suburbs. In Europe, as elsewhere, violence becomes a means to draw attention to conditions of hardship, such as the riots in the Parisian suburbs or the English suburbs (Joly, 2007; Farro & Maddanu, 2016, pp. 159–198). In some cases, rejection of immigrants in a neighbourhood is expressed through spontaneous collective mobilizations or single individuals, sometimes of a xenophobic nature, fuelled by far-right ideologies. Other citizen organizations act as pressure groups on institutions, calling for the application of laws and greater attention to positively transforming neighbourhoods. In some cases, however, this call for legality can be mainly instrumental, hiding forms of generic rejection of the “other” which immigrants, migrants and Romani embody. The demand that social or urban policies primarily benefit autochthonous citizens sometimes conceals forms of xenophobia and racism. Citizens of neglected neighbourhoods feel abandoned by institutions, and view uncontrolled immigration and increases in migrants as a result of inadequate urban and social policies or worse, deliberately caused in the interests of a favoured few. Fuelled by political rhetoric evoking calls for order, the demand for control and security then becomes central to protests. Conversely, other citizens are working to weave a new social fabric to include local migrants, often starting from the school as a place for training new citizens. Intercultural projects and actions by parents’ associations try to provide practical ideas and improve dialogue between the autochthonous population and migrants. The school thus becomes both a symbol of and a physical space for, new experiences of neighbourhood living. The arrival of a substantial number of migrants in Italy, as well as in other parts of Europe and the world, is linked to processes of globalization that result in new problems of integration involving various areas, with social, economic, cultural and political challenges arising within the host realities. African and Asian migrants living in Ostia during the eighties and nineties, were subject to extreme job insecurity and precarious housing, and had great difficulties in accessing public services and support. In other areas of Rome, such as the central Esquilino district and the semi-central area of Torpignattara, Chinese or Bangladeshi citizens set up commercial activities, provided employment opportunities, and housing settlements for fellow nationals. Dense relational networks have been set up, involving

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individuals and groups of migrants. Nonetheless, in Ostia, and in the Esquiline and in Torpignattara, migrants are not always accepted by the autochthonous population, rejection sometimes being expressed through explicit violence, as in Tor Sapienza, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, with demonstrations against the presence of a group of young refugees residing in a local building. However, both in the Esquiline and in Torpignattara there are also initiatives by associations and committees that seek to establish constructive relationships with migrants, to create a community of based on dialogue and understanding of different cultures and interests. Hence, the school is both the symbolic representation and practical application of integral, inclusive, and intercultural participation. The main hypothesis of this work lies in the idea that participatory movements can offer an alternative to the prevailing reality, and have the means to bring about change and transformation of the social context at hand. First and foremost, when transforming or grafting institutions, building alternative spaces, or proposing different economies and methods of participation, actors see themselves as autonomous subjects, capable of shaping their daily lives according to their ethical and social values, at least as far as possible. In different contexts in Rome and also in France, Roman or French realities, we have observed different forms of organized response to daily problems of neighbourhood life. Collective action, as expressed through neighbourhood associations or committees, cultural and political movements, aims to reconstruct a new social fabric, participants taking their own civic and subjective commitment as the point of departure. However, problems are confronted differently, in terms of closure, refusal, simple protest or even building inclusive projects, sometimes aimed at the regeneration of participation, well beyond the boundaries of the neighbourhood. In particular, we have identified four different types of actors involved collective action: • Actors who try to put together what they see as the broken pieces of some working-class neighbourhoods, proposing a more direct and supportive interaction between residents (even from different origins) through local collective action and direct communication with the institutions. • Actors who try to rebuild the social fabric of neglected neighbourhoods in the city centre or on the city outskirts, proposing a more

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direct and supportive interaction between residents. They call for greater legality, sometimes blaming the Romani and immigrants for the state of degradation, but regularly denouncing political choices that do not give preference to autochthonous citizens over migrants. Though these actors set up committees or associations, they pursue objectives that tend towards community closure: shared platforms are created with far-right groups or generically populist claims. • Actors who create forms of citizen participation to include all the different types of people housed in the neighbourhood; they are subsidiary to institutions, but aid them in carrying out social integration policies. They form associations or committees. In some cases, action takes place in schools, both a symbolic representation and an actual place of interaction across generations of different origins. This form of civic action requires the actual support of the school governing bodies. • Actors who occupy spaces and who try to build new forms of sociality with migrants, vindicating the right to housing. Their actions sometimes represent an antagonistic alternative to the prevailing institutions: they demand social justice and call for the rights of a part of the most disadvantaged population to be respected. Political-­ ideological references are rooted in the antagonist left and in the experience of the so called centri sociali, very much in context of the artistic-cultural avant-garde. There can be attempts to gain legitimization by the institutions. In all cases, these collective actions question the limits of the democratic system, and involve direct participation, with citizens actively intervening on their own living space: the school, the neighbourhood, the city, and the local community, made up of individuals and groups, Italians or non-Italians. By proposing yet-to-be perfected forms of democracy based on greater active participation, these actions are sometimes meant to reinforce institutions, or to renew or reform them, or even to act as self-­ legitimizing alternatives to them. Collective action arises in the gap—whether symbolic or real—that has been created between institutions in crisis and the citizens they are supposed to serve.

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7.6.1  A Restless City on the Edge From our observation, the urban context of the Italian capital can be summarized as being in a state of restlessness: in times seen as exceptional, anxiety is accompanied by a desire to return to a perceived normal state of affairs. The city is made up of individuals, groups and collectives seeking different interests and cultural references. Differences across groups remain evident, with migrants still remaining in a precarious peripheral position, even when living and working at the centre of the city. Migrants are the subject, and object, of local as well as national organizations of differing types: questions of identity oppose ideals of solidarity; reactionary stances oppose progressive beliefs and practices. Moreover, immigrants and migrants are also the involuntary test-bench of Western democracies, hesitant as to how to act, whether, on the one hand, to embrace universal human rights and ethics, while on the other, to maintain popular consensus and convenience, involving demagogic solutions and separation. In this book, recurring and commonly used terms such as degradation, neglect, mistrust, but also participation, sharing and integration have been pinpointed and used in an attempt to translate citizen perception of their own living space of life, in sociological terms. There is also a broader dimension of deconstruction of social relations due to systemic forces acting separately from the social life of individuals. The term “degradation”, is frequently widely used by our observed groups, and also by the media, which consequently depicts the Roman urban reality is a particular way. We can distinguish two semantic contexts, the word assuming different connotations: in the first and most common use, the word is used to describe events and places in the city, as observed or perceived, to express a lack of care or state of neglect, usually on the part of institutions. “Active citizenship” aims to recover these neglected places, seen as part of the common good, or as interpreted as such. The second use of the word refers not so much to structural, physical decay or neglect of a place or the city, but rather to indicate the end of an ideal of what the city, the neighbourhood or the community were conceived as. In effect, the city no longer exists, being replaced by a fragmented two or three-headed, uncontrolled and uncontrollable body, no longer guaranteeing future development and protection, leaving its inhabitants with feelings of anguish and uncertainty. In the imaginary of the “ inexistent city “, the presence of immigrants seems to be perceived as an aspect in itself of degradation: for some, it is the measure of the change

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they do not want. They feel that their culture, ways of life and even ethnic-­ racial identity, are threatened and will be lost. City restlessness then follows in the wake of the difficulty, sometimes the impossibility, of imagining and living in an urban space which will enable and provide a sense of sharing. Institutions seem unable to stem fragmentation, and to formulate a coherent social project. Their incapacities have created a sense of mistrust in citizens, who perceive a continuation of corruption and misrule of the city. In the search for adequate governance of the common good, there is a swing between the call for more legality, and citizens taking over the management of certain spaces in the city. Assuming self-legitimization and taking active participation as necessary (given the present state of affairs), citizens place pressure on institutions or carve out spaces for action to counter degradation, corruption, and inefficiencies. They are change agents, repositories of experimentations of sociality, care, and alternative management of the city spaces of their daily lives. As such, the notion of participation entails concepts such as subjectivation and subject. Participatory forms express multiple intentions in different areas of social life. Actions and proposals for direct interventions on the makeup of both the city centre and peripheral areas, increases the desire to be included in the decision-making process, that process being increasingly extended to different social actors. Subjects and groups build formulas terms of dialogue and organization to channel actions and experiment new sociality, starting from the daily experiences of their own life. How critical issues of today are perceived and how institutions are seen as outdated, has led to a new form of participation, both in traditionally political terms, and in the attention paid to the issue of the care of common goods and the participatory management of public affairs.

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Newspaper Articles Bennhold, K. (2018, August 30). Chemnitz Protests Show New Strength of Germany’s Far Right. The New York Times. Bierbach, M. (2017, September 24). German General Election. AfD, CDU, SPD: Where Do German Parties Stand on Refugees, Asylum and Immigration? DW. Made for Minds. Smale, A. (2015, January 5). Anti-Immigration Rallies in Germany. Defy Calls to Desist. The New York Times.

Correction to: Restless Cities on the Edge

Correction to: A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6 The original version of this book was published with incorrect affiliation for the 2nd author Dr. Simone Maddanu. It has now been changed from “University of Tampa” to “University of South Florida” in this revised version.

The updated version of this book can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­91323-­6 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6_8

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Index1

A Authoritarian leaders, 188 B Bangladeshi/Bangladesh, Bangla, 9, 10, 49, 96, 97, 99, 99n12, 100n16, 101–105, 103n22, 111, 127, 133–137, 134n12, 139, 140, 151, 154 C Caporalato bonded labour, 180 Chinese/China, 9, 10, 99, 100, 100n16, 118, 128, 130–133, 133n9, 135, 140, 151, 154 Citizens/citizenship, 23, 24, 32–34, 34n18, 40, 40n21, 41, 43, 44,

44n28, 48, 49, 97n4, 100n18, 121, 145n20, 153, 169n21, 173, 177, 177n40, 179n44, 179n45, 181 Cittadinanzattiva, 144, 147n22, 150 Collective action, 1n1, 2, 7, 66, 67, 71, 84, 85, 115, 145, 148, 155 Collective mobilization collective action, 178 Common good(s)/commons, 2, 10, 12, 13, 82, 111, 112, 152, 153, 155 Communitarianism, 27 Community, 27, 30, 32, 34, 35, 42, 47, 50, 51 Corruption/corrupt, 14–18, 16n10, 17n17, 17n18, 17n19, 28n9, 31, 65, 78, 78n36, 80, 148, 149

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. L. Farro, S. Maddanu, Restless Cities on the Edge, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91323-6

249

250 

INDEX

D Decline, 6, 15, 27, 39, 75, 76, 105, 110, 123, 142 Degradation, 2, 6–8, 13, 15, 35, 50–52, 55, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67, 71, 73, 77, 78n36, 80, 82, 85, 87, 95, 108, 123, 141–149, 146n21, 154 Democratic leaders, 188 Democratic Party (DP) Partito Democratico (PD), 28n8, 28n9, 172 Di Donato, 10, 13, 117, 120, 151, 152, 155 E Economic crisis, 12, 15, 43, 75, 119, 148 Encampment(s), 44 asylum seekers, camp, refugee, 43 Esquilino, 7, 9, 13, 15, 111, 120, 127–155, 127n1, 127n2, 128n5, 130n7, 134n11, 134n12, 135n15, 144n19 Europe/European Union (EU), 5–7, 9, 45, 50, 61, 62n17, 65, 79n38, 84, 102, 135n13, 159, 162–164, 169, 172n27, 178 F Far-right, 25, 28n8, 28n9, 33, 37, 56, 56n4, 56n5, 57 Fascism/fascist, 25, 26, 35, 37 FdI, see Fratelli d'Italia, Brothers of Italy FN, see Front National/National Front Fratelli d'Italia, Brothers of Italy (FdI), 166, 167, 167n17, 185, 198 Front National/National Front (FN), 56n5, 193, 194

G Globalization/global, 5, 14, 23, 28, 28n8, 33, 51, 71, 76, 88, 148 H Homogenous community homogeneous body, 27 Housing, 3, 3n4, 5, 8, 9, 14, 17n12, 37–42, 48, 52, 57n7, 59–62, 60n12, 61n15, 64, 67, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 81–88, 81n40, 83n42, 96, 103, 110, 110n23, 128, 130, 143 I Identity, 27–29, 32, 50, 52 Immigrant(s)/migrant(s), 1–5, 2n2, 6n7, 8, 11–13, 23–25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 44, 49–51, 56, 57, 61, 62n17, 65, 66, 68, 68n24, 77, 79, 88, 96–99, 96n2, 101, 105, 108, 112, 116, 117, 121, 123, 128, 129, 131, 134n12, 140–145, 151, 154, 160–163, 165, 169, 175, 178–180 Industrial society postindustrial, 7, 71, 76 Insecurity precarious, uncertainty, 46, 48 Institutions political institution, cultural institution, 2, 4, 5, 7–10, 13–17, 27, 31, 38, 52, 58, 66, 68, 71, 72, 77–80, 84, 101, 106, 112, 113, 143, 145, 147–150, 147n22, 153n24, 154

 INDEX 

251

Integration, 1, 2, 8, 9, 13, 23, 31, 50, 51, 59, 67, 68n24, 72, 76–78, 83, 105, 108, 109, 112, 114–118, 120, 121, 133n9, 155 International migration, 23, 33 Islam Muslim, 49, 50 Italian Social Movement (MSI) far-right wing, 31 Ius culturae, 179n45 Ius sanguinis, 179n44 Ius soli, 179, 179n44

Northern League/Lega Nord (NL), 28, 28n8, 161, 166–175, 167n17, 169n21, 172n27, 180

L Left-wing, 144, 146, 179, 180

P Parents/parenting/parenthood, 152 Participation, 2, 7, 10, 10n8, 12, 13, 15, 16n10, 44n28, 68, 111, 116, 119–123, 136, 140, 141, 143, 145n20, 146, 147, 147n22, 150, 152, 153n24, 155 Partito Democratico (PD), 144n19, 197, 197–198n12 PD, see Partito Democratico Periphery/peripheral, 32, 68, 180 Philippines, 99, 128, 134, 138, 140, 151 Piazza Vittorio Esquilino, 10, 56n4, 103–105, 111, 128, 130n7, 131–137, 134n10, 139–144, 140n17, 150 Pisacane, 10, 13, 96, 103, 113–123, 113n27, 114n30, 155 Populism/populist, 11, 12, 165, 167n16, 172, 173, 175, 185–192, 186n1 Precarious, 3n4, 12, 14, 59, 61, 71, 78, 88, 141, 142 precariousness, uncertainty, 31, 36, 41, 42, 44n27, 46 Protest, 9, 15, 31, 33, 42, 55, 56, 56n6, 62, 66, 67, 96, 145, 148

M Migrants, 5, 6, 8–12, 16n11, 17, 23, 26, 28–37, 34n18, 43, 43n25, 43n26, 44, 44n27, 47–52, 55, 57, 58, 65–69, 72, 72n26, 76–78, 79n38, 80, 83, 84, 87, 88, 96, 98, 114, 114n30, 123, 128, 138, 140, 142, 148, 154, 159n1, 160–165, 160n3, 160n5, 161n6, 164n10, 167–171, 173, 175, 177–181, 178n42 Mosque Muslim, Islam, 49–51 Multiethnic multicultural, 88, 112, 114, 121, 122, 140, 151, 154 Muslim, 8, 49, 50, 104, 169, 169n21 N NL, see Northern League/Lega Nord Non-governmental organizations (NGO), 17n17

O Ostia, 39 Lido, 24–27, 24n2, 25n3, 25n4, 25n5, 29–31, 29n10, 30n11, 33–52, 33n15, 33n16, 40n20, 41n22, 42n23, 42n24, 43n26, 49n32

252 

INDEX

R Racial enthnic, 29, 32, 34n18, 35, 36 Rassemblement National (RN), 193 Refugees asylum, 33, 34n18 asylum seekers, 55, 138, 163, 165, 167, 170, 177 Revolt riot, violent, 37 RN, see Rassemblement National Romani/Roma people, 32, 33, 55, 56, 62, 64–66, 64n19, 64n20, 68, 73n27, 78, 80, 83, 85, 88 S Sardines Black Sardines, 10, 11, 159–181 School education, 26, 30n11, 38, 44, 45, 52 Social actors, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14, 148 Social Centre, 60 Sociality, 76, 77, 83, 85, 87, 123, 145, 154 Social Movement, 28n8, 28n9, 31 Squat occupation, occupy, 80–87 Subjectivation, 23–30, 34, 51 Subjectivity, 178 actor, 34

Suburban, 179 Suburbs peripheral/periphery, 2–4, 7, 8, 24n3 T Torpignattara, 9, 13, 15, 95–123, 96n2, 97n3, 145, 155, 211, 212 Tor Sapienza, 7, 8, 15, 55–89, 55n3, 56n6, 59n9, 64n21, 65n22, 68n24, 72n26, 74n29, 78n36 U Undocumented, 43, 44, 47, 162, 163, 165, 167, 170, 178, 179, 181 V Violence/violent, 23–30, 34, 45, 67, 113 W Working-class labour, 30n11, 38, 41, 42 X Xenophobia racism, 24, 29