Embracing Diversity: the Establishment of a Reception Centre in Gioiosa Marea
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Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere Laurea Magistrale in Scienze per la Pace: Trasformazione dei Conflitti e Cooperazione allo Sviluppo Tesi di Laurea EMBRACING DIVERSITY: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A RECEPTION CENTRE IN GIOIOSA MAREA Relatore Candidata Prof. Marcello Mollica Lucrezia Ferrà Anno Accademico: 2016/2017 ABSTRACT This dissertation is an attempt to investigate how the distance or the proximity to the reception centres for migrants could influence the perception of local residents about the presence of foreigners in their cities, and whether the different position of the centre could promote or prevent the process of integration. As a matter of fact, nowadays Italy has to deal with the migratory phenomenon and the reception of those who arrive on the Italian coasts seeking asylum or international protection. In order to manage this situation, Italy created a national Reception System. To analyse the topic I conducted a fieldwork in the village of Gioiosa Marea, in the Province of Messina, Sicily. Through the participant observation, and a series of interviews I conducted in the village, I investigated the opinions of citizens and local institutions about the place where to establish the reception centre. Data collected shows that the main purpose is to prevent the segregation of migrants in the space of the centre and their exclusion from the urban space of the village. Furthermore, evidence demonstrates that the process of integration requires a real effort by local authorities to promote the creation of deep relations between the guests of the centre and the local residents. i INDEX INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................p. 4 1. MIGRATIONS AND ASYLUM 1.1 Right of Asylum and the European Union..........................................................p. 9 1.2 Asylum and the Italian Legislation...................................................................p. 17 1.3 Migration Flows in Sicily.................................................................................p. 22 1.4 Conclusive Remarks.........................................................................................p. 24 2.THE SYSTEM OF PERMANENT EMERGENCY 2.1 The Italian Reception System...........................................................................p. 25 2.2 Reception Centres and Spatial Arrangements...................................................p. 33 2.3 The Case of Castell'Umberto............................................................................p. 36 2.3.1 An Unprepared Village.......................................................................p. 37 2.3.2 Some Interviews in Castell'Umberto..................................................p. 39 2.3.3 Conclusions........................................................................................p. 44 3. THE RESEARCH 3.1 Research Methodology......................................................................................p. 46 3.2 Fieldwork..........................................................................................................p. 49 3.2.1 Gioiosa Marea and its History............................................................p. 51 3.2.2 Gioiosa Marea Today.........................................................................p. 55 3.3 The Interviews..................................................................................................p. 60 3.3.1 Institutional Actors.............................................................................p. 60 3.3.2 The Citizens.......................................................................................p. 66 3.3.3 Conclusions........................................................................................p. 72 CONCLUSIONS....................................................................................................p. 75 ii BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................................................p. 80 APPENDICES........................................................................................................p. 86 Appendix A QUESTIONNAIRE................................................................p. 86 Appendix B ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF QUESTIONNAIRE............p.87 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................p. 88 iii INTRODUCTION The aim of the present analysis is to investigate if and how the decisions taken at institutional level about the place where to establish a reception centre could influence and alter the perception of citizens about the presence of immigrants in their own towns and could allow to promote (or prevent) the process of integration in the local communities. The necessity to investigate the migratory phenomenon is related to the fact that migration flows are an essential element of human history. People have always had the desire to move all around the world for several reasons. However, in recent years, we have been witnesses of the increasing phenomenon of forced migrations. According to the data of UNHCR, nowadays 65.6 millions of people are forced to leave their own countries. 22.5 millions of them are refugees and 2.8 millions are asylum seekers. They are obliged to abandon their country of origin because of wars, civil conflicts, and violations of human rights, violence committed by the institutions or different guilty parties. IOM - International Organization for Migration - defines forced migration as “a migratory movement in which an element of coercion exists, including threats to life and livelihood, whether arising from natural or man-made causes (e.g. movements of refugees and internally displaced persons as well as people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects)1”. Actually, there is no universally agreed definition of forced migration since it is not a legal concept and it includes a variety of circumstances. On the contrary, the term “refugee” is well defined by law: as we will see in Chapter 1, the status of refugee 1 Definition available online on the website of IOM at the link https://www.iom.int/key-migration- terms#Forced-migration. 4 was recognised firstly by the Convention of Geneva, Art. 1 letter A, and it indicates a person forced to leave his country of origin because of the fear of being persecuted. Furthermore, it is necessary to make a distinction between refugees and asylum seekers: asylum seekers are people having applied for International Protection and waiting for the decision about their status; in fact, their applications could be rejected, or be accepted, recognising them as refugees or beneficiaries of Subsidiary Protection (UNHCR). In the present investigation I will refer to migration flows of refugees and asylum seekers because they are allowed to join International Protection and the system of reception. These migration flows are characterized especially by irregular migrations, often occurring through hopeless journeys by Eastern and Central Mediterranean routes towards Europe. Other States should grant these people the protection they need. Of course national politics are obligated to deal with this matter. In order to do so, reception systems2 are developed in each State, taking into account different levels of possibilities and capabilities. The systems of reception are based on the creation of centres to host people, granting different levels of accommodation: from those characterized by the only satisfaction of basic needs, to more complex forms of reception, proper of the centres that focus on integrating refugees in national society. The phenomenon of migration flows interests notably, as we are going to see in the following pages, “frontier” States of the European Union: in particular Greece and Italy, countries of destination. As a matter of fact, the Italian mass media deals extensively with the migratory question, even if the information they give are often altered. The words used concerning migrants are alarmist, especially in regard to the topic of security. The 2 The term "reception" assumes a variety of meanings and it involves different forms of accommoda- tion. In particular the term reception conditions refers to “The full set of measures that Member States grant to applicants for international protection" while reception facilities to "All forms of premises used for the housing of applicants for international protection and other categories of migrants and Refugees". These definitions were elaborated by the European Migration Network (EMN) and they are available on line on the website of Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission, ht- tps://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we do/networks/european_migration_network/glossary_en. 5 general perception of the influx of migrants is that it will be combined with a growing risk of terrorism, criminality and social insecurity, creating an irreconcilable gap between “them” and “us”: the population's concerns are mainly related to culture, religion and use of public spaces (Barretta, Milazzo, 2016). This situation affects the feeling of citizens about the presence of foreigners; it does not matter if they are asylum seekers, refugees or not. This happens principally because of the process of politicisation the issue has been exposed to. It is not hard to realize that it has become an important battleground for political parties. They encourage the categorisation of refugees as a threat,