Welcoming Refugees in the Camonica Valley: Critical Analysis of a Reception Model Between Opportunities and Limits
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Welcoming refugees in the Camonica Valley: critical analysis of a reception model between opportunities and limits. Beatrice Bellavia Supervisor: Bas van Heur Master thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Urban Studies (VUB) and Master of Science in Geography, general orientation, track ‘Urban Studies’ (ULB) Date of submission: 10 August 2020 Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude to all the people who supported me during the realization of this project. Firstly, I am extremely thankful to my supervisor Bas van Heur, for guiding me through the definition of my RQs, for his availability, and his motivating recommendations. I would equally like to thank Agostino Zanotti, Carlo Cominelli, Paolo Erba, and Angelo Mazzù, for sharing with me their experiences and insights, giving a huge contribution to this research. My deepest appreciation goes to the whole MUS staff, for this wonderful opportunity and for everything I have learned. I sincerely want to thank all my MUS coursemates and Belgian friends too, who became my family abroad, and with whom I was lucky enough to share the perks and joys of these last two years, not least a semester of global pandemic. Finally, words will never be enough to thank my Italian family, friends, and Daniel: because you always believed in me and for being there, even with kilometers of distance. 1 Disclaimer This master's thesis came about (in part) during the period in which higher education was subjected to a lockdown and protective measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The process of formatting, data collection, the research method and/or other scientific work the thesis involved could therefore not always be carried out in the usual manner. The reader should bear this context in mind when reading this Master's thesis, and also in the event that some conclusions are taken on board Declaration of autorship I hereby declare that the thesis submitted is my own unaided work. All direct or indirect sources used are acknowledged as references. I am aware that the thesis in digital form can be examined for the use of unauthorized aid and in order to determine whether the thesis as a whole or parts incorporated in it may be deemed as plagiarism. For the comparison of my work with existing sources I agree that it shall be entered in a database where it shall also remain after examination, to enable comparison with future theses submitted. Further rights of reproduction and usage, however, are not granted here. This paper was not previously presented to another examination board and has not been published. Beatrice Bellavia 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................... 5 2. State of the Art: Literature review and Theoretical Framework...................................................................... 8 Small towns, disempowered towns .......................................................................................................... 8 Small towns in Europe and Italy ................................................................................................................ 9 Migration flows towards Italy and Lombardy ........................................................................................ 10 Italy and migrations towards more marginal and fragile locations ................................................... 14 Small towns as facilitators of inclusion: limits and ambiguities .......................................................... 15 A separate category: Alpine marginal areas .......................................................................................... 16 The potential benefits and innovation processes in Alpine areas ...................................................... 19 Triggering innovation through reception .............................................................................................. 22 From the local to the global. Migrants and city-making ..................................................................... 23 Future challenges ...................................................................................................................................... 24 3. Case study selection and methodology applied ................................................................................................ 26 The perspective, the setting, the actors ................................................................................................. 26 Introducing the case study: the Camonica Valley ................................................................................. 29 4. Analysis of the case study........................................................................................................................................... 32 The Italian reception system and asylum governance ......................................................................... 32 An overview of the SPRAR system .......................................................................................................... 35 The micro-diffused reception in the Camonica Valley ......................................................................... 38 Going beyond: the social innovation ...................................................................................................... 42 Illustrating the outcome of the interviews ............................................................................................. 43 Why it worked and why it can work elsewhere, under certain conditions .................................... 44 The limits ................................................................................................................................................ 52 External threats and challenges........................................................................................................... 56 Ideal scenarios and possible solutions ............................................................................................... 60 5. Discussion and final considerations ........................................................................................................................ 62 Limits of the research ............................................................................................................................... 64 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................ 65 7. Appendixes ....................................................................................................................................................................... 67 Glossary ...................................................................................................................................................... 67 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 68 Interviews ................................................................................................................................................... 73 3 4 1. Introduction "Amare è un impegno da geografi, / esploratori che mentre vengono accolti / si fanno terra da esplorare" "To love is a geographers' commitment, / explorers who as they are welcomed / make themselves a land to explore" (Franco Arminio, Italian Poet) During the last decades, Italy had become a key geopolitical actor in the migration trajectories of thousands of displaced migrants. However, the national asylum system still shows some structural deficiencies and delays (Gerosa, 2019). In 2011, a series of political uprisings developed in the wake of the Arab Spring and generated a large and irregular migration flow, concerning tens of thousands of people sailing towards Italy (Paoletti, 2014). The national government reacted with the declaration of a "North-Africa Emergency" after more than 60'000 emigrants landed on the Southern Italian shores. The consequent policies have been defined full of “inconsistencies, alternating between short-term, emergency-oriented approaches and long-term ones going beyond irregular arrivals”, in a broader framework where the relation between political discourse and practice blurred (Ibid.). In 2014, a national plan was finally designed to cope with the arrival of more than 72,000 refugees, identifying the urgent necessity to organise a reception system “capable of responding in a dignified and quick manner to the arrival of migrants, adults, families and unaccompanied minors” (Italian Ministry of the Interior, 2014). The Italian policies enacted a territorial reallocation and dispersal of the asylum seekers, in the attempt of avoiding the concentration of the reception infrastructures in some areas (Galera et al., 2018). This made many peripheral and downscaled areas, with a rather socially homogeneous structure, experience diversity with a variety of outcomes (Barberis & Pavolini, 2015). The mainstream mediatic discourse, crystallized in the alarmist tones of the rhetoric of invasion (Barretta & Milazzo, 2017) reported of several cases where the local communities and their representatives were manifesting openly hostile behaviours toward the newcomers. Nonetheless, far from the spotlights, a few examples proved the opposite, showing surprisingly welcoming attitudes. In this way,