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In this article, I track shifting paradigms of refugee management in Italy in times of austerity and welfare state restructuring. Drawing on an ethnographic analysis of asylum-related bureaucratic work in Bologna, the essay explores paradoxical and violent effects of welfare decline both on reception workers’ labor conditions and on the dynamic of aid that they end up providing to asylum seekers. On the one hand, recent developments in asylum management in Italy suggest a transition to post-compassionate forms of aid, hinged more on the making of dutiful subjects ready to repay the “hospitality” offered by the state than on the moral imperative to rescue suffering bodies and lives. On the other hand, reception workers’ precarious positioning and unrest hold the potential for exposing the inherent contradictions of state-based narratives, thereby shaping alternative discourses on the causes and responsibilities of both refugee and economic “crises.” Abstract Questo articolo ricostruisce l’emergere di nuovi paradigmi di gestione dei rifugiati in Italia, in tempi di austerità e ristrutturazione dei sistemi di welfare. Prendendo spunto dall’analisi etnografica di un ufficio di supporto per l’asilo a Bologna, l’articolo esplora effetti violenti e paradossali dello smantellamento del welfare pubblico, sia sulle condizioni di lavoro degli operatori dell’accoglienza, che sulle dinamiche di aiuto a richiedenti asilo che essi finiscono col contribuire a produrre. Le recenti trasformazioni nella gestione dell’asilo in Italia suggeriscono uno slittamento verso forme di aiuto post-compassionevoli, incentrate più sulla costruzione di soggetti attivamente impegnati nel ricompensare “l’ospitalità” offerta dallo stato, che sull’imperativo morale di salvare corpi e vite sofferenti. Al tempo stesso, la precarietà e il dissenso dei lavoratori dell’accoglienza sono potenzialmente in grado di illuminare alcune delle contraddizioni intrinseche alle narrazioni statali, elaborando così discorsi alternativi sulle cause e responsabilità della “crisi”, sia migratoria che economica.

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Migrants’ squats often inhabit marginal and “out of sight” urban areas, placed at the intersection of institutional neglect and alternative strategies for self-managed living. Yet, at times, migrants’ informal settlements become highly visible places, as they find themselves in the spotlight as symbols of governmental failure and urban decay. This chapter reflects on the hurdles and conundrums of negotiating access as a researcher within such a place. It is based on a number of ethnographic encounters that took place at “Ex-MOI”, a housing squat in Turin’s abandoned Olympic Village that became catalyst of local anxieties, as well as of national xenophobic propaganda. Entering a housing squat – at once a public and a private environment – is by no means obvious. Yet, this scenario offers a fertile perspective to look at some underlying aspects of the ethnographic encounter, such as research subjects’ resistance to the “ethnographic gaze”, cross-gender and cross-racial dynamics within fieldwork, as well as the role of the “unsaid” as a telling social act. Refugees’ refusal to be “domesticated” for academic purposes testifies to their multiple attempts at re-gaining control over the representation of their lives, as well as to the inherent political nature of acts of homemaking.