Beyond Compassionate Aid: Precarious Bureaucrats and Dutiful Asylum Seekers in Italy

Abstract

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.

Granting ‘Human Dignity’

“…Their frustration with the state, which they think is 'letting them down' by failing to provide the material and human means necessary to the services that welfare institutions are meant to deliver, sometimes drives them to act against or around current policies in order to help 'nevertheless' . As opposed to Giudici's (2021) Italian reception workers, whose precarious working conditions seem to lead to resignation and compliance, Belgian civil servants' frustrations act as drivers to the subtle subversion and challenging of state guidelines and institutions.…”

“…Studies, however, mainly focus on how migrants construct, perform and experience deservingness (Chauvin and Garces-Mascarenas 2014;De Coninck and Matthijs 2020;Lafleur and Mescoli 2018) or on how such deservingness is perceived based on quantitative studies (Van Oorschot 2006). Drawing from the works of Fassin (2010), Ticktin (2011) and Giudici (2021), this article, instead, helps unpack how civil servants concretely assess deservingness in welfare claims. It also furthers the aforementioned works by illustrating how needed deservingness-according to which those needing the more help are prioritised (Jilke and Trummers 2018)-is connected to truthfulness and partly assessed based on affective entanglements.…”

“…She argues that such evidence is partly mediated and constructed through affects-such as performances of suffering, racial or gendered imaginaries. Looking at asylum reception in Italy, Giudici (2021) contends that in a time of welfare cuts, compassion has been replaced by volunteerism: deservingness is no longer established based on suffering bodies alone, 'deserving' claimants are, rather, those willing to perform voluntary work and actively participate in Italian society.…”

“…Authors use political affects to denote techniques of governance (Slaby and Bens 2019), or affective citizenship to reflect on resident's attachment to the state (Ayata 2019). Only a small number of contributions, however, address the place of affects and emotions in the making of the state 'from below' , in the daily work of street-level bureaucrats and the concrete implementation of public policies (Borrelli and Lindberg 2018;Giudici 2021;Lentz 2014). This article addresses this gap by identifying two ways in which affects and emotions matter in civil servants' daily work and discourses.…”

“All we need is a home”

“…In Europe's restricted asylum system-increasingly informed by austerity, the decline in welfare provision, and fear of ethnic and religious diversities-the institutions and practices that provide aid oft en select which migrants to protect on the basis of "hierarchies of deservingness" (Holmes and Castañeda, 2016). Th ese hierarchies are built on overlapping moral frames within which the "deserving human life" can alternatively be the innocent victim, the compliant individual or the productive body (Giudici 2021;Ramsay 2020;Ticktin 2017). Together, they act as a "politics of life" (Fassin 2007) that distinguishes between those human beings who should legitimately be saved and those who should not.…”