The intimate life of criminalization. Affective governance in contentious migrant solidarity

ABSTRACT

This essay analyzes the affective and intimate dimensions of the criminalization of solidarity towards migrants. The core argument is that the criminalization of solidarity is a form of governance that acts through affectivity. It is mainly a way of containing migration by trying to govern the emotions of citizens, fostering feelings of hostility and fear while discouraging feelings of solidarity and empathy. The data that will be discussed comes from broader ethnographic research, investigating the affective transformations in solidarity networks supporting migrants. Data collection took place between 2020 and 2021 in Turin and Florence, Italy. It will be shown how, in the everyday life of supporters, the most pervasive forms of criminalization do not come from political discourse, but rather from the people to whom they are most attached (friends, partners, siblings, parents, etc.). This is the intimacy of criminalization. The situated, vernacular, and more socio-psychologically painful form of criminalization.

KEYWORDS:

• Affective citizenship
• emotions
• migration
• criminalization
• solidarity
• intimacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

Names of participants were changed throughout this article for privacy reasons. The information and consent forms provided to participants have been drawn up in accordance with the guidelines provided by the University of Florence regarding the processing of personal data and with the EU regulation 2016/679 relating to the protection of physical persons.

Notes

1 https://www.marina.difesa.it/cosa-facciamo/per-la-difesa-sicurezza/operazioni-concluse/Pagine/mare-nostrum.aspx

2 https://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/01/30/quando-luigi-di-maio-disse-che-le-ong-sono-taxi-del-mare-la-polemica-con-saviano_a_23347869/

3 https://torino.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/10/06/news/sgombero_claviere_digos_migranti-321028209/

4 https://www.ilpost.it/2021/09/30/mimmo-lucano-riace-condanna/

5 OSCAD Observatory: https://www.interno.gov.it/it/ministero/osservatori-commissioni-e-centri-coordinamento/osservatoriosicurezza-contro-atti-discriminatori-oscad. For alternative data, but which confirm this trend, see also the “Racism Database” of the NGO Lunaria: https://www.cronachediordinariorazzismo.org/libro-bianco/racism-documentedby-lunaria-on-cronache-di-ordinario-razzismo-database/. However, these data have a qualitative value. To have statistical significance, longer-term time series would be needed. Nonetheless, this is not a quirk limited to Italy. The similar trend of violent retaliation against migrants and refugees has occurred in various European countries, including Germany (Jäckle and König 2018; Eger and Olzak 2022), resulting in a true dark side of welcome culture.

6 ASGI is the acronym of “Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull'Immigrazione” (association for legal studies on immigration). https://www.asgi.it/chi-siamo/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Florence and University of Turin PhD programme in “Social and Political Change”.