The struggle for public space

Abstract

The presence of immigration in the European urban landscape contributes to the re-questioning of taken-for-granted use and meanings of the urban texture. In Italian cities, we witness a contemporary struggle between different groups and individuals for the physical and symbolical production and appropriation of public space. This paper is based on qualitative research in the city of Padua (north-eastern Italy, Veneto region) on the territory around the railway station where migrants try to seek out symbolic and material resources while using specific spaces. However, in the process of manipulating urban spaces, migrants are accused of surpassing the ‘upper threshold of correct visibility’. In other words, the level of visibility of their different bodies as well as the nonconventional uses of urban space challenge a ‘spatial order’ which is essentially taken for granted as the ‘right way’. The paper highlights how local policies and the local mass media create an atmosphere of continuous ‘moral panic’ through the circulation of a stereotypical image of migrants. The paper concludes by calling for a radical shift in the policymaking process that has to be strongly informed by the physical, symbolical and emotional production of urban space. Difference today typifies the urban dimension of Italian cities and the development of contextual and coherent strategies to manage diverse urban societies is now of utmost importance.

Key words:

• immigration
• public space
• spatial capital
• visibility
• local policies

Acknowledgements

This paper was presented at the conference ‘Living with Difference’, Leeds, September 2012. We thank the participants in the session for their engaged comments. Also, we gratefully acknowledge Giovanni Semi for his very helpful comments on the first version of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Though the responsibility for this paper is held jointly by the two authors, Adriano Cancellieri wrote the Introduction and the first section (‘Migrants as Spatial Actors') while the second and third sections (‘Visibility and Hypervisibility’ and ‘The Role of Policies') were written by Elena Ostanel. The two authors wrote together the concluding remarks.

2 The statistics of the paper refer to foreigners with official residency in Italy. For the purposes of this study, the term ‘migrants’ is generally used to denote populations perceived as foreigners, above all people coming from so-called developing nations, whether or not they are official residents in possession of a legal permit of stay.

3 ISTAT data, 1 January 2013.

4 The paper is the product of two research projects that gradually converged. The first one was conducted by Elena Ostanel between 2011 and 2012, funded by the European Integration Fund. It was part of the Project ‘Mediare.com. Percorsi di comunità attraverso la mediazione’, conducted in collaboration with the Padua and Venice Municipalities. The second one was conducted by Adriano Cancellieri between 2008 and 2011, partly funded by a research fellowship of the Department of Sociology of the University of Padua. It was part of the project ‘Minorities in Urban Space: “Ethnic Shops”, Associational and Religious Spaces between (In)visibility and Recognition'.

5 This percentage refers to the immigrant population within urban units nos. 5.2 (‘Stazione’) and 25.1 (‘Arcella’).

6 These data have been collected in collaboration with Claudia Mantovan for the research ‘La partecipazione di autoctoni e migranti alla vita della città come fattore di sicurezza urbana: due casi studio nei Comuni di Padova e Venezia’.

7 ‘Arcella’ is the section of the city just behind the railway station.

8 The names of those interviewed have been changed or omitted for the protection of their privacy.

9 It is important to stress that in Italy a large part of migrants do not have Italian citizenship and the right to vote due to one of the most restrictive European legislation.

10 Smith's (1996) expression ‘revanchist city’ comes from the French word ‘revanche’, literally meaning ‘revenge’, to indicate the revenge against the presumed liberal policies, mixing military tactics and moral discourses about public order on the streets.

11 The policies we analysed seem to have created the fertile ground for the affirmation of the anti-immigrants parties in the city government. Indeed, after several years of massive use of this kind of governmental policies by the centre-left government, in 2014 the Lega Nord took power in the city.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adriano Cancellieri

Adriano Cancellieri is a Senior Researcher at the University IUAV of Venice/SSIIM Unesco Chair.

Elena Ostanel

Elena Ostanel is a Research Fellow at the University IUAV of Venice/SSIIM Unesco Chair. Email: [email protected]