Suchergebnisse

The so-called European migrant or refugee crisis, started in 2015, has marked the climax of an increasing European tension on the management of the external borders, tension that had been building up since the turn of the century. In this particularly turbulent period, civil society organizations (CSOs) lobbying for human and migrant rights have expanded their presence not only operatively at the land and sea borders of the European Union (EU) but also at the EU governance level. With the growing importance of agencies in the EU executive space in terms of competences and resources (i.e., agencification), advocacy groups have started to direct their advocacy efforts toward EU agencies, particularly in the Area of Freedom Security and Justice. The most controversial EU agency in this scenario is the 13-year-old agency Frontex, now called European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which is also where the presence of CSOs has become more substantial in terms of competences and ability to access information on the operational and strategic activity of the agency. The aim of this article is to establish how this relationship between Frontex and CSOs has developed over time and what has been the impact of this relationship on the agency on fundamental rights matters. This study addresses these two issues by, first, analyzing the CSOs represented within Frontex Consultative Forum (CF) on fundamental rights, their aims and lobbying strategies vis-à-vis Frontex; second, the evolution of their relationship with the agency and the rationale of their permanence within the CF; and, last, their impact on Frontex's understanding of fundamental rights. Considerations on advocacy activity outside of the CF are also presented by stressing the difference in ideology between organizations that decided to advocate for fundamental rights from within or outside Frontex.

"This book provides a comparative overview of asylum seekers' reception throughout Europe by adopting a theoretical framework based on an analytical approach to the notion of multilevel governance.
It challenges the tendency of the multilevel governance literature to overlook political controversies and conflicts and questions the assumption that it represents the best policymaking arrangement for promoting policy convergence. In doing so, it explores the functioning of the reception component of the Common European Asylum System in centralised states and federal/regional states and analyses its implementation at both national and local levels. The book reveals the heterogeneous development of reception policies not only across Member States but also within each country where solutions adopted at the local level generally diverge substantially. Furthermore, the overall centralization of policymaking on reception regardless the institutional structure, seems to leave little room for MLG arrangements tailored to specific localities and triggers tensions between central governments and local authorities.
This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of migration and asylum studies, immigration, (multilevel) global governance and more broadly to comparative politics, European studies/politics, and public policy."

The settlement of migrants in rural areas that are facing population decline has gained increased attention in recent years as an economic, social, and political issue, as well as an opportunity for development for local communities. Studies have primarily focused on investigating whether and how migrants are integrated and included within these areas. This article adopts a fresh perspective by examining how the meaning of "integration" and "inclusion" is given shape by residents and migrant workers themselves. Our research centres on a small rural town in Sardinia, where individuals from Romania and West Africa have relocated to fill job positions traditionally held by Italians. Based on participant observation and in‐depth interviews, we examine the everyday experiences of residents and migrants to develop an understanding of the lived realities of integration and inclusion. In doing so, the article calls into question the perceived value of these processes for the very individuals that are supposed to benefit from them.

Il contributo, a partire da una ricerca qualitativa condotta in tre aree extra-urbane italiane caratterizzate da un tessuto di centri piccoli e medi, propone una riflessione sulle implicazioni e ricadute dei cambiamenti normativi del sistema d'asilo prendendo in considerazione la dimensione territoriale dell'accoglienza e la ridefinizione del quadro di vincoli/opportunità entro cui gli operatori (e gli enti gestore) interpretano il proprio mandato e sviluppano la relazione d'aiuto con i beneficiari.

Over the past decade, asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Italy were accommodated in reception facilities located not only in large metropolitan centres but also in Small-medium Towns and Rural Areas (STRAs). Italy's reception system evolved quickly to face the peaks of asylum applications, especially in the 2015-2017 period. At the same time, the changes in Italy's reception policies were pushed by the increased polarisation in the asylum debate, which, in turn, has led to great heterogeneity in the development of reception practices. This paper argues that the reception-territory nexus is a critical dimension to focus on when investigating the implications connected to the arrival and establishment of asylum seekers and refugees. This appears particularly true in STRAs where the reception system provided new resources that, when well-managed, showed transformative potential, developing virtuous interconnections with the local territories and communities. These virtuous interconnections have, however, been affected by the continuous changes in reception policies and came to a critical juncture in 2018, when the so-called Security Decree entered into force. While further modifications are currently underway, such legislation profoundly affected the Italian reception system's functioning and working principles, creating new frictions and tensions among institutional actors and within the local governance of the reception system itself. We argue that the reform contributed to disrupting, both materially and symbolically, the previous virtuous combination of refugee inclusion and local development, especially in STRAs. Our situated qualitative analysis – carried out between 2019 and 2020 through discursive in-depth interviews – investigates the interconnections between territory and reception in three small to medium-sized towns and rural areas before and after this regulatory shift. It does so by introducing a novel analytic framework, focusing on symbolic and material aspects within and around reception. The ...

Over the past decade, asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Italy were accommodated in reception facilities located not only in large metropolitan centres but also in Small-medium Towns and Rural Areas (STRAs). Italy's reception system evolved quickly to face the peaks of asylum applications, especially in the 2015-2017 period. At the same time, the changes in Italy's reception policies were pushed by the increased polarisation in the asylum debate, which, in turn, has led to great heterogeneity in the development of reception practices. This paper argues that the reception-territory nexus is a critical dimension to focus on when investigating the implications connected to the arrival and establishment of asylum seekers and refugees. This appears particularly true in STRAs where the reception system provided new resources that, when well-managed, showed transformative potential, developing virtuous interconnections with the local territories and communities. These virtuous interconnections have, however, been affected by the continuous changes in reception policies and came to a critical juncture in 2018, when the so-called Security Decree entered into force. While further modifications are currently underway, such legislation profoundly affected the Italian reception system's functioning and working principles, creating new frictions and tensions among institutional actors and within the local governance of the reception system itself. We argue that the reform contributed to disrupting, both materially and symbolically, the previous virtuous combination of refugee inclusion and local development, especially in STRAs. Our situated qualitative analysis - carried out between 2019 and 2020 through discursive in-depth interviews - investigates the interconnections between territory and reception in three small to medium-sized towns and rural areas before and after this regulatory shift. It does so by introducing a novel analytic framework, focusing on symbolic and material aspects within and around reception. The analysis suggests that the stress and disruptions connected to the regulatory changes have had a negative impact on the internal organisation of the reception as well as on the refugees' inclusion and on the chances of local development.