La gestione del rischio e la percezione degli operatori del Sistema di Protezione per Richiedenti Asilo e Rifugiati di Roma

In Italy, Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (SPRAR) manages the second reception of forced migrants. This organization was founded by the Bossi-Fini law n. 189/2002 and is composed by the network of local governments, which uses the available resources of National Fund for Asylum Policies and Services provided by Government finance law and managed by the Ministry of Interior. Its principal goal is to realize integrated reception projects for refugees, asylum seekers, subsidiary and humanitarian protection holders in order to ensure their socio-economic inclusion within local contexts in cooperation with voluntary and third sector organizations. On 10th July 2014, local governments were signed an agreement between national and regional executive to create a national reception system to face the growing number of people who have arrived on the Italian coasts. The main goal of this system is to overcome only a material reception (food and lodging), in order to offer a “widespread reception” within urban areas. The strategy is to create an individual project and an accompaniment to ensure the integration of each person in the local community. The services provided consist in inclusion of migrants in the national health and scholastic system, orientation and access to other local services, professional training, job placement, legal assistance and social and housing integration . Indeed, it is crucial to emphasize that the Italian reception system is characterized by extreme fragmentation. Only SPRAR provides these services with the goal of enabling social and economic inclusion of hosted people in local context, which is why we talk about second reception centres. In Italy, there are, however, many different types of first and extraordinary reception centres for migrants . They are managed by the prefectures and differ in terms of goals, structural characteristics, services and receptive capacity. Only 18.7% of migrants are hosted in the SPRAR structures, while the remainder incurs the possibility of carrying out the entire procedure of the asylum application in the centres of first and extraordinary reception (IDOS, 2017). In recent years, the Italian reception structures have undergone a reorganization and redenomination phase, in which the SPRAR should have become a reference standard. In fact, this system has positively distinguished itself for its objectives, the structuring of his interventions and many best practices. This did not prevent bad reception occurrences even within SPRAR structures, as well as a large number of violent and verbal conflicts, some of which carried out by Italian citizens to the detriment of asylum seekers and owners of a status of international protection. These episodes, exacerbated by a political and media discourse that represents migrants as a threat (Battistelli et al., 2016), are the consequence and symbol of the fragmentary and contradictory reception policies adopted at a European level, in the individual countries and at a local level (IDOS, 2016). Instability and political, economic and social uncertainty, rulers in this historical period, are manifested in an emergency approach that is characterized by insufficient planning and a lack of coordination between the reception agencies. This orientation, supported by many and incongruent legislative changes, deprives the system of a strong structure and facilitates the overturning of the same principles of “widespread reception” of migrants in local communities. Moreover, this facilitates the affirmation of nationalist, xenophobic and localist drifts, as well as reception situations in which human rights are violated and which do not provide real opportunities for inclusion in the territories in a safe and dignified manner. Therefore, the conceptual distinction of the terms danger, risk and threat, used as the interpretative line of this work, appears fundamental to understand why subjective responses, in terms of perception and actions, differ according to the situations, as well as to manage the effects that derive in a consistent manner (Battistelli e Galantino, 2018). In order to realize the analysis, I decided to use an ethnographic approach that is traced back to the constructivist philosophical paradigm, where the vision of facts is investigated locally. Ethnographers, indeed, study subjects, artefacts and actions in their interactions, from an interpretative-dialectical point of view, without the claim of absolute objectivity of the results (Piccardo and Benozzo, 1996). Then, I have chosen to use focused narrative interviews because they turn to individuals, they aim for their “understanding”, and this is part of the renewed interest in the subject's centrality and in the “deliberately intentional” social action (Weber, 1922). It is also an approach that allows investigating deeply the phenomena. It is very interactive, flexible and able to empathize in the perspective of the subject being studied. This makes it easier to interview marginal subjects neglected by “official knowledge” and to rediscover the social function of research, which is “giving voice to those who do not have it” (Crespi, 1985, pp. 351) In addition, observation and fieldwork are supported by a strong theoretical basis that offers its help to the researcher for the understanding of the social world, providing an order that supports they in their critical analysis of the facts. So, empirical work and theory support each other (Silverman, 2002). Then, narrative approach is highly adaptable to the study of organizations and to analyse the collected data. In fact, this approach is characterized for attention given to concrete situations and not to general theorizations (Czarniawska, 2000). Hence, the empirical research carried out in 2016-2018 can be summarized in the following phases: 1- Analysis of secondary data and documents produced by European and national statistical institutes, private associations, protection bodies and by SPRAR itself. 2- Participant observation in: - a political protest demonstration against the opening of a SPRAR centre in XIII Town Hall, on the north-western suburb of Rome; - nine meetings of social operators working in SPRAR network of Rome and in the national CARA and CAS reception centres; - a SPRAR centre (20 reception places increased to 40 in the south-eastern suburbs of Rome, VII Town Hall). One year of observation and shadowing of operators: 16th January 2017 – 22th January 2018; - a SPRAR apartment (14 reception places for families in the residential area of Monte Sacro neighbourhood, Town Hall III). Five days of observation and shadowing of operators in January 2018; - a seminar of reflection organized by SPRAR and ANCI on the reception system in Lazio, focused on the role of the Regions and Municipalities. 3- Forty-one narrative focused interviews: - Twenty-four SPRAR operators working in SPRAR centres of Rome; - Seventeen asylum seekers and refugees from SPRAR centre observed in Town Hall VII of Rome. The intent behind this ethnographic research started in a restructuring phase aimed to make the SPRAR a reference standard of reception for all asylum seekers who came to our country. But it was characterized, as still today, by speculative situations, the high presence on the territory of large collective reception centres and managing bodies without the necessary experience (Olivieri, 2011; Lunaria 2016). Therefore, the analysis of the risk management and the operators perception of the SPRAR of Rome has the objective to unveil and analyse the contradictions and weaknesses that may arise within this model due to a reckless management that produces specific factors of risk. The hypothesis underlying the case study is that, although the SPRAR has been recognized as an ordinary model, it can also be reproduced in a distorted manner, not respecting the reference guidelines. The alteration between SPRAR in books, the theoretical expression of a principle, and SPRAR in action, its implementation (Pound, 1910), is caused by specific factors that can cause significant effects from several points of view. To bring to light these aspects, closely related to the risk management and the perception that its operators have, I achieve a classification of the risks that I applied to three different types of SPRAR structures (large, medium and single apartment). Then, I identified a series of outcomes involving the people hosted, the operators, the local community and the SPRAR organization itself. The decision to draw the case study at the SPRAR of the city of Rome is driven by the complexity that distinguishes this territory on a social, cultural and political level. In fact, I believe it can bring out the contradictions of the model as new forms of confinement compared to territories with reduced complexity. However, allowing a glimpse of a reception of asylum seekers and holders of a protection status also possible within urban and metropolitan areas. The empirical survey shows that an increase in the distortion compared to the assumptions of an integrated and widespread reception in the territories corresponds to a greater possibility that specific risk factors are produced. Which in their turn, crystallizing into unhealthy forms, can involve the people hosted, the operators, the local community and the SPRAR organization itself. The case study and the application of the risk classification, which I achieved based on the evidence revealed from the field, reveal how the identified risk areas (socio-spatial context, production of the service, recipients) and the corresponding categories, do not produce in itself a negative result. However, this can occur if a short-sighted management acts on these aspects and does not align with the proposed guidelines. Therefore, this classification appears to be a useful tool to identify problems and to develop preventive measures, aimed to improve the management of SPRAR centres in metropolitan cities such as Rome (and other contexts), by intervening on the identified risk categories and reducing the factors that eventually emerge. The analysis, focused on three different types of SPRAR structure (large, medium, single apartment) of the Capital, shows how this alteration occurs in a disruptive way in the large collective centres, the most represented in Rome. Meanwhile, greater adherence to the model is shown, with a modality proportional to the size, in the medium-sized structure and in the apartment. The distortion detected in the large SPRAR collective centres of Rome and partly also in the medium-sized centre, reflects the ambivalence of the general reception system. It promotes on the one hand the principles of a good reception that respects human rights and the autonomy of people and by another implements foreclosure practices and new forms of borders (Vacchiano, 2011; Van Haken, 2008). The field research shows that this happens on different levels due to specific material factors (location and capacity of the centres, management of internal spaces, activation of the services provided, etc.) and through the daily practices of the operators who, in a more or less assenting, controlling and disciplining the people hosted, shape their conduct. Therefore, in the daily life of the structures in which the situations described are involved, the principles of freedom, inclusion and autonomy supported by the rhetoric of reception system are governed by a neoliberal logic of citizenship that suggests the criteria to distinguish, in the same integration paths, who is more worthy than other beneficiaries (Van Haken, 2008). Although the case study highlights strong contradictions and weaknesses that come to life in the implementation of the SPRAR model, it also shows the realization of a good reception. That which, despite being included in an extremely complex context such as Rome, attempts to oppose the "logic of large numbers and profits" of large cooperatives and which implements functional inclusion paths to achieve the objectives. Alignment and consistency with the guidelines and the SPRAR operating manual, in fact, allow the construction of a real project of individualized socio-economic integration for the person hosted. 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