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Publications

Research publications in Border Studies, Migration, and Ethnography

I limiti dell'ospitalità

Jacopo Anderlini

Elèuthera 2025 Book

Through an archaeological investigation of the concept of hospitality, from its Greco-Roman roots to contemporary European policies, this book reveals the hidden grammar that governs inclusion and exclusion in our societies. Hospitality is never neutral: it is always a political act that establishes …

Border Studies Migration Hospitality Hotspot Asylum

De-presentify the border: social imaginaries and mobility justice

Jacopo Anderlini, Vincenza Pellegrino

Futures 2025 Journal

This article explores the relationship between social imaginaries and mobility justice, examining how borders can be 'de-presentified' through alternative conceptualizations of movement and belonging. The analysis draws on ethnographic research to understand how different actors envision and …

Border Studies Migration Social Imaginaries Mobility Justice Futures

The Alpine crossroads. Constellation of refuges, nature as infrastructure, selective border control

Jacopo Anderlini, Federico Torre

Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa 2025 Journal

This article examines the Alpine border between France and Italy as a site of selective border control, analyzing how mountain refuges function as both humanitarian spaces and border infrastructure. The research explores how nature itself becomes part of the border apparatus, creating new forms of …

Border Studies Migration Alps Nature Infrastructure

Humanitarian border: reprise. Anti-human trafficking discourses and security practices at the southern Italian border

Jacopo Anderlini

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 2024 Journal

This article examines the intersection of humanitarian discourses and security practices at the southern Italian border, focusing on anti-trafficking narratives and their implementation. The analysis reveals how humanitarian concerns become entangled with border control mechanisms, creating new …

Border Studies Migration Anti-trafficking Humanitarian Italy

The emerging of solidarity along unauthorized routes: postcards of migrant encounters

Jacopo Anderlini, Luca Queirolo Palmas

Sociologia urbana e rurale 2024 Journal

The aim of this article is to stress the possibility of a specific and innovative gaze on borders and borderlands: one that puts solidarity as an encounter and a fabric among people on the move enacting a relentless dynamism along unauthorized routes, constituting one of the key elements for …

Migration Solidarity Unauthorized Routes Encounters Borders

Razzializzazione in corso. Il caso degli insediamenti informali dei migranti nei distretti agricoli del Mezzogiorno

Enrico Fravega, Jacopo Anderlini

Sociologia urbana e rurale 2023 Journal

Nel quadro di un processo di globalizzazione delle filiere agricole, gli insediamenti informali di migranti rappresentano sia il simbolo di una condizione di povertà abitativa anche estrema, sia un luogo fondamentale per la riproduzione sociale della forza lavoro. Allo stesso tempo, questa forma …

Racialization Migration Agricultural Labor Southern Italy Informal Settlements

Crocevia Mediterraneo

Jacopo Anderlini, Enrico Fravega

Elèuthera, Milano 2023 Book

For the first time, a vessel of social scientists has traveled the migration routes of the central Mediterranean, stopping at the main hubs of European border control: Pantelleria, Lampedusa, Linosa, Malta. An unprecedented logbook that offers us a radically new perspective on the necropolitical …

Mediterranean Migration Borders Ethnography Italy

Camps archipelago: an ethnography of migrant agricultural laborers in the potato harvesting in rural Sicily

Jacopo Anderlini, Luca Queirolo Palmas

Mondi Migranti 2023 Journal

The presence of migrant workers in the agricultural system of Southern Italy is currently an essential element of this economic area. This increasing presence is deeply linked with the transformations occurred to agricultural markets and hence on the mode of production and distribution, not only in …

Migration Agricultural Labor Sicily Camps Exploitation

Imbrigliamento attraverso la mobilità ed esodo diffuso: assoggettamento e fuga nel lavoro agricolo stagionale in Sicilia

Jacopo Anderlini

Cartografie sociali 2023 Journal

The text takes into account mechanisms of harnessing and practices of escape within the spaces of mobility generated by the circulations of seasonal migrant labour in agriculture, considering the case of Sicily. In particular, the harvesting of new potatoes in Cassibile will be analysed, building on …

Migration Agricultural Labor Sicily Mobility Resistance

Emerging Forms of Sociotechnical Organisation: The Case of the Fediverse

Jacopo Anderlini, Carlo Milani

Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities (eds. Armano, E., Briziarelli M., Risi E.) 2022 Chapter

Recently, following events at Cambridge Analytica that put commercial social media under scrutiny, a public debate emerged around corporate digital platforms focused not only on critically analysing their social, economic, political impact but on the creation of alternative spaces of digital …

Fediverse Digital Platforms Sociotechnical Organisation Digital Ethnography

Borderland Italia. Regime di frontiera e autonomia delle migrazioni

Jacopo Anderlini, Davide Filippi, Luca Giliberti

DeriveApprodi, Roma 2022 Book

In the Europe of the 'reception crisis', this volume analyzes the multiple dimensions that qualify Italy as a borderland, defining the conflictual relationship between the agency of migrant subjectivities in transit between the borders of the European Union, the solidarity networks that support them …

Italy Borders Migration Autonomy Border Regime

The hole in the hotspot. Undocumented migration in Lampedusa between insularity and detention

Luca Giliberti, Jacopo Anderlini

Lo Squaderno 2022 Journal

For the past thirty years, Lampedusa has been at the centre of undocumented mobility towards Europe: a process in which the island has been transformed into a border, and the border into a spectacle. This contribution stems from an ethnographic research that began in Lampedusa in December 2020, at …

Hotspot Lampedusa Migration Detention Pandemic

Fitful circulations: Unauthorized movements in the Sicilian transit zone

Jacopo Anderlini

International Migration 2022 Journal

The region of Sicily, in the south of Italy, has been at the centre of diverse contemporary migration movements since the 90s. This has made it an ideal setting for experimentation of new border control devices and procedures at the EU level. This article analyses the constellation of migrant …

Circulations Migration Sicily Border Studies Ethnography

Approccio hotspot e navi quarantena

Jacopo Anderlini, Silvia Di Meo

Rivista Il Mulino 2021 Journal

Le politiche confinarie europee ai tempi della pandemia stanno mettendo in luce tutti i limiti di un sistema inadeguato e foriero di problemi e, soprattutto, disumanità.

Hotspot approach Quarantine ships Pandemic European borders

Intorno all'hotspot. Spazialità e temporalità di un dispositivo confinario

Jacopo Anderlini

Confini, mobilità e migrazioni. Una cartografia dello spazio europeo (ed. Navone L.) 2020 Chapter

The article analyses the specific spatiality and temporality regulating the hotspot, which sorts and partitions people who are caught within it, performing specific functions in the management of European borders. This piece is based on the case study of the Pozzallo hotspot, which I studied through …

Hotspot approach Spatiality Temporality Border Device

Border Troubles: Medical Expertise in the Hotspots

Jacopo Anderlini

Migration, Borders and Citizenship. Between Policy and Public Spheres (eds. Ambrosini M., Cinalli M., Jacobson D.) 2019 Chapter

The present contribution considers the 'hotspot approach', a distinct technology of management and control of mobility within the wider European border regime. This apparatus shows the linkage between the discourses and rationalities on security and humanitarianism, depicting what has been called …

Hotspot Medical Expertise Humanitarian Border Pozzallo

Cura e controllo al confine: scritturazioni e pratiche del sapere medico negli hotspot

Jacopo Anderlini

Mondi Migranti 2 2018 Journal

Starting from its definition in the 2015 European Agenda on Migration, the 'hotspot approach' has been adopted in different border zones within the European boundaries. This specific border dispositive is framed within the discourses on security and humanitarianism, depicting what William Walters …

Medical Expertise Hotspot Biopolitics Care and Control

Hackit 98

Jacopo Anderlini

Zapruder, Storie in movimento 2018 Journal

The article reflects on the relationship between digital technologies, communication and artistic experimentation in the community emerging in the second half of the 1990s linked to Italian hackerspaces and countercultural movements.

hackmeeting digital technologies countercultural movements hackerspaces