The object of this thesis are local conflicts in Verona and Modena, two northern Italian cities. In particular it analyses two specific cases relating to the management of phone centres, that is to say shops that offer phone and Internet services. These shops are mainly managed by residents of immigrant origins and their customers are mainly of immigrant origins too. The thesis points to a paradox: while, on the one side, the conflicts have contributed to an excessive politicisation of the issue of phone centres, on the other they have opened up spaces for phone centre-owners to speak up their voice. The conflicts under analysis are very specific in nature. Yet, they provide with a relevant example of politics’ dynamics in the context of the wider debate on urban safety and relating conflicts. The Italian sociological literature on local conflicts has been mostly focusing on residents’ narratives and on the causes that lead to the emergence of conflicts themselves. In this context, immigrants have been often identified as the ultimate cause for the emergence and development of conflicts. They have been treated as objects of policies rather than subjects of politics, particularly in the context of urban safety policies. It has been all too often been taken for granted that the politicisation of the securitarian frame goes hand in hand with the abolition of any democratic space for political engagement. Yet, these type of narratives, which have spread both in public opinion and within the academia, are very dangerous. Most importantly, they carry with them the risk of promoting the same power asymmetries they promise to overcome, by adopting a strictly structural reading. In this sense, the scope of this thesis was both academic and political in nature. It has been precisely that of questioning similar narratives. The scope was not that of ‘nobilising’ marginal actors, such as immigrants, but rather that of analysing contentious dynamics. Two were my initial research questions: on the one side I wanted to understand whether political forms of engagement, and in particular unconventional ones that falls outside institutional channels, could be investigated through the analysis of urban conflicts and the answer to it is clearly yes. On the other, I wanted to find out the conditions for the emergence of these forms of non conventional engagement. In other words, I wanted to find out under what circumstances they can emerge and what methodological approach could best help me seize them. Urban theory has been very attentive to interactions and dynamics between groups. Since the work of the Chicago school and of political scientists Piven and Cloward, well beyond a normative interpretation of what can be held as a ‘just’ city, urban theory has taught us that weak and marginal individuals tend to undertake contentious forms of action. My work is set within this tradition. As it generally happens in the field of political engagement, Italian scholars have first focused on immigrants’ conventional actions, which have been recently explored. Now the time is ripe to look at unconventional actions and this work wishes to give a contribution in this direction. In order to do this I set off to carry out a comparative study of two northern Italian cities, Verona and Modena, with the main idea of confronting their respective contentious dynamics in light of diverging political subcultures and opposing approaches to immigrants and urban safety. By doing so I could revisit the prevailing interpretation on immigrants’ engagement, that is to say the theoretical stance known as ‘political opportunity structure’ elaborated by structural scholars Tilly and Tarrow. In general it is evident that this model can explain only in part the scenario observed in the two cities. The introduction of forms of repression by police forces and the absence of allies in the conflict in both contexts, for example, suggest that the structural hypothesis holds true. Nonetheless, in spite of diverging political subcultures and a different level of openness towards phone centre-owners by institutional actors, it is clear that the latter have engaged in actions that are very much similar. To conduct my research I have used various techniques, including participant observation in phone centres, at phone centre-owners’ meeting and protests; semi-structured interviews to various actors, such as phone centre-owners and customers, policy makers and police officers, residents, shopkeepers and representatives of neighbourhood committees and other relevant actors somehow involved in the respective cases of conflicts. In addition, I have carried out a systematic press review of local newspapers, an analysis of policy documents and the proceedings of regional and local council meetings, with attention on politics dynamics. What should be stressed is that I privileged an ethnographic approach, by adopting a pragmatically sensitive stance, which is characterised by an overarching attention for a world in transformation, whereby public action is observed as ‘politics in action’, with a prevailing attention on processes rather than outcomes. Pragmatic sociology has allowed me to question the narratives described above. This has required different tools of analysis than those used to investigate power relationships alone. It pushes towards a sociology of action in which discourses can be analysed to reconstruct the critical competence of actors to produce arguments that are acceptable for others. Along this line, my attention shifted from the external limited that undoubtedly influence actors’ action to their capacity to move from one ‘regime of engagement’ (Thévenot and Boltanski 2006) to another which points to the fact there exists a plurality of forms of engagement. The authors also underline that all these forms of engagement are equally relevant with respect to public action as they all potentially contribute to opening up to a public arena. They also underline that the passage from one to the other is not automatic and does not necessarily represent an automatic response to power asymmetries. To conclude, this thesis tells us something about the res publica in Verona and Modena: it emerges that, regardless of their diverging political subcultures, what is truly different between them is the modality of raising consensus. Moreover, in both cities, the need for broader political inclusion is evident, as much as that of actively including marginal actors in mainstream governance. Protests on the side of owners certainly represent important actions in the measure in which they questioned an established order. Highlighting them has been crucial in order to prevent the risk of promoting exclusionary narratives that produce power asymmetries instead of investigating them, thus giving for granted that immigrants are marginal and hence passive political actors. Unfortunately, these actions did not prove sufficient to support a lasting change. The latter is rather a matter of establishing a new political settlement with durable relationships becoming an integral part of a system of governance. It is interesting to notice, for example, that the legislative experiment on the regulation of phone centres, as (semi)public spaces, carried with it the potential of promoting forms of institutional innovation and of creating spaces for marginal actors to speak up. However, the conflict was rather exasperated, with the main aim of building up consensus among voters, particularly in coincidence with the electoral period. Additionally, the debate was reabsorbed in a technical confrontation and the conflict very much politicised as a consequence. The case of phone centres has been apparently used as a picklock to legitimise similar interventions of spatial control, not only with respect to the immigrant population but also with Italian residents and in particular youngsters.

(2010). The making of urban safety and migrants' political engagement in Italy. A comparative ethnography of local conflicts in Verona and Modena. (Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, 2010).

The making of urban safety and migrants' political engagement in Italy. A comparative ethnography of local conflicts in Verona and Modena

SEMPREBON, MICHELA
2010

Abstract

The object of this thesis are local conflicts in Verona and Modena, two northern Italian cities. In particular it analyses two specific cases relating to the management of phone centres, that is to say shops that offer phone and Internet services. These shops are mainly managed by residents of immigrant origins and their customers are mainly of immigrant origins too. The thesis points to a paradox: while, on the one side, the conflicts have contributed to an excessive politicisation of the issue of phone centres, on the other they have opened up spaces for phone centre-owners to speak up their voice. The conflicts under analysis are very specific in nature. Yet, they provide with a relevant example of politics’ dynamics in the context of the wider debate on urban safety and relating conflicts. The Italian sociological literature on local conflicts has been mostly focusing on residents’ narratives and on the causes that lead to the emergence of conflicts themselves. In this context, immigrants have been often identified as the ultimate cause for the emergence and development of conflicts. They have been treated as objects of policies rather than subjects of politics, particularly in the context of urban safety policies. It has been all too often been taken for granted that the politicisation of the securitarian frame goes hand in hand with the abolition of any democratic space for political engagement. Yet, these type of narratives, which have spread both in public opinion and within the academia, are very dangerous. Most importantly, they carry with them the risk of promoting the same power asymmetries they promise to overcome, by adopting a strictly structural reading. In this sense, the scope of this thesis was both academic and political in nature. It has been precisely that of questioning similar narratives. The scope was not that of ‘nobilising’ marginal actors, such as immigrants, but rather that of analysing contentious dynamics. Two were my initial research questions: on the one side I wanted to understand whether political forms of engagement, and in particular unconventional ones that falls outside institutional channels, could be investigated through the analysis of urban conflicts and the answer to it is clearly yes. On the other, I wanted to find out the conditions for the emergence of these forms of non conventional engagement. In other words, I wanted to find out under what circumstances they can emerge and what methodological approach could best help me seize them. Urban theory has been very attentive to interactions and dynamics between groups. Since the work of the Chicago school and of political scientists Piven and Cloward, well beyond a normative interpretation of what can be held as a ‘just’ city, urban theory has taught us that weak and marginal individuals tend to undertake contentious forms of action. My work is set within this tradition. As it generally happens in the field of political engagement, Italian scholars have first focused on immigrants’ conventional actions, which have been recently explored. Now the time is ripe to look at unconventional actions and this work wishes to give a contribution in this direction. In order to do this I set off to carry out a comparative study of two northern Italian cities, Verona and Modena, with the main idea of confronting their respective contentious dynamics in light of diverging political subcultures and opposing approaches to immigrants and urban safety. By doing so I could revisit the prevailing interpretation on immigrants’ engagement, that is to say the theoretical stance known as ‘political opportunity structure’ elaborated by structural scholars Tilly and Tarrow. In general it is evident that this model can explain only in part the scenario observed in the two cities. The introduction of forms of repression by police forces and the absence of allies in the conflict in both contexts, for example, suggest that the structural hypothesis holds true. Nonetheless, in spite of diverging political subcultures and a different level of openness towards phone centre-owners by institutional actors, it is clear that the latter have engaged in actions that are very much similar. To conduct my research I have used various techniques, including participant observation in phone centres, at phone centre-owners’ meeting and protests; semi-structured interviews to various actors, such as phone centre-owners and customers, policy makers and police officers, residents, shopkeepers and representatives of neighbourhood committees and other relevant actors somehow involved in the respective cases of conflicts. In addition, I have carried out a systematic press review of local newspapers, an analysis of policy documents and the proceedings of regional and local council meetings, with attention on politics dynamics. What should be stressed is that I privileged an ethnographic approach, by adopting a pragmatically sensitive stance, which is characterised by an overarching attention for a world in transformation, whereby public action is observed as ‘politics in action’, with a prevailing attention on processes rather than outcomes. Pragmatic sociology has allowed me to question the narratives described above. This has required different tools of analysis than those used to investigate power relationships alone. It pushes towards a sociology of action in which discourses can be analysed to reconstruct the critical competence of actors to produce arguments that are acceptable for others. Along this line, my attention shifted from the external limited that undoubtedly influence actors’ action to their capacity to move from one ‘regime of engagement’ (Thévenot and Boltanski 2006) to another which points to the fact there exists a plurality of forms of engagement. The authors also underline that all these forms of engagement are equally relevant with respect to public action as they all potentially contribute to opening up to a public arena. They also underline that the passage from one to the other is not automatic and does not necessarily represent an automatic response to power asymmetries. To conclude, this thesis tells us something about the res publica in Verona and Modena: it emerges that, regardless of their diverging political subcultures, what is truly different between them is the modality of raising consensus. Moreover, in both cities, the need for broader political inclusion is evident, as much as that of actively including marginal actors in mainstream governance. Protests on the side of owners certainly represent important actions in the measure in which they questioned an established order. Highlighting them has been crucial in order to prevent the risk of promoting exclusionary narratives that produce power asymmetries instead of investigating them, thus giving for granted that immigrants are marginal and hence passive political actors. Unfortunately, these actions did not prove sufficient to support a lasting change. The latter is rather a matter of establishing a new political settlement with durable relationships becoming an integral part of a system of governance. It is interesting to notice, for example, that the legislative experiment on the regulation of phone centres, as (semi)public spaces, carried with it the potential of promoting forms of institutional innovation and of creating spaces for marginal actors to speak up. However, the conflict was rather exasperated, with the main aim of building up consensus among voters, particularly in coincidence with the electoral period. Additionally, the debate was reabsorbed in a technical confrontation and the conflict very much politicised as a consequence. The case of phone centres has been apparently used as a picklock to legitimise similar interventions of spatial control, not only with respect to the immigrant population but also with Italian residents and in particular youngsters.
QUASSOLI, FABIO
MINGIONE ENZO
urban conflicts, immigrants' political engagement, urban safety
SPS/10 - SOCIOLOGIA DELL'AMBIENTE E DEL TERRITORIO
English
7-set-2010
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Umane
STUDI EUROPEI URBANI E LOCALI (URBEUR) - 49R
22
2008/2009
open
(2010). The making of urban safety and migrants' political engagement in Italy. A comparative ethnography of local conflicts in Verona and Modena. (Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, 2010).
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