Between disembarkation and haven. Liminality and the performative value of the transit of Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum seekers in the neighborhood of Milano Porta Venezia

Journal title MONDI MIGRANTI
Author/s Giuseppe Grimaldi
Publishing Year 2016 Issue 2016/2
Language Italian Pages 19 P. 229-247 File size 189 KB
DOI 10.3280/MM2016-002012
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Placing the ethnographic research in the neighborhood of Milano Porta Venezia, the reference space of Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora in Milan, the essay sheds light on the productive character of the transit of Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum seekers directed to the North of Europe. By analyzing the structural conditions of the transit and putting it in an institutional frame marked by invisibility, the author considers the current phenomenon as a liminal phase in the transnational government system of forced migrations. A liminal phase which inaugurates a new dense space situated between the terms disembarkation and haven, that involves new social actors and opens new imageries in the construction of the migratory project. In this way, the neighborhood of Porta Venezia represents a space dense of social meanings where it is possible to investigate the social processes nourishing this phenomenon and its performative value in relation to the local models and the social belonging in diaspora.

Keywords: Liminality, Eritrea, Asylum seekers, Locality, Dublin System, Invisibility.

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Giuseppe Grimaldi, Tra sbarco e approdo: liminalità e valore performativo del transito dei richiedenti asilo eritrei ed etiopi nel quartiere di Milano Porta Venezia in "MONDI MIGRANTI" 2/2016, pp 229-247, DOI: 10.3280/MM2016-002012