Residential segregation in Southern European cities. The Selam Palace: an informal dwelling in Rome

Journal title MONDI MIGRANTI
Author/s Fabiola Midulla
Publishing Year 2024 Issue 2024/1
Language Italian Pages 17 P. 117-143 File size 229 KB
DOI 10.3280/MM2024-001008
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The aim of this article is to contribute to the reflection on the concept of “residen-tial segregation” in the context of Southern Europe by analysing its characteristics and, from a case study in the city of Rome, verifying its usability and specificity. Despite the fact that the "classic" forms of segregation are not often observable in the southern European and Italian context, we cannot help but witness multiple expressions in urban space of forms of socio-spatial residential segregation. Through a perspective that takes into account the historical and colonial discourse of race and its material and symbolic effects, I will investigate the case of the Selam Palace, an occupation for housing purposes carried out by a com-munity of migrants, in order to highlight the peculiarities of the empirical case in reference to the broader theoretical work.

Keywords: informal housing; residential segregation; racialization; Southern Urban Critique; Southern Europe.

  1. Agustoni A. (2017). In: Alietti A., a cura di, Razzismi, Discriminazioni e Disuguaglianze. Analisi e ricerche sull’Italia contemporanea. Milano: Mimesis.
  2. Agustoni A. e Alietti A., a cura di (2013). Integrazione, casa e immigrazione, Milano: ISMU.
  3. Agustoni A., Alietti A. e Cucca R. (2015). Neoliberismo, migrazioni e segregazione spaziale. Politiche abitative e mix sociale nei casi europeo e italiano. Sociologia urbana e rurale, 106; DOI: 10.3280/SUR2015-106009
  4. Alves A.R. (2019). Para eles, nós não somos humanos!”: habitação, territorio e a monitorização de violência racializadas em Portugal. Direito e Praxis, 10, 3: 2068-2096.
  5. Amato F. e Coppola P., a cura di (2009). La condizione abitativa degli stranieri nell’area metropolitana di Napoli. Napoli: Guida.
  6. Arbaci S. (2019). Paradoxes of Segregation. Housing Systems, Welfare Regimes and Ethnic Residential Change in Southern European Cities. Wiley Blackwell: Hoboken.
  7. Arbaci S. (2007). Ethnic segregation, housing systems and welfare regimes in Southern Europe. International Journal of Housing Policy, 7, 4: DOI: 10.1080/1461671070165044
  8. Arbaci S. e Malheiros J. (2010). De-Segregation, Peripheralisation and the Social Exclusion of Immigrants: Southern European Cities in the 1990s, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36, 2: 227-255.
  9. Avallone G. e Torre S. (2016). Dalla città ostile alla città bene comune. I migranti di fronte alla crisi dell’abitare in Italia, Archivio di Studi Urbani e Regionali, 115, 1: DOI: 10.3280/ASUR2016-115003
  10. Barbagli M. e Pisati M. (2013). Segregazione Residenziale. In: Haddock, ed., Questioni urbane. Bologna: il Mulino.
  11. Belloni M. (2016). Learning How to Squat: Cooperation and Conflict between Refugees and Natives in Rome. Journal of Refugee Studies.
  12. Belloni M., Fravega E. e Giudici D. (2020). Fuori dall’accoglienza: insediamenti informali di rifugiati tra marginalità e autonomia. Politiche Sociali, 2: 225-244.
  13. Bergamaschi M. e Maggio M. (2020). Residenzialità straniera e segregazione abitativa. La relazione tra distribuzione spaziale dei migranti e edilizia residenziale pubblica a Bologna. Fuori Luogo, 8, 2.
  14. Boccagni P. (2017). Migration and the Search for Home. Mapping Domestic Space in Migrants’ Everyday Lives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  15. Bourdieu P. (1992). Risposte. Per un’antropologia riflessiva. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
  16. Cacciotti C. (2020). Dall’emergenza abitativa alla precarietà stanziale. Pratiche (e significati) di convivenza tra italiani e migranti in un’occupazione abitativa romana. Antropologia Pubblica, 6, 2;
  17. Cellamare C. (2014). The Self-Made City. In: Clough Marinaro, Thomassen, eds., Global Rome. Changing Faces of the Eternal City. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  18. Cellamare C. (2010). Politiche e processi dell’abitare nella città abusiva/informale romana. Archivio di Studi Urbani e Regionali.
  19. Costantini O. (2015). An informal way to social protection. In: Bondla, Smidt, Furusaki, Ayele, eds., Cultural Landscapes of Ethiopia. Mekelle: Mekelle University Printing Press.
  20. Costarelli I. e Mugnano S. (2017). Un’analisi della condizione abitativa degli stranieri a Roma e Milano: micro-segregazione e periferizzazione. Fuori Luogo, 2, Dicembre.
  21. Castells M. e Portes A. (1989). World underneath: the origins, dynamics, and effects of the informal economy. In: Portes, Castells e Benton, eds., The informal economy: studies in advanced and less developed countries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  22. Chiodelli F. (2019). The Dark Side of Urban Informality in the Global North, International Journal of Urban and Regional Resarch, 1-19.
  23. Chiodelli F., Coppola A., Belotti E., Berruti G., Clough Marinaro I., Curci F. e Zanfi F. (2020). The production of informal space: A critical atlas of housing informalities in Italy between public institutions and political strategies. Progress in Planning, 149.
  24. Coppola A. (2008). Le borgate romane tra ’45 e ’89: esclusione sociale, movimenti urbani e poteri locali. In: Cremaschi, eds., Tracce di quartieri: Il legame sociale nella città che cambia. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  25. Dadusc D., Grazioli M. e Martínez M. (2019). Introduction: citizenship as inhabitance? Migrant housing squats versus institutional accommodation. Citizenship Studies, 23, 6: 521-539.
  26. Dardot P. e Laval C. (2013). La nuova ragione del mondo. Critica della razionalità neoliberista. Roma: DeriveApprodi.
  27. Dines N. (2016). From ‘southern’ to ‘ordinary’. Conceptualizing and contextualizing segregation in public space in southern European cities. Méditerranée, 127;
  28. Dotsey S. e Chiodelli F. (2021). Housing precarity. City, 25, 5-6: 720-739.
  29. Di Feliciantonio C. (2017). Spaces of the Expelled as Spaces of the Urban Commons? Analysing the Re-emergence of Squassting Initiatives in Rome. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41, 5: 708-725.
  30. Esposito E. e Chiodelli F. (2021). Beyond habitual political squatting: individualistic occupations in an Italian public housing neighbourhood. Housing Studies.
  31. Fava F. (2008). Lo zen di Palermo. Antropologia dell’esclusione. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  32. Fravega E. (2018). L’abitare migrante. Aspetti teorici e prospettive di ricerca. Mondi Migranti, 1/2018; DOI: 10.3280/MM2018-001010
  33. Gal J. (2010). Is there an extended family of Mediterranean welfare states?. Journal of European Social Policy, 20, 4: 283-300.
  34. Gargiulo E. (2019). Appartenenze precarie: La residenza tra inclusione ed esclusione. Torino: UTET.
  35. Garrido M., Ren X. e Weinstein L. (2020). Toward a global urban sociology: Keywords, City and Community;
  36. Grazioli M. (2021). Housing, Urban Commons and the Right to the City in Post-Crisis Rome. Metropoliz, The Squatted Città Meticcia. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
  37. Grazioli M. (2017). From citizens to citadins? Rethinking right to the city inside housing squats in Rome, Italy. Citizenship Studies, 21, 4: 393-408.
  38. Grazioli M. e Caciagli C. (2018). Resisting to the Neoliberal Urban Fabric: Housing Rights Movements and the Re-appropriation of the ‘Right to the City’ in Rome, Italy. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29, 4: 697-771.
  39. Hall S. (2015). Cultura, razza, potere. Verona: ombre corte.
  40. Hess S. e Kasparek B. (2017). Under Control? Or Border (as) Conflict: Reflections on the European Border Regime. Social Inclusion, 5, 3.
  41. Insolera I. (1993). Roma moderna. Un secolo di storia urbanistica 1870-1970. Torino: Einaudi.
  42. Laino G. (2015). Immigrazione fra concentrazione e segregazione occupazionale, scolastica e abitativa a Napoli. Archivio di studi urbani e regionali, vol. 114.
  43. Lawhon M. e Truelove Y. (2020). Disambiguating the southern urban critique: Propositions, pathways and possibilities for a more global urban studies, Urban Studies, 57, 1; DOI: 10.1177/004209801982941
  44. Leontidou L. (2014). The crisis and its discourse: Quasi-orientalist attacks on Mediterranean urban spontaneity, informality and joie de vivre. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 18, 4-5; DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2014.93947
  45. Lipsitz G. (2007). The Racialization of Space and the Spatialization of Race: Theorizing the Hidden Architecture of Landscape. Landscape Journal, 26, 1: 10-23.
  46. Malheiros J. e Fonseca L. (2011). Acesso à Habitação e Problemas Residenciais dos Imigrantes em Portugal. Lisbon: ACIDI-High Commission for Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue.
  47. Maloutas T. (2007). Segregation, social polarization and immigration in Athens during the 1990s: theoretical expectations and contextual difference. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31, 4;
  48. Maloutas T. e Fujita K. (2012). Residential segregation around the world. Why context matters. Farnham: Ashgate.
  49. Marra L. (2012). La casa degli immigrati. Famiglie, Reti, Trasformazioni Sociali. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  50. Massa A. (2022). “All we need is a home”. Eviction, vulnerability, and the struggle for a home by migrants from the Horn of Africa in Rome. Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 92: 31-47.
  51. Massey D. e Denton N. (1993). American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
  52. Mellino M. (2019). Governare la crisi dei rifugiati. Sovranismo, neoliberalismo, razzismo e accoglienza in Europa. Roma: DeriveApprodi.
  53. Montagna N. e Grazioli M. (2019). Urban commons and freedom of movement. The housing struggles of recently arrived migrants in Rome. Citizenship Studies.
  54. Mudu P. (2014). Ogni sfratto sarà una barricata: squatting for housing and social conflict in Rome. In: Lopez e Cattaneo, The squatters’ movement in Europe: commons and autonomy as alternatives to capitalism. London: Pluto Press.
  55. Mugnani L. (2017). Attivisti, migranti e forme di lotta per la casa. La vita sociale di un “Coordinamento cittadino” nella Roma contemporanea. Antropologia, IV, 3;
  56. Musterd S., Ostendorf W. e Breebar M. (1998). Multi-Ethnic Metropolis: Patterns and Policies. Dordrecht: Springer.
  57. Nur N. e Sethman A. (2017). Migration and mobilization for the right to housing in Rome: new urban frontiers?. In: Mudu, Chattopadhyay, eds., Migration, squatting and radical autonomy. London: Routledge.
  58. Petrillo A. (2018). La periferia nuova. Disuguaglianza, spazi, città. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  59. Pfirsch T. e Semi G. (2016). Introduction: Segregation in the cities of the European Mediterranean. Méditerranée, 127, Special Issue «La segregation dans les villes de l’Europe méditerranéennes».
  60. Perazzo C. (2022). Quale rifugio? Razzismo di stato e accoglienza in Italia. Una lettura antropologica. Roma: Sensibili alle foglie.
  61. Piasere L. (2009). L’etnografia come esperienza. In: Cappelletto, eds., Vivere l’etnografia. Firenze: SEID.
  62. Picker G. (2017). Racial Cities. Governance and the Segregation of Romani People in Urban Europe. London and New York: Routledge.
  63. Pitzalis S. (2013). Posizionamento dell’antropologo come metodo: un caso etnografico, LEMS Ricerca attivista ed etnografia militante, paper.
  64. Portelli S. (2017). Dove l’acqua dolce incontra quella salata. Idroscalo, ultimo grande quartiere autocostruito di Roma, Antropologia, IV, 3;
  65. Pozzi G., Cachado R.A. e Micaelo A.L. (2019). Vulnerability and Housing Policies through the Lens of Anthropology. An Introduction. Archivio antropologico mediterraneo, XXII, 21, 2;
  66. Raposo O., Alves A. R., Varela P. e Roldão C. (2019). Negro drama. Racismo, segregação e violência policial nas periferias de Lisboa. Revista Critica de Ciências Sociais, 119;
  67. Robinson J. (2006). Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. London: Routledge.
  68. Sassen S. (1991). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princenton: Princenton University Press.
  69. Scandurra G. (2013). Antropologia e Studi Urbani. Milano: Este Edizioni.
  70. Sheppard E., Leitner H. e Maringanti A. (2013). Provincializing global urbanism: A manifesto. Urban Geography, 34, 7: 893-900; DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2013.80797
  71. Squatting Europe Kollective (2014). The squatters’ movement in Europe. Commons and autonomy as alternatives to capitalism. London: Pluto Press.
  72. Tosi A. (2017). Le case dei poveri. È ancora possibile pensare un welfare abitativo?. Milano: Mimesis.
  73. Tosi A. (2010). Le condizioni abitative, In: ORIM, Dieci anni di immigrazione in Lombardia. Rapporto 2009. Milano.
  74. Tulumello S. (2021). The ‘Souths’ of the ‘Wests’. Southern critique and comparative housing studies in Southern Europe and USA. Housing Studies; DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2021.196639
  75. UNHCR e MEDU (2022). Margini. Rapporto sulle condizioni socio-sanitarie di migranti e rifugiati negli insediamenti informali della città di Roma.
  76. van Kempen R. (2005). Segregation and housing conditions of immigrants in Western European cities, In Cities of Europe: Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge of Urban Cohesion.
  77. Vereni P. (2015). Addomesticare il welfare dal basso. Prospettive e paradossi delle occupazioni abitative romane. Welfare Mediterraneo, 83.
  78. Yiftachel O. (2020). From displacement to displaceability. A southeastern perspective on the new metropolis, City, 24, 1-2; DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2020.173993
  79. Wacquant L. (2016). I reietti della città. Ghetto, periferia, stato. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.

Fabiola Midulla, La segregazione abitativa nelle città del Sud Europa. Il Selam Palace: un insediamento informale a Roma in "MONDI MIGRANTI" 1/2024, pp 117-143, DOI: 10.3280/MM2024-001008