(In)Visible Presence: Narratives of inclusion and exclusion in a Milanese public space

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(In)Visible Presence:

Narratives of inclusion and exclusion in

a Milanese public space

Giulia Merelli

International Migration and Ethnic Relations Master Thesis 30 credits Summer 2020: IM639L

Supervisor: Margareta Popoola Word count: 21914

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Abstract

Urban public space is arguably far from the pacified, freely accessible, democratic space which Western normative literature proposes. It is a site of contention, where different interests, norms and perceptions over appropriate uses and presence come into conflict. The visual is a relevant dimension to understand this process: in fact, claims to space by people with a visible migratory background are often problematized by the media and often responded to with securitization practices. This study contributes to gain insight into spatial practices and the manner in which visibility and invisibility are experienced and strategically influenced by Othered subjects in Piazza Duca D´Aosta, a Milanese square. The result is a case study on the paradoxical meanings that are associated with re-territorialization practices in public space, on a continuum between domestication and detachment, as well as an exploration of the complex relation between visibility as an experience and a practice.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to extend, first and foremost, my deepest feelings of gratitude to the study participants, who agreed to share with me their daily experiences and intimate thoughts.

I wish to thank Margareta Popoola, my supervisor, for the patience and understanding extended to me in this process. The multiple opportunities she provided for me to discuss and

improve my work were essential to complete this project.

I am also grateful to James Panton, who kindly supported me in the writing process and provided a quiet space and an open ear to express myself, both verbally and on paper. Your

continued trust and encouragement were pivotal to this achievement. To all my loved ones who stood with me in this process, thanks.

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1. Introduction

Urban space could hardly be considered a homogeneous, static entity: as a matter of fact, continuous projects of development and redevelopment, as well as the practices of those who occupy it, affect virtually all urban areas on both a physical and metaphysical level. Public spaces especially embody the dynamicity of urban environments due to their function as places of encounter and contestation among diverse societal groups. They are considered, by definition, to be publicly owned sites, democratic strongholds characterized by freedom of movement across them and by a high level of accessibility from all parties in society1_{. However,}

other strands of academic literature are critical to a perceived sense of idealization and normativity in that representation of public space. In fact, capitalist production systems are interpreted as one of the factors affecting the transformation of public spaces into places of contestation, where conflictual interests, norms and perceptions over its use collide2_{. In this}

sense, gentrification projects, surveillance technologies, policing as well as protests, occupations, religious and cultural manifestations are only a few among the palpable symptoms of contestation in public space.

It is in this context that the area surrounding the Central Railway Station in Milan, and particularly its adjoined square Piazza Duca D´Aosta, takes relevance. In fact, these spaces are occupied by travellers, business owners, commuters, sellers, and inhabitants, for different lengths of time and in manners that are often inconsistent. Hence, people from diverse ethnic and social background all participate in spatial production processes in that public space. For instance in recent years considerable numbers of displaced people occupied it, particularly at the height of 2015 and 2016, whilst several police interventions took place, aimed at “cleansing” the square from unwanted presences and practices, and mainstream media outlets declared the demise of multiculturalism in the face of angered business-owners and Milanese decrying “the degradation” of public spaces. As a thick plot of security discourses is continuously woven around these loci (i.e. sites), future plans by the local administration and

1_{Carr, S. et al., Public Space, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 50.}

2_{Elden, S., “There is a Politics of Space Because the Space is Political. Henri Lefebvre and the}

Production of Space”, Radical Philosophy Review, 10(2), 2007, p. 102; Soja, E., “The Socio-Spatial Dialectic”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 70(2), 1980, p. 208.

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businesses involve the rehabilitation of the Station and the surrounding areas into a commercial space, to “give back to Milanese citizens localities that have been forgotten for too long”.3

This research project was inspired by particular events taking place in spring and summer 2017, when a series of sizeable police raids were conducted and during which occupants of the square from visibly diverse ethnic backgrounds, regardless of their legal status, were stopped, searched for several hours and detained in large numbers4_{, arguably in an attempt to challenge the}

presence and practices of people of colour, who are perceived as “Others” in Milanese public space. Regardless of the continued efforts of authorities to displace and uproot unwanted bodies from public space, consistent numbers of people with a migratory background, some still on route to reach their final destination, continue to gather in the Central Station and Piazza Duca D´Aosta, making visible claims to public space.

1.1 Aim and Research Question

With this research, I aim to examine the socio-spatial experiences of inclusion and exclusion taking place in the areas surrounding Milan Central Station. In particular, this study focuses on how people of colour, with a visible migratory background, make use of the space of Piazza Duca D´Aosta, and their daily experiences of accessing spaces of visibility and invisibility. In this sense, this research provides a time-contingent snapshot of the process of social and spatial transformation taking place in a space around which high levels of conflictual discourses are woven.

The central research questions, which guided this research project, are as follows:

(1) How do people with a migratory background appropriate and make use of Piazza Duca D´Aosta in everyday life?

(2) How do people, subject to “Othering” processes on the grounds of a visible migratory background, experience visibility and invisibility in Piazza Duca D´Aosta?

1.2 Research Scope and Delimitations

The first delimitation concerns the research subjects, previously defined as “people with a visible migratory background”. “People with a migratory background” is a concept defined by

3_{“Negozi, un mega mercato e isole pedonali: così rinasce la stazione Centrale di Milano”,}

Milanotoday, 18/03/2018.

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the European Commission as encompassing not only people who possess recent first-hand migratory experience as immigrants to a country of residence, but also those who are stable residents of a host country and “second generation migrants”, possessing one or more parent who experienced migration.5 This term was intentionally selected because of its flexibility to

embrace the diversity of occupants of the Square: in fact the term “immigrant” can be particularly contentious when applied in relation to individuals who have perhaps been residents of a country for years, regardless of their legal status.

The “visible” aspect of their ethnic minority status was specified to limit the focus to people of colour, ethnically non-white, who are subject to racialized, Othering processes in Piazza Duca D´Aosta. “Othering”, in the context of this research, is understood as the process by which certain characteristics, whether real or imagined, discursively attributed to particular bodies by hegemonic groups, lead to the unilateral production of an excluded, unassimilable out-group, often subject of criminalization, commodification and victimization6_{. This process, in the}

Italian and European context and particularly in relation to non-white immigrants and sans papier, has been largely observed through the analysis of media and public discourse7_{. For}

instance Colombo, who in 2013 published a study on media discursive strategies concerned with how Milanese newspapers account for nature of places and legitimacy of appropriation, found that media outlets, when discussing the Central Station in relation to migrant presence, employed dramatizing rhetorical strategies and metaphors with negative valence8_{. Similarly,}

Marzorati confirmed a discursive link between migration and criminality when analysing Milanese media campaigns and discourse of grassroots resident organizations in the Centrale district9_{. The choice of focusing on visible minorities has to do with the assumption that people}

of colour with a migratory background will be particularly affected by dehumanizing discourses due to their heightened visibility in public space10_.

5_{“Person with a migratory background”, Migration and Home Affairs - European Commission,}

12/7/2019.

6_{Staszak, J., “Other/Otherness”, in Kitchin & Thrift (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Human}

Geography: A 12-Volume Set, Oxford, Elsevier Science, 2009, p. 2.

7_{Semprebon, M., “Urban Conflicts and Immigrants’ Engagement. A Comparative Pragmatic Analysis}

of Two Northern Italian Cities”, International Migration and Integration, 14, 2013, p. 578.

8_{Colombo, M., “Discourse and politics of migration in Italy. The production and reproduction of}

ethnic dominance and exclusion”, Journal of Language and Politics, 12(2), 2013, p. 159.

9_{Marzorati, R., “Imagined communities and othering processes. The discursive strategies of}

established Italian residents in a Milan city neighbourhood”, Journal of Language and Politics, 12(2), 2013, pp. 251-252.

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It is certainly recognized that issues of exclusion in both discourse and public space do not affect merely migrants: there are several other, often intersecting, categories whose practices are considered problematic in public space, such as the homeless, youth, drug dealers and unlicensed street vendors. According to feminist theories of intersectionality, diverse categories deemed as undesirable possess differing, although interconnected, experiences of exclusion11_,

hence the decision to limit the research scope to predominantly the experiences of visible minorities in public space. However, it is also important to acknowledge that some of these categories will be overlapping among the participants of this research and will be necessarily considered in the Analysis. Nationality and ethnicity were also not employed as categories to delimit the research scope and intentionally so, in order to address the diversity that is inherent to the population which gravitates around Piazza Duca D´Aosta and the social groups which are formed. Rather, shared practices were deemed a useful concept to understand experiences of people with a migratory background in the square.

A second delimitation concerns the frequency of occupancy of the Square by research subjects. In fact, only people with a visible migratory background who spend some time daily in the Square were involved in the study. In order to understand daily experiences of visibility and invisibility it was important to engage with people who spent considerable amounts of time in the Square, perhaps in different moments of the day as well. Hence, experiences of tourists and commuters with a visible minority background who simply passed by the Square were not to be part of the research scope, due to the generally transitory nature of their permanence.

1.3 Dissertation Structure

This thesis will commence by introducing a contextual background which aims at mapping the space of Piazza Duca D´Aosta and outline its continued relevance for the history of migration to Milan. Othering discourses and policies of surveillance will also be addressed to contextualize the experiences of people with a migratory background in the square. The following chapter will be dedicated entirely to previous research on public space occupancy and migration, and previous research conducted in Italy and particularly in Milan surrounding uses of public space and practices performed in it. The fourth chapter of this thesis will address the theoretical concepts which will inform data collection and lead the final discussion of the data. Conceptualisation of contested public space, spatial exclusion and the paradox of visibility

11_{Bastia, T., “Intersectionality, Migration and Development”, Progress in Development Studies 14(3),}

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and invisibility by Andrea Mubi Brighenti will be addressed. The fifth chapter will consist of the Methodology, divided into a section outlining the philosophical constructs which underpin this research and a second part in which the practicalities of data collection and analysis will be reported. The sixth chapter will consist of the analysis itself, where the data, previously coded, will be laid out according to themes which arose from observations and interviews. The final chapter, the discussion of findings, will connect the findings with the theoretical underpinnings previously outlined to answer the research questions.

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2. Contextual Background

Piazza Duca D´Aosta is one of the major squares that can be found in the Centrale district, located in the north-eastern part of Milan. This quarter is characterized both by its vicinity to the financial district and the presence of inner-city mixed neighbourhoods, populated by a high number of foreign residents since the 1980s and 1990s. The nature and function of the square relate mainly to its proximity to the Central railway Station, main hub of Milanese public transport network and second station in the whole country in terms of passenger volume. It is located at entrance to the Central Station and is characterized by a vast open space, in which three distinct sets of green areas are located, two of them on either side of the façade of the Central Station, and one in a semi-circumferential shape, connecting to Via Pisani, in direction of the historical centre.

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Figure 1 Milan Central Station and Piazza Duca D´Aosta

2.1 Milanese History of Migration through the Central Station

The Central Station constitutes a spatial point of shared experience for both Milanese emigrants and internal and international immigrants, as main point of access and departure in the city. In fact, before the 1970s and 1980s, emigration of Italians abroad through Milan Central Station was the most visible trend involving population movement12_{. However, since the 1970s,}

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presence of people with a migratory background in the area of the Central Station has been consistently recorded, with a diverse set of mediums. For instance, through the filmography of Giuseppe Bertolucci, in the documentary “Dirty Rags”, one could catch a glimpse of a different set of people who inhabited “every forgotten corner” of the Central Station, of whom the Milanese were becoming increasingly aware13_{. At the time, Milan was experiencing new waves}

of international migration, particularly of students and political dissidents from Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as the settlement of Somali, Eritrean, and Filipino domestic workers14_{. Moreover, the city exerted a considerable force of attraction for international}

migrants, mainly from Egypt at the time, especially due to third sector and medium to small-sized businesses scattered in the hinterland15_.

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Figure 2 Amateurial picture portraying social gathering of migrants in the area of Piazza Duca D´Aosta, 1990s

The continued presence of migrants near the Station is portrayed also in an amatorial picture dating from the late 1990s, allegedly showing Piazza Duca D´Aosta being used as a social gathering point. At the time, the breakdown of Yugoslavia and the collapse of the Communist regime in Albania led to an influx of migrants from the territories facing the Adriatic, as well as further Eastern Europeans from Romania and Ukraine, leading to a visible presence in the

13_{Panni Sporchi, G. Bertolucci, Unitelefilm, 1980.}

14_{Bigatti, G., “Milano e i migranti dall’Unità a oggi”, MilanoAttraverso, 2018.} 15_{Bigatti, G., “Milano e i migranti dall’Unità a oggi”, MilanoAttraverso, 2018.}

16_{Amateurial picture, (picture) Angeleri, G. And Columba, C., Milano Centrale – Storia di una}

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Central Station, partly described by Colombo and Navarini in their monography on the Central Station and its inhabitants17_.

Since 2013, an increased number of arrivals of asylum seekers from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea as well as West Africans from The Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, and Nigeria was recorded in Milan18_{. Visible presence of people with a migratory background culminated in the summer}

of 2015, with images spread by media of hundreds of asylum seekers stranded for months in the station. Due to the partial suspension of Schengen treaties, involving unrestricted movement across European internal borders, and due to the creation of a “hotspot” identification regime, with responsibility for reviewing asylum applications belonging to the first European country of arrival, many asylum seekers found themselves stuck in the Central Station19_{. Plexiglass}

shelters were built under the gallery at the entrance of the station and in Piazza Duca D´Aosta and humanitarian and medical organizations presided the space to provide first necessities. Development of emergency accommodation and camps in Milan and province led to a drastic decrease in the population of asylum-seekers who inhabited the space of the Central Station. However, by the end of 2016, NGOs charged with the task of providing accommodation were already decreeing the failure of the so-called “emergency approach” due to a lack of beds, which destined scores of asylum-seekers to homelessness20_{. Hence, the Central Station has remained}

one of the reference points for people who could not gain access to basic accommodation facilities21_.

2.2 Othering Discourses, Urban Renewal and Policing

For the past two decades several newspapers and media outlets have published articles problematizing the presence and practices of people with a migratory background in the Central Station, often associating minority groups with crime and deviancy22_{. Since the late 1900s, an}

Othering discourse that defines the diverse urban populations gravitating around the Station as “fauna”, in beastly, dehumanizing terms, and “spreading to nearby areas”, as if a disease or

17_{Colombo, E. and Navarini, G., Confini Dentro La Cittá. Antropologia della Stazione Centrale di}

Milano, Milano, Guerini Studio, 1999.

18_{“Cosa succede alla stazione di Milano?”, Il Post, 12/06/2015.} 19_{“Cosa succede alla stazione di Milano?”, Il Post, 12/06/2015.}

20_{Sciurba, A., “(Stra)ordinaria accoglienza. Indagine sul sistema di accoglienza dei richiedenti asilo a}

Milano e provincia.”, Naga, Milano, 2017.

21_{Dazzi, Z., “Profughi. La zona in Stazione Centrale é un dormitorio a cielo aperto: notte in strada}

anche in altri quartieri”, La Repubblica, 15/07/2017.

22_{Colombo, M., "Discourse and politics of migration in Italy. The production and reproduction of}

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criminal behaviour was being discussed, has been used23_{. Moreover, calls for “cleaner” and}

“safer” neighbourhoods were directed to city council and urban planners when discussing presence and perceived practices of migrants24_{. A discourse outlining insecurity, dispossession}

and fear was also adopted by entrepreneurs who, in relation to the 2018 urban redevelopment project of Piazza Duca D´Aosta, defined the aim of the project as to “give back to the Milanese corners too long forgotten”.25_{The plantation of trees and undergrowth in the green areas of the}

square was justified as a strategy of prevention for stationing and loitering, to do away “…with degradation, insecurity and abandonment. A space for citizens, for decency and green”.26_Even

the local city councillor tasked with City Planning, Green Areas and Agriculture, Pierfrancesco Maran, described the project as a way to “step by step recover the area of the Station”.27

Widespread use of language outlining the out-of-placeness of urban populations considered deviant contributed to the employment of different security practices, justified with presumed links to criminal behaviour occurring in the Central Station. Several raids have occurred, of whose the one most prominently discussed in the media took place on 2nd_{May 2017, when}

then-Prefect Luciana Lamorgese ordered a large intervention of riot police, police on horses, helicopters and police dogs to close access to the station and indiscriminately identify and search hundreds of people of colour28_{. A muscular method which, although in practice yielded}

few results in terms of crime prevention29_{, provided a platform for right wing politicians, such}

as ex-Defense Minister Matteo Salvini, to further promote a discourse according to which migrants, particularly if undocumented, possess no entitlement to occupancy of public space30_.

established Italian residents in a Milan city neighbourhood”, Journal of Language and Politics, 12(2), 2013, p. 260.

established Italian residents in a Milan city neighbourhood”, Journal of Language and Politics, 12(2), 2013, p. 261.

25_{D´Amico, P., “Nuova Centrale: Negozi, ciclabili e maxi mercato.”, Corriere della Sera, 18/03/2018.} 26_{“Negozi, un mega mercato e isole pedonali: così rinasce la stazione Centrale di Milano”,}

Milanotoday, 18/03/2018.

27_{Venni, F., “Un giardino aperto solo ai bambini: il progetto antidegrado per la Stazione Centrale di}

Milano”, La Repubblica, 5/02/2019.

28_{Sturlese Tosi, G., “Sicurezza: il modello Milano”, Panorama, 23/09/2019.}

29_{“Milano, la stazione circondata per identificare i migranti”, Corriere della Sera, 3/05/2017.} 30_{“Police orders dozens of migrants to move from Milan station”, The Local Italy, 3/05/2017.}

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Figure 3 Police raid in the gardens on the right side of the square, 2018. People of colour are lined up on a wall edging the grass beds, waiting to be searched and identified.

More recently, in May 2019, the Milanese “Committee for Order and Public Security” - formed by key figures in law enforcement agencies with both city- and provincial-wide authority - discussed the application of a section of the 2018 Security Decree to the area of the Central Station, in order to establish it as a “red zone to be protected”.32 Red zones were defined as

areas characterised by high density of population and touristic fluxes, schools, university and cultural heritage, in which access can be forbidden to those who were reported to engage in “anti-social behaviour”, such as low-level drug dealing, informal street vending, drunkenness and “aggressive begging”.33

Moreover, since the enactment of Law 125 in August 2008, a military operation named “Strade Sicure” (Safe Streets) has been in operation on all Italian territory. It was initially promoted by the right-leaning party Forza Italia, and extended over the years by varying governing parties, with a mission to “surveille sensitive areas to prevent and contrast micro-criminality and potential terrorist attacks”34_{. A fixed military garrison has since been placed in Piazza Duca}

D´Aosta, allegedly to raise the real and perceived sense of security in the area35_.

31_{“Operazione “Summer Clean” – Centrale Ripulita da irregolari e spacciatori”, MilanoPost,}

12/09/2018.

32_{“Sicurezza urbana: a Milano le “zone a rischio” saranno 5”, Milanotoday, 14/05/2019.}

33_{“Zone rosse”, a Milano nascono i primi quartieri antispaccio: via Padova, i Navigli e Arco della}

Pace”, Corriere della Sera, 14/05/2019.

34_{“Operazione Strade Sicure”, Esercito – Ministero della Difesa.} 35_{“Comunicazione”, Esercito – Ministero della Difesa.}

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Figure 4 Fixed Military Garrison in Piazza Duca D´Aosta

To conclude, interweaving patterns of Othering discourses, both at a national and local level, jointly with urban renewal and securitization policies, are continuously shaping the environment of Piazza Duca D´Aosta and the Central Station. Fear, sense of insecurity and a perceived understanding of Piazza Duca D`Aosta as a non-place, a space of transience and in-betweenness, have made it an unattractive gathering place for many Milanese. As renewal projects attempt to push into invisibility those who are considered undesirable and lacking purchase power; as many entrepreneurs, urban planners and local politicians seem to disregard the underlying factors leading people to inhabit and gather in those spaces; daily practices and experiences of visibility and invisibility of people with a migratory background take particular relevance.

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3. Mapping the research field

The aim with this chapter is to provide an account of the most influential strands of literature dealing with occupancy of space, particularly public space, by migrants and ethnic minorities. Differing approaches to urban space and diversity will be analysed, to understand the development of academic debates in the field of urban studies and beyond. Further, this section proceeds to discuss literature on public spaces which have become an object of contestation in public discourse, in relation to the presence of people with a migratory background in the Italian and Milanese context.

3.1 On the Interdisciplinary Engagement with Urban Public Space and

Diversity

Since the 1920s, a consistent sociological interest in the presence of immigrants in urban environments is recorded, particularly in the Northern American context. Authors such as Anthony Burgess and Robert E. Park, from the Urban Sociology department of the University of Chicago, understood the city, with its neighbourhoods and slums, immigrant ethnic groups and residential areas, outsiders and different subcultures, as a crucial laboratory to understand and predict societal developments.37_{Although these studies spurred academics from the LA}

and New York schools to expand theoretical knowledge on how migrants inhabited North American cities, little concern was given to the relationship between public space and diversity. This trend was altered with the rise of the “new urban sociology” school, during the 1960s and 1970s, originated in France and gravitating around the works of post-Marxist geographer Henri Lefebvre and his former student Manuel Castell. In a European historical context of social unrest, coupled with an intensification of neo-liberal structuring of the economyii_{, both authors}

argued that the city was subordinated to a project of capital accumulation, which operated through a continuous urban redevelopment process38_{. Development processes, ground in the}

destruction and reconstruction of urban public and private spaces, were argued to result in

37_{Castells, M., “Urban Sociology in the Twenty-First Century”, Cidades: comunidades e territórios,}

5, 2002, p. 10.

38_{Stewart, L., “Bodies, Vision and Spatial Politics: a review essay on Lefebvre´s Production of}

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severe social, environmental, and political outcomes39_{. It is in this context that the recognition}

of a diversity of urban populations, in struggle for appropriation of public space, became a prominent research object. In a humanist critique of neoliberal urbanism - argued to eliminate the possibility for the city as a social and political common40_{, - Lefebvre advanced claims to a}

“right to the city”, encompassing diverse urban movements, such as migrant´ demands for visibility and appropriation of space.41

During the latter half of the 20th_{century, a burgeoning body of work focused on debating over}

the nature of public space. The understanding of public space, and particularly squares in Italy, as “the ultimate metonym for citizenship”42_{is ground in a tradition of Western-centric thought}

that described the agora (public square) in the Greek polis as the quintessence of a democratic public sphere, in which participation among equals led to horizontal political activity43_{. This}

normative dimension resulted, on one side, in claims that a desirable space should be pacified and contained in order to be truly accessible to all44_{, and on the other, in severe critiques of}

recent trends of commercialization, privatization and securitization, which were found to, on one side, pacify and contain social relations by limiting acceptable practices to consumption45

and, on the other, neglect46_{, exclude}47_{, segregate}48_{and homogenize space}49_{. Seyla Benhabib,}

among other feminist and post-colonial theorists, rejected the idealized notion of public space

39_{Alves Dos Santos Junior, O., “Urban common space, heterotopia and the right to the city: reflections}

on the ideas of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey”, Urbe. Revista Brasileira de Gestão Urbana

(Brazilian Journal of Urban Management), 6(2), May-August 2014, p. 151.

40_{Harvey, D., Rebel Cities. From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, London, Verso, 2012,}

p. 80.

41_{Alves Dos Santos Junior, O., “Urban common space, heterotopia and the right to the city: reflections}

on the ideas of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey”, Urbe. Revista Brasileira de Gestão Urbana

(Brazilian Journal of Urban Management), 6(2), May-August 2014, p. 152.

42_{Dines, N., “Urban renewal, immigration, and contested claims to public space: The case of Piazza}

Garibaldi in Naples”, GeoJournal, Social Transformation, Citizenship, and the Right to the City, 58 (2-3), 2002, p. 179.

43_{Mitchell, D., “The End of Public´s Space. People´s Park, Definitions of the Public and Democracy,}

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 85(1), March 1995, p. 116.

44_{Carmona, M., “Re-theorising contemporary public space: a new narrative and new normative”,}

Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 8(4), p. 375.

45_{Bodnar, J., “Reclaiming public space”, Urban Studies, 52(12), 2015; Zukin, S., The Naked City: The}

Death and Life of Authentic Urban Place, New York, Oxford University Press, 2010; Miles, S. and

Paddison, R., “Urban Consumption: A Historiographical Note”, Urban Studies, 35(5-6), 1998.

46_{Tibbalds, F., Making People Friendly Towns: Improving the Public Environment in Towns and}

Cities, Second Edition, London, London Spon Press, 2001, p. 13.

47_{Malone, K., “Street life: youth, culture and competing uses of public space”, Environment and}

Urbanization, 14(2), October 2002, p. 162.

48_{Low, S., and Smith, N., The Politics of Public Space, New York and Abingdon, Routledge, 2005.} 49_{Carmona, M. and Matos Wunderlich, F., Capital Spaces: The Multiple Complex Public Spaces of a}

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as “community of equals” on the grounds that exclusion from the public arena based on gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity and age had been prominent in different historical periods50_{. Joan}

Landes also argued that “idealised visions of public space conceal the ways in which exclusion has been a constitutive feature of bourgeois public and not accidental.”51

Anthropological literature also took interest in the often-exclusionary social relations taking place in the city. Setha Low used several images and metaphors to describe these different strands of literature: the ethnic city, theme of research focused on ethnic enclaves or ethnic groups according to location and occupational structure; the divided city, focused on the liminal, the border, which both physically and discursively shapes ethnic and community boundariesiii_{; the gendered city, focused on women´s informal work and workplaces and}

exclusion from public spaces; and lastly, the contested city, built on the literature on urban social movements through a broader understanding of concepts of struggle and resistanceiv_.52

3.2 The Contested City: Public Space Occupancy and Migration

There are four recurrent themes or concepts guiding the exploration of the relationship between migrants and public space occupancy: urban renewal and projects of redevelopment, identity and belonging, visibility of Othered, racialized bodies in public space, and practices of resistance in contested spaces.

As far as the first theme is concerned, geographical and anthropological studies argue that migrants have come to constitute the “prototypical figure of the unstable, mobile and thus unruly social subject” in the imaginary of majority groups53_{, due to racialization practices and}

the progressive development of public space as a marketplace54_{, a space of circulation of goods}

in need of governance.55_{In the Italian context, Dines, in his case study on a Neapolitan square,}

highlights how urban renewal projects aimed at re-signifying public spaces and their meanings

50_{Vaiou, D. and Kalandides, A., “Cities of “Others”: Public Space and Everyday Practices”,}

Geographica Helvetica, 64, 2009, p. 15.

51_{Landes, J. B., Feminism, the Public and the Private, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 143.} 52_{Low, S. M., “The Anthropology of Cities: Imagining and Theorizing the City”, Annual Review of}

Anthropology, 25, 1996, p. 391.

53_{Simmel, G., Sociology. Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms, Leiden and Boston, Brill,}

2009 (1908), p. 549.

54_{Weber, M., “The Nature of the City”, in Sennet, S. (eds), Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities,}

Appleton-Century-Crofts, The University of Michigan, 1969, pp. 25-26.

55_{Brighenti, A. Visibility in Social Theory and Social Research, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan,}

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are often in conflict with the everyday experiences of ethnic minorities who occupy these spaces, leading to a contestation of uses and practices.56

Practices ranging from playing football to conducting religious processions in public space are argued to highlight how public space is not merely exclusive to members of majority groups57_.

In fact, by gaining access to public space, appropriating, and transforming it, minority groups can challenge both physical and symbolic boundaries to their presence in public space. This process has been named by Ostanel and Saint-Blancat as “re-territorialization” and can lead to the creation of “third spaces”, peculiar places of sociability characterised by an ease of accessibility as well as regularity of use. Consequently, certain forms of spatial appropriation were, at times, found to be exclusionary towards other members of the public, either because involving specific communities and groups or because subverting hegemonic notions of how public space should be used.58_{However, Staeheli et al., in a study exploring the daily life in}

Arab Town, a suburb of Los Angeles, reported how the creation of spaces of exclusion by minority groups can also support community strength, care for marginalised groups and boost the political voice of people with a migratory background.59_{Moreover, particularly in public}

spaces characterised by openness and diversity of users, appropriation tends to be of an ephemeral and temporary nature.60_{Finally, in the Italian context, Saint-Blancant and Cancellieri}

highlight how majority-minority boundaries operate by conducting research on the “Santacruzan”, a Catholic procession organised by the Filipino community in Padua. Although the procession is accepted as part of the normative Italian Catholic sacralisation of urban space, the visibility of embodied religious practice by people with a migratory background is still considered as a sign of difference, “Otherness”.61

A second strand of literature focuses on how public space occupancy and claim making is linked to performances of belonging. Addas and Risbeth, in a study conducted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,

56_{Dines, N., “Urban renewal, immigration, and contested claims to public space: The case of Piazza}

Garibaldi in Naples”, GeoJournal, Social Transformation, Citizenship, and the Right to the City, 58 (2-3), 2002, p. 185.

57_{Cancellieri, A. and Ostanel, E., “The struggle for public space”, City, 19(4), 2015, p. 502.} 58_{Cancellieri, A. and Ostanel, E., “The struggle for public space”, City, 19(4), 2015, p. 507.} 59_{Staeheli, L. A., Mitchell, D., and Nagel, C. R., “Making public: immigrants, regimes of publicity}

and entry to the “public”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27(4), p. 641.

60_{Quiroz Becerra, V. M., “Performing Belonging in Public Space: Mexican Migrants in New York}

City”, Sage Journals, 42(3), August 2014, p. 353.

61_{Saint-Blancat, C. and Cancellieri, A., “From invisibility to visibility? The appropriation of public}

space through a religious ritual: the Filipino procession of Santacruzan in Padua, Italy”, Social &

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argue that seemingly unproductive forms of public space occupancy, similarly carried out by both migrant and local populations, support health, mutual support, religious practices and sociability, leading to increased place attachment and feelings of belonging62_{. Similarly,}

Hodagneu-Sotelo, in a study on the occupation of urban community gardens by marginalized Latino communities in Los Angeles, found that these venues can provide a sense of home through a process of “domestication”63_{. Studies conducted on wealthy British and German}

“lifestyle migrants” to Spain also confirmed that conducting leisure activities in public space has the potential to create a sense of belonging as well as to enlarge friendship networks64_,

although certainly different power relations are at play. In the Italian context, Panariello focused on the link between identity construction and belonging when observing occupation of Piazza Santa Maria Novella, in Firenze, by Filipino and Somali communities.65_{Gatherings in public}

space were often found to reinforce transnational community structures, whilst also providing for a connection with local communities.

A third literature strand focused on the visibility of migrants and minority groups, as Othered bodies, in public space. Staeheli and Mitchell, among others, argue that visibility in public involves direct participation in the public sphere66_{. The association between spatial occupancy}

and empowerment, through a countering of spatial norms, is also supported by studies that consider mere occupancy as a form of resistance. However, the paradoxical nature of visibility in public space has been stressed by a variety of studies. Ghorashi argues that visibility of Othered bodies does not directly correlate to participation in the public: her study on the increased visibility of “migrant women from Islamic backgroundv_{” in Dutch public space led}

to the conclusion that study participants become subject to an “extreme visibility” regime, which re-proposes victimization and Othering, in line with the dominant discourse67_{. In the}

Italian context, Cancellieri and Ostanel also highlighted how non-conventional bodies and uses of a square in Padua result in a heightened visibility by challenging an unspoken, taken for

62_{Addas, A. and Rishbeth, C., “The Transnational Gulf City: Saudi and migrant values of public open}

spaces in Jeddah”, Landscape Research, 43(7), p. 946.

63_{Hodagneu-Sotelo, P., “At home in inner-city immigrant community gardens”, Journal of Housing}

and the Built Environment, 32(1), 2017, p. 15.

64_{Kordel, S., “The Production of Spaces of the Good Life – The case of Lifestyle Migrants in Spain”,}

Leisure Studies, 35(2), p. 138.

65_{Panariello, D., “Pratiche dei Migranti e Processi di Ri-Significazione dello Spazio Pubblico”,}

M@gm@, 12(2), Maggio-Agosto 2014.

66_{Staeheli, L. A., Mitchell, D., and Nagel, C. R., “Making public: immigrants, regimes of publicity}

and entry to the “public”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27(4), pp. 641-642.

67_{Ghorashi, H., “From Absolute Invisibility to Extreme Visibility: Emancipation Trajectory of}

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granted, spatial order68_{. As migrants seek out both material and symbolic resources in spaces of}

sociability, local policies and mass media manufacture an atmosphere of fear by spreading negative stereotypical images of migrants. A study conducted in Darwin, Australia, found that visibility of people of colour led to development of fears and anxieties in the White majority group and resulted in increased tension in public space, particularly in loci subject to a high degree of securitization and surveillance69_{. However, gestures of welcome, particularly from}

the Aboriginal population, had also the potential to defuse such tensions, bringing together Othered bodies and histories of racialization70_{. Visibility in public space can lead to increased}

measures of control from local governance bodies. Filippidis and Vrakis researched state criminalization of migrants in Athenian public space and the violent attacks to which migrants are often subject71_{. Flock and Breitung argue that in Guanzhou, China, migrant street vendors}

are subject to an alternation of repressive and liberal control measures, necessarily leading to a series of coping mechanisms to deal with their heightened visibility.72

Fourthly, the ability of people with a migratory background to challenge spatial orders with presence and practices led to an interest in researching strategies and coping mechanisms, and how some of these practices could be conceptualised as forms of resistance. There has been a tendency to expand the academic understanding of resistance and political activity, initially concerned only with public space as a locus of counter-politics and activism, in which a right to the city is claimed by immigrant groups through conscious collective action. 73_Influenced

by literature inspired by Michel De Certeau on the Everyday as a site of political expression, as wide-ranging practices as loitering, gathering, and organising public events have been examined through the lens of resistance74_{. However, Andrea Mubi Brighenti powerfully warned}

against the dilution of the concept of resistance through academic production of romanticised

68_{Cancellieri, A. and Ostanel, E., “The struggle for public space”, City, 19(4), 2015, p. 505.}

69_{Lobo, M., “Gestures of judgement and welcome in public spaces: hypervisible migrant newcomers}

in Darwin, Australia”, Journal of Cultural Geography, 32(1), 2015, p. 64.

70_{Lobo, M., “Gestures of judgement and welcome in public spaces: hypervisible migrant newcomers}

in Darwin, Australia”, Journal of Cultural Geography, 32(1), 2015, p. 63.

71_{Brekke, K. J., Filippidis, K. and Vradis, A., Athens and the War on Public Space. Tracing a City in}

Crisis, Earth, Milky Way, punctum books, 2018, pp. 103-108.

72_{Flock, R. and Breitung, W., “Migrant Street Vendors in Urban China and the Social Production of}

Public Space”, Urban Studies, 55(7), 2017, p. 166.

73_{Brighenti, A., “Power, subtraction and social transformation: Canetti and Foucault on the notion of}

resistance”, 12, 2011, pp. 66-67.

74_{Yilmaz, G. G., “Tactics in Daily Life Practices and Different Forms of Resistance: The Case of}

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accounts of migrant practices in public space, which would allegedly lead to the creation of “symbolic heroes, only insofar as they mirror the researcher´s values”75_.

Finally, an under-research concept is how elements of gender and class influence performances and visibility of Othered bodies in public space. Yeoh and Wang, in their case study on occupancy of Chinese public space by Filipino domestic workers, found spatial marginalization to be a distinctly gendered issue76_{. Moreover Moretti, by analysing the experiences of some}

South American migrants in Milan, Italy, argued that class, gender and social conditions – such as housing, work, discrimination, social networks –affect the way visible minority residents perceive and perform their activities in public space. In this manner, they powerfully highlight how simplified concepts of “ethnic uses of public spaces” are a social construction, often instrumentalised by the media.77

3.3 Migrant Occupancy of Piazza Duca D`Aosta: Practices and Meanings

Only two studies were found to be directly concerned with practices and visible presence of people with a migratory background in Piazza Duca D´Aosta. As in most of the studies that deal with the presence of migrants in public space in Italy, these anthropological texts involve mainly the usage of ethnographic methods of observation, over a great length of time.

The first text is a monography written by Enzo Colombo and Gianmarco Navarini in 1999 and it is the only major text concerned with urban populations in Milan Central Station and its surrounding public spaces. By conducting fieldwork during the night, the authors were able to capture a unique picture of the square, its actors and practices, and their overlapping boundaries. Only a small section was dedicated to the presence of migrants, who are reported to use the square as a gathering point as well as a temporary place of inhabitation, when newcomers or homeless78_{. Differently from Moretti, Colombo and Navarini argued that formed groups were}

characterised by distinct ethnic boundaries, leading to a mapping of the territory surrounding

75_{Brighenti, A., “Power, subtraction and social transformation: Canetti and Foucault on the notion of}

resistance”, 12, 2011, p. 60.

76_{Yeoh, B. S. A., and Huang, S., “Negotiating Public Space: Strategies and Styles of Migrant Female}

Domestic Workers in Singapore”, Urban Studies, 35(3), 1998, pp. 598-599.

77_{Moretti, C., “Creating Spaces, Constructing Selves” in Moretti, C., Milanese Encounters: Public}

Space and Vision in Contemporary Urban Italy, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 136,

142.

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the Central Station according to country of origin79_{. The authors perceive Piazza Duca D´Aosta}

as a space of contradiction, where internal borders are drawn and redrawn, subject to continuous transformation in the practices and meanings that urban populations assign to it.80_Moreover,

they defined Piazza Duca D´Aosta as a transit place, a “non-place” in which one can experience freedom due to the difficulty of controlling it, as well as a place in which presence of “Otherness” can spark fear due to the unpredictability of encounters.81_{Finally, Othering of}

migrants in the square was explained by the arguably controversial uses of public space by migrants, which challenged norms of how a public transit place should be used.82_{However this}

argument would not explain why subverting spatial norms would take a different connotation when specifically carried out by those who are considered migrants.

Nausicaa Pezzoni, in a 2013 publication focused on how migrants construct images and mental maps of Milan, also noticed how the railway station and Piazza Duca D´Aosta were relevant sites to the daily experiences of many people with a migratory background. As the only research here analysed in which perspectives of minority residents in Milan are the main source of data - rather than media reports, surveillance units or NGOs -, the complex and often paradoxical meanings and practices that study participants associated with the square take particular relevance. In line with the findings of Colombo and Navarini, on one hand, Piazza Duca D´Aosta was a reference point for new arrivals and a node of collective activities, as a gathering site at the centre of the city. It was also a sleeping place for those who had no other options. On the other hand, it was perceived by some as an unsafe or undesirable space to claim due to the presence of drug dealing, drunkenness, homelessness and theft, also allegedly because intensely frequented by other people with a migratory background83_.

In conclusion, literature addressing occupancy and practices of migrants in Piazza Duca D´Aosta is both dated and scarce. Although migrant practices were tangentially touched upon in two key texts, there is a lack of information surrounding how migrants subjectively define their occupancy of Piazza Duca D´Aosta. Moreover, none of the studies addressed the concept

Milano, Milano, Guerini Studio, 1999, p. 106.

Milano, Milano, Guerini Studio, 1999, pp. 35-36.

Milano, Milano, Guerini Studio, 1999, pp. 37-38.

Milano, Milano, Guerini Studio, 1999, pp.104-106.

83_{Pezzoni, N., La Cittá Sradicata. Geografie dell´ abitare contemporaneo. I migranti mappano}

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of visibility of migrants or ethnic minorities in that specific public space and attempted to involve participants in the discussion of their strategies. These are the gaps in research that this thesis attempts to fill: by investigating the daily practices of people with a migratory background in the setting of Piazza Duca D´Aosta, it will be possible to understand how visibility links to spatial practices as well as how it is experienced and influenced in everyday life by participants.

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4. Theoretical Outlines

In this chapter, the theoretical concepts and theories which underpin the current research project are addressed. Initially, the influence of Lefebvre´s theory of spatial production on the concept of contested space and spatial occupancy is discussed. It is followed by a small section contextualizing securitization in relation to exclusionary spatial processes; and is concluded by addressing theories by Andrea Brighenti on the entwined relationship between visibility and invisibility.

4.1 Contested public space and the Everyday

Public space is generally defined in a two-fold manner: firstly, in the physical form of squares, streets and open-access connecting tissue, it is a publicly accessible area characterized by a total or partial lack of ownership84_{, in which people´s active or passive behaviours are regulated by}

norms governing the use of space85_{. Secondly, in a metaphysical sense, public space is defined}

as an unrestrained public sphere where social and political movements and actions can occur86_.

These basic definitions, in their separation of the physical and metaphysical dimension, belong to the Cartesian and Kantian tradition of understanding public space space as merely a physical, immobile passive container of human action.

These definitions have been further developed in the work of neo-Marxist and post-modern geographers, such as Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja, who argued for the inter-relational manner in which urban public space is essential to human experience and determining of human actions, as well as how it is produced by conceptualizations and agency of human beings87_.

According to Lefebvre´s theory of production of space, public space is constituted by three elements: the physical space, the mental space, and the lived space. The physical space is the material dimension, constituted by all the elements that can be perceived about a specific locus. Hence, both individual and collective practices, such as routes, networks, and patterns of

84_{Carr, S. et al., Public Space, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 50.}

85_{Duncan, N., BodySpace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, London, Routledge,}

1996, pp. 127-145.

86_{Mehta, V., “Evaluating Public Space”, Journal of Urban Design, 19(1), 2014, p. 55.}

87_{Soja, E., “The Socio-Spatal Dialectic”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 70(2),}

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interaction, are a result of perceptions surrounding material space88_{. The mental space or}

“representation of space”, is considered all that is conceived in an ideal form and is constructed by professionals and technocrats, resulting in physical monuments, towers and factories, as well as any authoritarian bureaucratic and political measure situated within a repressive space89_{. It}

is also the space of discourse, in form of signs, codifications and objectified representation. Finally, the lived space or “representational space” is considered the blending between a materialistic and idealistic perspective, the space of everyday life. It is characterised by fluidity and dynamicity and does not possess rules of consistency or cohesiveness because it is the locus of action. It is also the dimension of space that the conceived space seeks to change and appropriate90_.

Due to the changing nature of public space, social conflicts and contradictory socio-economic forces become continuously inscribed in space through the interaction of these three elements. Hence, public space is seen as a site of contestation, in presence, practices and meanings. In fact, the proliferation of subjects in public space and the inevitable encounters of different identities, interests, and needs, at times results in conflicts taking place in all three dimensions of space91_{. For instance, unequal power relations were found to affect public space at different}

levels: physically, in the way cities are constructed architecturally and symbolically; socially, through individual and collective practices; institutionally, with regulations which limit the presence of certain bodies in public space, or militarization; discursively, by public discourse creating certain imaginaries and reproductions which can influence the social behaviour of those who pass through them or occupy them; and finally in an affective sense, by personal meanings, which shape and are shaped both by feelings and practices92_{. Finally, it could be}

argued that the interrelation between these three dimensions of public space concretizes itself in the Everyday, where experience is lived and enacted, always dialectically in relation to the others. Although both Lefebvre and De Certeau employed the concept of the Everyday, different interpretations were expressed particularly in relation to the possibilities available to

88_{Merrifield, A., “Place and Space: A Lefebvrian reconciliation”, Transactions of the Institute of}

British Geographers, 18(4), 1993, p. 523.

89_{Elden, S. “There is a Politics of Space Because the Space is Political. Henri Lefebvre and the}

Production of Space”, Radical Philosophy Review, 10(2), 2007, pp. 110-111.

90_{Merrifield, A., “Place and Space: A Lefebvrian reconciliation”, Transactions of the Institute of}

British Geographers, 18(4), 1993, pp. 523-524.

91_{Cenzatti, M., “Heterotopias of difference” in Dehaene, M. and De Cauter, L., Heterotopia and the}

City, Abingdon, Routledge, 2008, p. 79.

92_{Cenzatti, M., “Heterotopias of difference” in Dehaene, M. and De Cauter, L., Heterotopia and the}

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groups who experience Othering and spatial dispossession. For De Certeau, the Everyday was relevant to understand agency through micro-level, individual tactics of resistance to majoritarian spatial norms, whilst for Lefebvre urban struggles for space took place at a macro-level and involved collective acts of resistance93_{. Spatial transformation for Lefebvre would be}

total and all-encompassing, although still subject to dialectical processes grounded in unequal power relations.

For the purposes of this research space will be understood as dialectically produced and the lived dimension of public space will be considered, as there is no attempt to analyse holistically the physical space and discoursive representations of Piazza Duca D´Aosta, although inextricably interlinked. Focusing on the “Everyday” experiences of migrants in Piazza Duca D´Aosta is also necessary to avoid engaging in “Othering” narratives of the practices that take place in the square, whether from a negative standpoint, like in the media, or through the lens of my own encounter with alterity.

4.2 Spatial Exclusion and Securitization

Exclusion is a volatile, highly ambiguous term in the literature, used in different context and with differing conceptualizations. There are three main approaches to defining exclusion: firstly, as a categorical approach, according to which it is a property of certain groups characterized by social or economic issues such as unemployment, poor health, low skills, and difficult housing conditions94_{. Secondly, a spatial approach, according to which geographical}

isolation is synonymous with exclusion, due to external factors, such as securitization, or perceived as self-imposed.95_{Finally, exclusion can also take a discursive dimension, involving}

projection of individual and collective values and expectations onto the world, as the process of Othering, already discussed in the introduction, shows.96

Securitization is considered a process by which local and state actors transform subjects into security matter, leading to the application of security guards, surveillance measures and

93_{Moran, J., Reading the Everyday, Abingdon, Routledge, 2005, pp. 10, 23.}

94_{Silver, H., “Social Exclusion”, in A.D. Smith, X. Hou, J. Stone, R. Dennis and P. Rizova (eds.), The}

Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, 2015.

95_{Cass, N., Shove, E. and Urry, J., Changing Infrastructures, measuring socio-spatial}

inclusion/exclusion: final report to the Department for Transport. Lancaster, Lancaster University,

2003, pp. 6-7.

96_{Sibley, D., Geographies of Exclusion. Society and Difference in the West, London, Routledge, 1995,}

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technologies97_{. Outcomes of securitization are the production and reinforcement of enemy}

“others”, in the case of migrants often by enforcing identity checks and preventing large gatherings in public space98_{. Zygmunt Baumann also described two types of exclusionary public}

space: “public-yet-not-civil” spaces, designed to be kept empty through “hostile architecture” that does not allow for encounter99_{, and “consumer public space”, in which contact is kept}

minimal to thin socialization in order not to disrupt consumption activities100_{. However, on a}

micro-level, exclusionary spaces can also derive from re-territorialization, the act of reshaping the identity of a de-territorialized space through use and occupation by diverse groups, as was found by the study of Mattias De Backer on the appropriation of public space by youth belonging to different minority groups in Brussels101_.

Exclusion is also defined by some authors as a lack of access to urban public space. However, such a simplified understanding of public space would lead to disregard the segmentation, observed by Foucault, according to which exclusion can affect different groups and individuals in different ways and at different times102_{. For instance, certain groups who do occupy public}

space daily, might be targets of policies aimed at regaining control of the space and altering the uses certain publics make of it103_{. For the purposes of this paper exclusion will not be understood}

as an absolute condition, as if possessing fixed boundaries. In this thesis practices of re-territorialization by people with a migratory background as well as exclusionary policies and discourses, in contested urban public spaces, are understood to occur in an uneven, segmented manner, affecting groups and individuals differently according to time and space.

4.3 The paradox of (in)visibility

Visibility is an interactive phenomenon, outlining the possibility to see and to be seen, and it depends on vision, which is defined as “a complex system of permission and prohibition, of

97_{Buzan, B., Wæver, O. and De Wilde, J, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder, Lynne}

Rienner, 1998, pp. 23-25.

98_{Roe, P., “Is securitization a ‘negative’ concept? Revisiting the normative debate over normal versus}

extraordinary politics”, Security Dialogue, 43(3), pp. 252-253.

99_{Bauman, Z., Liquid Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2000, p. 105.} 100_{Bauman, Z., Liquid Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2000, p. 101.}

101_{De Backer, M., “Regimes of Visibility: Hanging out in Brussels´ Public Spaces”, Space and}

Culture, 22(3), 2018, p. 315; Cancellieri, A. and Ostanel, E., “The struggle for public space”, City,

19(4), 2015, p. 505.

102_{Peters, A. M. and Besley, T. A. C., “Social Exclusion/Inclusion: Foucault´s analytics of exclusion,}

the political ecology of social inclusion and the legitimation of inclusive education”, Open Review of

Educational Research, 1(1), 2014, p. 100.

103_{Samers, M., “Immigration, "Ethnic Minorities" and "Social Exclusion" in the European Union: A}

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presence and absence, punctuated by apparition and hysterical blindness” 104_{. It is through}

vision and recognition that a daily negotiation over who belongs to a community takes place105_.

In this sense, space is considered a key lens for examining how migrants and minority groups settle their presence trying to manage visibility.

Visibility and invisibility, in relation to migrants, have been employed ambiguously in the literature. On one hand, visibility is generally perceived as the first step to participate in the political since, by appropriation of public space, supposedly should come a recognition of individuals and groups as members of the polis106_{. Invisibility has, in this context, been used to}

describe groups who due to phenotypical, cultural or class markers are instead excluded and unheard of in the mainstream, with little institutional power 107_{. On the other hand, visibility has}

also been used to describe the experiences of migrants who are deemed as “out-of-place” with regards to majority society and invisibility as the experience of certain migrant groups who managed to easily blend-in in majority dominated space due to perceived similarity in language, skin colour or culture.108

Andrea Brighenti outlines three outcomes of visibility: recognition, control, and spectacle109_.

For the purposes of this thesis only the first two outcomes will be included, as the last concept is concerned primarily with discourse, which this thesis is not directly concerned with.

Recognition, a concept deriving from the master-slave dialectic of Hegel, involves the equation that existence requires mutual recognition among subjects110_{. This notion was taken up by Axel}

Honneth in the claim that social struggles take place at both the visual and spatial level, grounding modern collective identity formation111_{. Hence, in the case of migrants in urban}

104_{Gordon, A. F., Ghostly Matters. Haunting and the Sociological Imagination, Minneapolis,}

University of Minnesota Press, 1997, p. 15.

105_{Saint-Blancat, C. and Cancellieri, A., “From invisibility to visibility? The appropriation of public}

space through a religious ritual: the Filipino procession of Santacruzan in Padua, Italy”, Social &

Cultural Geography, 15 (6), 2014, p. 646; Soja, E., Postmodern Geographies. The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, London, Verso, 1989, p. 2.

106_{Staeheli, L. A., Mitchell, D., and Nagel, C. R., “Making public: immigrants, regimes of publicity}

and entry to the “public”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27(4), p. 644.

107_{McKittrick, K., Demonic Grounds: Black Women and Cartographies of Struggle, Minneapolis,}

University of Minnesota Press, 2006, pp. 96-97.

108_{Brighenti, A., Visibility in Social Theory and Social Research, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan,}

2010, p. 45.

109_{Brighenti, A., “Visual, Visible, Ethnographic”, Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa, 1, 2008, p. 8.} 110_{Brighenti, A., Visibility in Social Theory and Social Research, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan,}

2010, p. 45.

111_{Honneth, A., The Struggle for Recognition. The Moral Grammar of Social Conflict, Cambridge:}