Tag: resilience

Activating the migration-development link in medium and small municipalities – H2020 Joint declaration

Five ideas for getting the most out of the Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (and for a better reception of refugees)

Joint declaration of the Horizon2020 project

Welcoming Spaces and Whole-COMM

April 2022

Since 2015, there has been a redistribution of asylum seekers throughout the country, even in the most peripheral areas. Specifically, territorially and economically most disadvantaged areas of the country are often those most capable of leveraging the arrival of refugees to start rethinking the future and investing in economic, social and cultural revitalization.

Yet these promising experiences have remained substantially isolated, at best awarded formal recognition as “good practices”, in a context where the link between welcoming migrants and territorial development of marginal areas has not been placed at the centre of any real national policy.

To counter this lack of attention, the researchers involved in two ongoing projects, all funded by the European Commission’s Horizon2020 program—Welcoming Spaces and Whole-COMM—want to unite their voices to emphasise the importance of some key principles for the creation of a stable and profitable link between the integration of migrants and the development of marginal areas. To prevent territorial and social exclusion from reinforcing one other, and starting from the kind of development that also leverages cultural and environmental dimensions, we believe that the following principles should be placed at the centre of a serious program of coordinated investments and interventions, from the local level to the national and European one.

  • Produce shared imaginaries of possible futures regarding migration and development of inland areas. Migration is often narrated as a problem, a crisis to be solved, while peripheral areas are often romanticised or trivialised by traditional media. Given that narratives on migration and inner areas can influence and are influenced by policies, it is necessary to co-construct a “third imaginary” to bring out the link between migration and development, with space for cultural diversity and a clearly defined added value for territories and communities. The various welcome initiatives present in some peripheral Italian areas are already working in this sense (e.g.: photographic exhibitions and public seminars, street art contests, summer schools, collaborations with local and national newspapers, blogs, theatrical performances, documentaries, etc.).
  • Support development for the benefit of all. The development of inner areas should be considered in an integrated way, combining the dimension of socio-cultural well-being with the environmental, economic and political dimensions. From this perspective, it is necessary to take charge of the needs and aspirations of all the people who are part of the new intercultural communities present in the inner areas, in order to preserve their dynamism and development. It is essential to overcome the shared vulnerabilities of the residents. This means ensuring a good quality of life through the consolidation of local networks and social infrastructure and access to public services, housing and decent employment opportunities.
  • Support a participatory and inclusive (whole-of-community) approach to the integration of migrants and local development. The development of inner areas and the creation of positive relationships with migrants must necessarily involve the whole community, and the multiplicity of voices and organisations that characterise it: the local administration, civil society associations, businesses, individual native citizens and migrants. It is only through mutual knowledge and dialogue that it is possible to build cohesive communities of which everyone feels a part, where hospitality and integration are not a burden but a chance to imagine and build new opportunities for economic and social development.
  • Think about local development and the integration of migrants starting from the relationship between rural and urban areas. Local development and the inclusion of newcomers in peripheral areas cannot be thought of as isolated and impermeable to the dynamics of urban centres, which represent relevant poles of the labour market and services. The relationships between urban and rural areas consist of material and immaterial flows: people, economic resources, information, skills and practices are all elements that make up this relationship. An example of this is the food chain, where many migrants are employed and where the dynamics of large-scale distribution often generate negative effects on producers and workers, as well as on the environment. The joint strategic planning between rural and mountain areas of these flows is therefore indispensable to guarantee spatial and social justice and to promote sustainable development.
  • Establish decision-making bodies that connect the different levels of government and also involve medium and small municipalities. The smaller municipalities are often excluded from decision-making processes which nevertheless have a decisive impact on their territories. Interventions capable of supporting local development and the integration of migrants in major urban centres may be unsuitable for rural and mountain contexts, characterised by different needs and resources. At the same time, Regional and central governments, even if they want to, do not have effective tools at their disposal to keep in touch with these areas and closely follow their transformations. It is therefore essential to develop stable institutional mechanisms that allow for continuous, and not just occasional, exchange between levels of government and facilitate the involvement of smaller municipalities.

These could become inspiring principles for an adjustment of the Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which so far has underestimated the very real danger of ethnic and territorial disadvantages reinforcing each other. By putting these principles into practice, it may be possible to counter the risk of proposing standard solutions in the face of very heterogeneous paths of both the territories and the migrants, or the danger of draining funds through calls for projects that fails to connect individual initiatives to an organic, medium-long term strategic planning framework. With an eye to the immediate horizon, these same principles could guide us in managing the arrival of Ukrainian refugees, so that reception becomes a tool for pursuing lasting processes of economic, social and institutional innovation.

Shrinking areas as dynamic spaces of care and resilience

By Desirè Gaudioso – University of Bologna

Shrinking areas, “the lands of the margin”, are often depicted as places of disadvantage, depopulation, abandonment, marked by lack of opportunities and services (e.g., logistics, education, health, transports) that negatively affect the quality of life of their inhabitants. The fate of these areas oscillates between the transformation into “bonbonniere villages” and a resigned extinction.

In recent years, throughout Italy, we have been witnessing a constant effort to invert these trends and to recover these regions, starting from a change of perspective in the way we approach the Italian territory. The development of this different gaze shifts the focus from the centre to the margins, with the aim of making them liveable places again. A fundamental point towards the revitalisation of shrinking areas is the concept of “Restanza”, theorised by the Italian anthropologist Vito Teti.

The idea of “Restanza” implies both the verb to stay and the noun resilience. Restanza means choosing to stay in a place in a conscious, active and proactive way by actively guarding it, being aware of the past while enhancing what remains, with an impulse towards the future where a new community is possible. In this sense, staying is a dynamic concept, it is a form of journey, a manner to affirm a different existence: an existence made of presence, an action to hinder absence and abandonment. Presence brings life back, places become liveable and are perceived as sources of opportunities not only for the ones who stay, but also for those who arrive. Moreover, the meaning of staying is strictly linked with living, inhabiting, as an intense relationship that is characterised by enjoyment and realisation of resources and, at the same time, by care of collective assets. In describing the term “restanza”, the Italian anthropologist Vito Teti asserts that staying “is tied to the painful and authentic experience of always being out of place”, and of “feeling in exile and foreign in the place where one lives”. Exile, disorientation, uprooting, mark the life of people living in shrinking areas. Similarly, the emotional bond with space and the feeling of loss and distance characterise the migratory experience, often in addition to a journey without arrival, or an arrival in which it is not allowed to stay. A position of marginality is shared by who stays and who migrates as well.

Living on the fringes, however, should not just be seen as something entirely negative. In this regard, the contribution of the American writer Bell Hooks is extremely interesting. The author elaborates a vision of marginality as place of radical possibility and resistance able to provide a new perspective from which to look and reimagine alternatives and “new worlds”. In Welcoming Spaces, the creation of these “new worlds” takes place. Quoting Teti, it contributes to “little daily utopias of change” with others. In this process, relationships based on collaboration and solidarity that were previously destroyed, limited and devalued are mended. Moreover, they prove to be fundamental for sharing and taking care of places as communal assets. Care earns a central role in the relation with the territory and between the people who live in it and is based on the recognition that we are all dependent on each other. Interdependences, if enhanced can turn into additional sources through which communities can develop and prosper. Consequently, in this framework, “the other” ceases to be a threat and becomes a companion to cultivate a common future. Acting towards the others in a constructive manner, therefore avoiding oppositional behaviours, promotes a notion of care that goes beyond the meaning that diminishes it to concern and attention exclusively directed to who and what we recognise as similar and close. Furthermore, the dilatation of the traditional idea of care discourages the diffusion of cultures of identity based on exclusion. Breaking down walls, opening up to those previously identified as different, and embracing a broader concept of care favours the creation of inclusive communities and belongings, in which identities are contaminated and formed in relation to the others in a regenerative manner.

As emphasised in the “Care Manifesto”, published by The Care Collective in the most critical months of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking the idea of ​​care as an organisational principle seriously and make it a priority not only in the domestic sphere but in all areas of life, “is necessary for the cultivation of a caring politics, fulfilling lives, and a sustainable world”.  The authors realise the power of care as practice and core value on which a new society can be built. When a community turns into a caring community, the values ​​that guide care in intimate spheres orient the public realm towards actions aimed at creating spaces for a life “in common” that can bring to light the intrinsic political potential of the community itself. Eventually, this political element renews, fosters, and improves democratic processes and encourages a more participative citizenship.

In shrinking areas, communities based on care invest in their own resources and in strengthening the ties not only between those who live there, but also towards the outside world, transform marginality from a disadvantaged context into a virtuous space, or rather, citing Bell Hooks, “into a place to live in, to which remain attached and faithful, because it nourishes our ability of resistance”. In Welcoming Spaces, care and resilience are the engine for the conversion of strangers into familiar figures and of shrinking regions into welcoming, sustainable, and liveable spaces.