My research is based on qualitative methods (interviews, ethnography, document analysis, etc.) and revolves around three main strands:
1. The first focuses on the spatial and material dimensions of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This line of research aims to highlight the ways in which the multiplicity of socio-institutional arrangements, forms of implementation and local practices call into question the possibility of the common space of protection that underlies European Union’s policies and narratives in the field of asylum. I have explored both refugee reception and asylum procedures as practices, which are situated in specific local contexts and relations, shaped by specific material conditions, and characterised by their own temporality. Given such spatiality, materiality, and temporality, refugee reception and asylum procedures frustrate attempts to harmonise and standardise them.
2. The second line of research centres on the policies and practices of reception of asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection. Here, reception is understood as a form of government in the Foucauldian sense. The analysis of the multiple and contested forms of power through which the conducts of the guests of reception centres are governed has allowed me to emphasise the mechanisms of differentiation, objectification, victimisation and dehumanisation at play in the contemporary EU reception regime. My attention has also been directed towards the increasing logistical and infrastructural dimensions of reception and their effects in terms of commercialisation of reception and valorisation of migrant life.
3. The third line of research concerns the transformations of border practices and their role in producing ‘illegalisation’, deportability, invisibility, and disposability. In this respect, I have explored the mechanisms through which the EU and its member states seek to govern migrant mobility, particularly after the events of 2015. My analysis has focused on the Dublin system, the implementation of the hotspot approach in Greece and Italy, the implementation of relocation schemes from Greece and Italy, and the fight against so-called ‘secondary movements’. My research has called into question the ability of these measures to manage and limit migrant autonomous mobility and has explored the effects of these measures on people and the local context in which they are implemented.
