MIGRANTS IN THE SOUTH OF ITALY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION OF NEW KNOWLEDGE

Rezumat

The arrival of migrants from North Africa has led to Italy’s further tightening its control policies. Tunisian refugees have become “economic migrants”, who can not obtain humanitarian protection, while asylum seekers are those for whom a form of reception has been created with the aim of defining situations of abandonment. On the other hand, some municipalities in Italy have spontaneously offered their assistance, so establishing a network of solidarity. Something which is particularly worthy of attention is the experience of refugees in terms of the welcome they have received from small Calabrian towns which were experiencing a declining population. The goal of this article is to show the network of relationships between institutional and social bodies which aims to define such aspects as: new forms of reception asylum within a context of profound social and economic degradation; practices which are set up by social operators with respect for ethical principles and the goal of going beyond the market logic that sees social work as a palliative for emergency situations; the logic of co-ordination between communal administrations and local social actors in realizing a project of hospitality which is consistent with sustainable development within the territory.