Ripensare le pratiche dell'accoglienza oltre i confini. Pratiche alternative in conversazione tra Italia e Libano

Abstract

Starting from our ethnographical researches carried out within refugees-camps in Lebanon and within accommodation centres for asylum seekers in Northern Italy, we propose here a debate around some “alternative” practices of hosting migrants. Far from being a comparison between two national contexts, the paper is a double analysis with the aim of delocalizing the glaze, crossing the borders and searching for other dimensions of “welcoming practices”. If the challenge with asylum seekers and refugees is to build up a relational process involving together ourselves and the migrants, hereby we suggest a sort of conversation, on the opposites shores of the Mediterranean, among examples of daily practices of welcoming and of constructing a relation. Our research shows the urgency of giving space and time to persons with whom we do not share a common history, yet with whom we attempt to build up a common becoming – very unpredictable and uncertain – and it finally suggests that when this attempt succeeds it has much to do with a sort of “alliance of bodies”, generating in marginal spaces and in marginal ways.