In Solidarity: Ma(r)king and rescaling solidarity boundaries towards migrants

The core idea for this Special Issue is to reflect upon the dynamics of participation both by individuals and by groups acting in solidarity with migrants in different contexts at the individual, local and transnational levels. Using the concept of “solidarities” to address the relation between persons who have experienced migration and persons who have not, and between people and institutions, enables research to escape the “us vs. them” dichotomy, extending the debate on deservingness to society as a whole. Moreover, with the development of crossborder volunteering and the diffusion of multi-scalar partnerships between subnational governments and civil society organisations, solidarities are rescaled, and encompass new forms beyond national welfare mechanisms. Bringing together a rich collection of empirical cases that ranges from the reception of the Rohingya refugees in the Cox Bazar region of Bangladesh to border crossings along the Balkan route, from disaster solidarity in the Hanshin area in Japan to Ukrainian refugee reception in Italy, we explore acts of solidarity in different contexts as a way to try and make sense of when solidarity towards migrants is a political act, when it is about providing basic provisions subcontracted by the state to local or non-governmental actors, and when it is an act of defiance against the state.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

conformism or inadequacy of roma inclusion policies missed opportunities at the european and local levels

Roma populations have been part of European societies for centuries, yet they started to be perceived as a European "issue" in occasion of the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargement. In Eastern Europe several Roma, already struggling to cope with critical living conditions, fell into an ever-more negative spiral of deprivation as a result of the transition to an open market economy. The accession to the European Union eased internal migration of Roma from Central and Eastern Europe and triggered the emergence of problems associated with service provision of shelter, education and health. Meanwhile, those who found themselves in severe marginalized situations and could not afford to migrate began to be regarded as a "problem" for local authorities. The European Union has taken several soft policy actions to establish a framework for Roma integration, and has conditioned the use of structural funds to said strategies. The difficulty of implementing the National Roma Integration Strategy and of investing integration funds at the local level is however heavily affected by the lack of administrative capacity, political will, and practical obstacles. This chapter describes the EU efforts made in this field, focusing on the need to involve the local level through the concrete case of the ROMACT programme

roma westward migration in europe rethinking political social and methodological challenges

The idea for this book stemmed from two symposia that brought together scholars from a range of different countries and disciplines to reflect upon the political and legal context of the mobility of Romani citizens in Europe. Our interest in this topic started with the adoption of a EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies in 2011, when Member States were requested to develop integration strategies that were explicitly yet not exclusively targeted at their Roma populations (European Commission 2011). Even though this policy scheme represented an effort to overcome the inadequacies of the anti-discrimination directives to address the social and institutional discrimination suffered by Roma people in Europe, tangible results of such measures have so far been lacking. The symposia, titled "Roma Westward Migration in Europe: Rethinking Political, Social, and Methodological Challenges", addressed the emergence of Roma-specific policies alongside an increasing concern about migration and diversity management. The drive to bring together different disciplinary and methodological approaches to "Roma migration" in Europe, and to explore how such phenomenon has been narrated, policed, politicized or ignored was – and is – rooted in four main considerations. Firstly, we are convinced that putting the focus squarely on the so-called "Roma westward migration" and problematizing the assumptions that underpin such a label contributes to uncover the structural inconsistencies of the European "Roma integration" framework and to question its overall political approach. Secondly, the intersections and overlaps between the categories of "Roma" and of "migrants" show how the classifications of deservingness and of access to welfare resources have shifted in recent years, making explicit the under-studied link between inclusive and securitarian policies. Thirdly, we believe that "Roma migration" provides a unique testing ground to understand how those portrayed as "the others" in contemporary Europe cope and develop counter-strategies in a system in which their options are limited. Fourthly and finally, we strongly support ethnographic accounts as a useful means to evaluate public policies at the local level, as they offer rich data that cannot be captured by national statistics or by surveys alone

Dwelling in Limbo. Temporality in the Governance of Romani Migrants in Spain

This chapter engages with the current debate on Romani mobility and Spanish state practices of implementing socio-educational programs and camp housing to migrant EU citizens. Taking the Madrid city as a case study, this chapter documents and analyses temporary devices of governance that both limit and force the mobility of Romani families from Romania. Implemented by local authorities through specific policies, temporary devices of governance deliver an enforced pressure on Romani migrants who are seen as prospective “failed” subjects of integration and potential returnees. While deterring migrants from accessing territorial social benefits, local authorities and private companies acting as state proxi assign Romani families a “social contract” that aims for their integration. The authorities not only implement problematic policies, but they interpret and label the mobility of Romani as a characteristic of their “provisional” way of living and dwelling. Following Cabot (2012) and Ringel (2016) on the temporality of governance and scholarship on the anthropology of time (Munn 1992; Fabian 2014), I aim to show two entangled processes in local governance: the subject formation of Romani migrants as an ethnicized mobile minority, and the long-term adverse results of project-based, profit-oriented social work. Romani migrants have become the target of a new type of social engineering by bringing into question the establishment of citizenship: agreeing to the social contract not only presumes that Romani migrants are not members of the same community, but also suggests that their lives have a different temporality

When Housing Policies Are Ethnically Targeted: Struggles, Conflicts and Contentions for a “Possible City”

In November 2011 the Italian Council of State declared unlawful the state of emergency concerning Roma settlements that had been in force since 2008. This decision gave rise to a new political phase, which started in 2012, characterized by a new National Strategy for the Inclusion of Roma people. One year later, in the city of Turin, the still unspent financial resources that had been assigned to the ‘emergency’were converted into funds for ‘Roma inclusion’. This chapter addresses the question of how the implementation of the National Strategy at the local level was influenced by the so-called ‘Roma emergency’ politics. Through fieldwork in the informal slum of Lungo Stura Lazio, which has turned into the biggest rehousing project ever implemented in the city, called La Città Possibile (The Possible City) we were able to detect the persistence of an emergency, punitive and strongly selective logic at work, applied to a neoliberal approach to housing policies. The role played by local NGOs has been particularly significant in the reproduction of this logic, through the arbitrary selection between “good” (deserving) and “bad” (undeserving) Roma. The investigation was carried out between 2011 and 2016 and is based on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with 25 camp dwellers, 12 civil servants, 11 social workers from private NGOs, and 4 civil-society actors from grassroots movements

The efficacy of EEG neurofeedback aimed at enhancing sensory-motor rhythm theta ratio in healthy subjects

Scientific evidence supporting the reliability of neurofeedback (NF) in modifying the electroencephalographic (EEG) pattern is still limited. Several studies in NF research and clinical setting have been focused to increase sensory-motor rhythm (SMR) and simultaneously decrease theta activity with the aim of increasing attention performance and reducing hyperactive and impulsive behaviors. The goal of the present study was to assess the efficacy of NF training to enhance the SMR/theta ratio across sixteen sessions of training in eight healthy volunteers. Results suggested an increase of SMR/theta across weeks of training. Theta activity was strongly and steadily inhibited since the first session of training with slight decreases in the following weeks; instead, SMR was strongly inhibited at the beginning and progressively increased across sessions. These results suggest that individuals are able to inhibit theta activity easily while they fail to increase SMR in the first sessions. On the other hand, a separate analysis performed on the baseline preceding NF revealed a decreasing trend of SMR/theta ratio across the 8 weeks of training. Results point to the importance of providing EEG data in addition to behavioral modification, during NF training, to avoid possible misinterpretation of results