Against Camps' Violence: Some Voices on Italian Holding Centres
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.12051 |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| Author | Raffaela Puggioni |
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
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P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 1 4 VO L 6 2 , 9 4 5 – 9 6 0
doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12051
Against Camps’ Violence: Some Voices on Italian
Holding Centres
Raffaela Puggioni
University of Nottingham – Ningbo
The present article looks at the politics of the camp and investigates the way in which detainees claim their right to
a political and meaningful life against bare life.The question I look at is whether bare life might be resisted from within
camps and how this resistance should be conceptualised. How are we to judge resistance? According to the modalities
through which resistance is enacted? Or according to the subjects involved in those acts? Or indeed according to
(political) outcomes? This article starts by scrutinising Agamben’s Homo Sacer and its understanding of camp and bare
life. It claims that more attention should be given to the way in which acts of open dissent blend with coping strategies,
to the point of making some dissenting acts almost imperceptible. Special attention is given to the concept of dailiness,
as articulated in the work of De Certeau, Scott and Bleiker, as well as to Isin’s concept of ‘acts of citizenship’ and to
the way in which such acts are performed in an attempt to disrupt sovereign violence.
Keywords: resistance; Agamben; holding centres; dailiness; Italy
The politics of the camp and the ‘war on refugees’ (Fekete, 2005, p. 65) have received great
academic attention during recent years as the number of people detained, deported, violated
and found dead along the borders has risen dramatically. For instance, across the Mediterra-
nean Sea alone, some 1,500 people have gone missing or lost their life during the past year
(UNHCR, 2012; see also Andrijasevic, 2010). Many of those who managed to cross the
Southern European borders, after dreadful journeys, have experienced not the freedom of
Europe, but the camps of Europe (see http://www.migreurop.com). Detention centres for
those seeking asylum and/or better living conditions have slowly become an integral part of
the new ‘biopolitics of otherness’ (Fassin, 2001, p. 4), whose only concern is to control,
contain and punish undocumented migrants at all costs (Bigo, 2007; Bosworth and Guild,
2008; Bosworth and Kaufman, 2011; Wacquant, 2009; Walters, 2002). In this respect,
Matthew Gibney (2008) is certainly right in affirming that a ‘deportation turn’ is dominating
Western practices, making current ‘politics of mobility’ highly contested (see Squire, 2011).
However, prevalent exclusive policies – which aim to produce processes of illegality and
deportability (De Genova, 2002; Peutz, 2006; 2007) – have not remained unchallenged.
Public protests, building occupations, hunger strikes and body mutilations are some of the
modalities through which non-status migrants are contesting and resisting dominant politics
of aliens (see Bailey, 2009; McGregor, 2011; McNevin, 2011; Nyers, 2008a; Puggioni,
2006). It is precisely these practices of contestation that are the focus of this article, which
aims specifically to investigate the way in which the violence of detention facilities is resisted.
Departing from Giorgio Agamben’s (1998) theorisation of the sovereign-power/camps/
homo sacer triad, the present article will look at the way in which detainees have constructed
and articulated dissent. In particular, it will investigate the way in which detainees claim their
right to a political and meaningful life against bare life and dehumanising processes (see also
© 2013 The Author. Political Studies published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political Studies Association.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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R A F F A E L A P U G G I O N I
Benhabib, 2004; Bosworth, 2011a; 2011b; Cornelisse, 2010).The camp is thus understood
not exclusively as a space where the violence against the Other is acted and legitimised by
sovereign power, but also as a space of dissent and contestation. Attention will be especially
given to detainees’ vocal articulation of their emotions, thoughts and verbal protests against
the camp. Internees’ claims that their human rights should be respected against abuses and
arbitrary violations, and that the lack of visa documents does not make them less human, and
thus less political, are important claims which make use of the very same rights-based
language that dominates Western politics. Those claims are important reminders to the
sovereign entities that the political capacity to act and speak cannot be simply defined
according to nationality laws. And this is precisely what some critical citizenship scholars
have started to question.As well articulated in Engin Isin and Greg Nielsen’s edited volume
(2008), there is a need to break from the traditional focus on (migrants’) status and (citizens’)
habitus, and to investigate the way in which practices of citizenship constitute new subjectivi-
ties. It is thus through practices – that is, through acting as if citizens – that individuals
perform political acts, independently of their formal membership. If the capacity for acting
and speaking as political subjects determines detainees’ political standing, then detainees’
practices, rather than their nationality (citizens vs. foreigners) and resident status (regular vs.
irregular), should be given greater consideration.An analysis of the capacity of the excluded
to speak and act politically, irrespective of their nationality, will contribute to the ongoing
debate surrounding the question of agency and the constitution of political subjectivities in
relation to the present politics of aliens.
This article will begin with a close scrutiny of Agamben’s Homo Sacer (1998), whose
analysis has stimulated an animated debate on biopower and exceptionalism (see Aradau,
2007; Biswas and Nair, 2010; Dillon, 2007; Mitchell, 2006; Walker, 2006), as well as a great
interest in the transformation of political life into bare life (see Darling, 2009; Diken, 2004;
Edkins, 2000; Gregory, 2006; Minca, 2006; Perera, 2002). The authors of this latter set of
accounts suggest that the ontology that emerges inside camps is the sovereign ontology,
which does not account for any possibility of human agency and political dissent from within
(see Ziarek, 2008). As William Walters puts it:
Agamben’s line of thinking, seems to lead us away from a dynamic, agonistic account of power
relations, and instead fosters a rather one-sided and flattened conception of migrant subjects.
Things are always done to them, not by them. Only occasionally are they granted the capacity
to act, and then in desperate ways (Walters, 2008, p. 188).
Without denying the importance of Agamben’s work (1998) and his account of the
‘spatialization of violence’, I agree with Nikos Papastergiadis (2006, p. 430) that his model
‘confines political contestation to the realm of state-centric sovereignty, and presents the
camp as a sealed and impermeable space’, a space that closes off any possibility of dissent.
The impossibility of contestation inside detention, and thus the victory of sovereign power
over bare life, should not be read as the negation of any dissent tout court (see Edkins et al.,
2004; Enns, 2004; Huysmans, 2004; 2006; Panagia, 1999; Prozorov, 2005).The question that
I am looking at is not simply whether bare life might be resisted, but whether bare life
might be resisted from within camps and how this resistance should be conceptualised. How
are we to judge resistance? According to the modalities through which resistance is enacted?
© 2013 The Author. Political Studies published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2014, 62(4)
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Or according to the subjects involved in those acts? Or indeed according to (political)
outcomes? The way in which we define resistance is a crucial point on which to reflect, as
it shapes our analysis of resistance as well as our ability to recognise acts of resistance when
we encounter them. Our ability is especially tested when looking at dissent and resistance
inside camps. The location of struggle – the detention camp with its biopolitical conno-
tation – as well as the subjects of the struggle – the undocumented, the non-rights-holders
– makes any analysis of resistance complex.
The article will be divided into three main parts. First, it will focus on Agamben’s
conceptualisation of camps and bare life as well as on some of the literature that has
incorporated an Agambenian approach to the analysis of camps. The article will therefore
question whether camps might be resisted. Finally, some voices from the Italian context will
be included. In particular, the stories of some people held under detention, who have
succeeded in making their voice heard, will be considered. Given the difficulties in getting
the authorisation for accessing Italian camps – the so-called CIE: identification and
expulsion centres, previously known as CPT1 – the voices quoted here are drawn from
secondary sources, though the sections selected were taken from direct quotations. I have
specifically selected those testimonies coming not from failed asylum seekers but mostly
from migrants, who have lived in the countries for many years, possessed jobs and had
family there. Little has been taken from the Italian reports that...
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