Governing Immobility in the COVID-19 Crisis in Italy: Non-conforming Behaviors of Migrants Confronting the New Old Processes of Othering

Abstract

In this article, we critically analyze how different confinement sites for migrants in Italy, such as reception centers, pre-removal detention facilities, hotspots, and quarantine ships, have functioned as tools for controlling migration during the COVID-19 pandemic. We specifically focus on the nonconforming behaviors exhibited by migrants within these sites. Our analysis aims to shed light on the mechanisms of control by examining acts of resistance undertaken by individuals, both consciously and unconsciously, and carried out either individually or collectively. We investigate how these specific government practices, as evidenced by these acts of nonconformity, have materialized a sense of “sacrificability” and institutional abandonment. By analyzing protests, their content, and dynamics, we delve into how the concept of necropolitical sacrificability applies to both reception facilities and detention facilities and we argue that this concept extends beyond the COVID-19 crisis, prompting an examination of how power dynamics and people’s lives, once deemed sacrificable, continue to be influenced and vulnerable at a social and political level.