I campi mondiali per i rifugiati politici. Tracce di socialità

The specific condition of political refugees fleeing from subnational, national and international wars concerns Italy, Europe, the global geopolitical order, and the governmental and non-governmental organizations that deal with it by statute (and in various capacities). The issue, in spite of the topicality and urgency, tends to be invisible, or hidden within the more general issue of immigration. The initial research question is the way in which dwelling is provided to people in a state of suspension of the right (Agamben 1995). An overview on the technical literature for the planning of refugee camps, and a mapping, albeit provisional of existing camps, justify the claim that these settlements have gradually moved away from the search for urban form, albeit temporary, while approaching to emergency solutions. Communitarian and participatory approach, which until the eighties were present in camp design, were subsequently replaced with approaches based on minimum standards and predetermined military-style layout, which have focused on control by the international institutions. The main aim is to respond in a coded way to the needs of increasingly large masses of displaced persons in conditions of extraterritoriality. The average duration of a refugee camp is 7 years, with extremes of over 40 years, and the population level can exceed 200,000 persons. The one-size-fits-all camp design promoted by technical literature (UNHCR 2007; Sphere Project 2011) and implemented by international agencies, is not appropriate in local contexts. A more realistic unpredictability, in relation to armed conflicts whose duration cannot be known in advance, would generate models that could be more flexible and responsive to the needs of the users (Kennedy 2008). In this temporary situation, which may last months or years, the research analyze which levels of sociability and exchange develop between the inhabitants, and which measures and spatial principles may favor them. The social sciences deal with the impacts of the permanent temporariness on people. Persons recognized as refugees live a bare life, in which citizenship rights are obliterated (Agamben 1995) and only the biological functions are guaranteed by a "western transfusion". Despite everything, when duration is extended over time, camps develop a specific urban vocabulary (Herz 2013), really different from the initial planning: places of segregation independently produce exchange, meeting, informal economy