Migration Landing Spaces
Processes and Infrastructures in Italy
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:17th May '24
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book looks at migrant landing spaces, exploring the processes and infrastructures which people encounter as they navigate urban spaces along the central Mediterranean route.
The book argues that there remains a theoretical and practical difficulty in grasping the complexity of migrant arrivals. Migrants are often unsure whether they will stay or leave, their mobility is uncertain. Despite this, they face rigid binaries and categories within administrative policy and planning which tries to pin them down as either permanent or temporary. Drawing on extensive original research in southern Italy, this book suggests that we should instead think of ‘landing spaces’: parts of the city that work as infrastructures for landing, that allow for an open and dynamic use of the urban space and provide opportunities for encounter and information exchange as migrants consider their next steps.
Combining an ethnographic gaze with insights from urban planning, architecture, geography, social sciences and migration studies, this book invites us to look closer at the interactions between people, practices and places as migrants land in Europe.
With 'landing', Martina Bovo provides a much needed concept that opens up the possibility to ethnographically grasp the complex temporalities of arrival processes. Through the way Martina herself describes landing in the Italian urbanised coast, she provides a brilliant example of how the diverse geographies of that process can be vividly portrayed.
Bruno Meeus, Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands
Martina Bovo has given us a beautifully written new way of conceptualizing human migration that blends ethnography with architecture and urban studies. Her spatial starting point results in her and us questioning many fundamentals of migration and, moreover, how we think of and govern our cities. A refreshing, exciting book!
Howard Duncan, Carleton University, Canada
Migration is radically challenging traditional processes of change in our societies. Martina Bovo's precious work focuses on migrants' landing in places of destination, where the hope of those who arrive clashes against the resistance of spaces and institutions. As she suggests, we may see alternatives and solutions also for spatial planning by changing perspective and looking at those moments and places.
Alessandro Balducci, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
ISBN: 9781032578668
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 453g
148 pages