Thresholds of life in an Italian reception centre
Abstract
In Undoing Nothing: Waiting for Asylum, Struggling for Relevance, Paolo Boccagni offers a detailed and forensic ethnography of the complexities of life for young migrant men as they move through an Italian reception facility. The book raises questions of race, gender, age, and identity, offering insight into how the cultural politics of migration, homemaking, and a desire for “real normality” among young men on the thresholds of adulthood and autonomy, shape what the centre means. In this commentary, I consider how Boccagni’s ethnography offers wider resonances for understanding the cultural politics of migration in Europe today. I consider the political role of the reception centre as a site of pedagogy, intimacy, and ambivalence for its residents, situated at the interstices of projects of control, nativism, and potential belonging.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Interdisciplinary Cultural and Social Studies
Emotional Labor in Professions
Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Ethnic and Racial Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 13
- Pages
- 2780–2788
- Publication date
- 28 January 2026
- Language
- EN