Scrutinizing the situation on the ground in Sicily

Abstract

Conditions of refugees and migrants in Sicily are very difficult because there are a lot of implications, variations, observations, problems, difficulties. In recent years, migration has become one of the most debated issues in public opinion because of its political, economic, social, and cultural implications. In addition to defining problems, doubts, epistemological errors, conflicts that the categories used (e.g., regular/irregular, refugee/asylum seekers) trigger. The focus on migration has become the topic for the clashes among political forces and to justify the difficulties that the country complains about. In this frame there is a gap between “reality” and its “representation”: as it hap- pens for example, to select some of the actors of migration, such as refugees, and to neglect others; or not to distinguish between asylum and migration; to establish continuously a ranking between who has rights to stay and who has not; to support the rhetoric of the “unstoppable invasion” recently aggravated by the risk of the Covid-19 virus (Tumminelli, 2020). In this paper, the situation of migration in the Sicilian territory will be presented in a national framework also with the aim of starting reflections on the theme and to think about adequate inclusion policies.