Paper short abstract:

The paper explores paradigms of restlessness and stuckness in asylum seekers' struggle for recognition and residence in Europe. Drawing on ethnographic work in Rome and London, the analysis focuses on the contrast between need and desire and between a legal life in Italy and an illegal one elsewhere

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the multiple ruptures that young Afghan asylum seekers undergo moving across Europe. Either deported or autonomously moving between EU member states, their continuous mobility, both geographical and between legal statuses, is a strong expression of their struggle for recognition and residence in Europe.

Drawing on ethnographic work in Rome and London, I explore the contrast between need and desire, especially in relation to Italy's reception/assistance regime. By focusing only on material needs, the latter fosters a sense of dependency and passivity, simultaneously failing to address migrant's desires, such an important part in the everyday life and aspirations of young people, driven to migrate by complex and overlapping aspirations relating to economic and physical security, more global lifestyles, education and self-development projects and also sexuality. Accordingly, when refugees who obtained protection in Italy move elsewhere, I analyse the contrast between an 'illegal' and autonomous life elsewhere, and a 'legal' one (in Italy) where their desires are often silenced.

Although this kind of migration can be interpreted through paradigms of interruption and circularity, Dubliners' desires drive them to attempt a move again, even though risking to be displaced again. Breaking the logic of the migrant coming from a 'home' to a 'hosting country', Dubliners multiple trajectories, interruptions and new beginnings put an accent on the new possibilities that could be found 'elsewhere'. This is manifested in a particular mode of being-in-the-world, an existential condition of lively 'restlessness' as opposed to the 'stuckness' in which they are usually represented.