Paper short abstract:

The intersection of different levels of the institution's competences in the urban context concerning the processes of asylum seekers reception and integration. The city of Venice case.

Paper long abstract:

The migration policies in Europe proceed from an integrative and cooperative organization apparatus of border control to shaping differential micro-politics of management and conditional integration.

Locally, the application of European directives overlap, criss-cross and confront the national politics and the practical organization of control by the local government.

In this paper, I wish to interrogate these local articulations of politics on refugees and asylum seekers, based on fieldwork done in the city of Venice (Italy), in a local center dedicated to the temporary reception of asylum seekers.

In particular, I will be considering the intersection of these different levels of the institution's competences in the urban context, which will lead to a better understanding of the local government margin of autonomy concerning these processes of reception and integration.

Through this case study, a more general reflexion on the practical implications of governmental politics, in relation to the political and juridical gap between the right of residence and the right of citizenship in the European democratic system, can be instigated.