Paper short abstract:

In Sicily empty buildings are the material ruins of a violent, capitalist mafia order. Many were transformed into migrant workers’ shelters. Institutional actors, activists and workers interpret this in contrasting ways. Ruins thus embody a contested politics of hope and freedom at Europe’s edge.

Paper long abstract:

In southwestern Sicily, empty or abandoned structures stand as the physical ruins of an old, but still-present order, characterised by a violent, capitalist-minded mafia and decades of emigration. These structures have affective resonance on local denizens, who describe them in terms of feelings of depression and frustration.

Recently, some structures have been repurposed as shelters for migrant workers. This is the work of local activists and government institutions, but sometimes it is the workers who self-settle. For these actors, motivations and visions differ, sometimes in contrasting ways: for local activists, repurposing abandoned buildings and transforming them into shelters for migrants is part of a work of hope and meaning-making without which, many say, they would already have emigrated north. For actors working in institutional instances of re-appropriating buildings sequestered from the mafia to use as shelters, the transformation represents an act of legality and civilizing, privileging State control over the chaos of mafia violence and corruption. For migrant workers, self-settling in abandoned buildings is felt as a tension, between freedom and autonomy, but also feelings of being marginalized and vulnerable to many kinds of violence.

Based on eight months of ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in Sicily, this paper compares these actors’ reasons and visions for transforming empty buildings into shelters, placing them in the complex socio-political history of southwestern Sicily. It shows how ruins can function as the material and affective embodiment of contested politics of hope and freedom, in a place which locals themselves describe as a European periphery.