Paper short abstract:

The paper deals with a comparative analysis of reception facilities between the south of Italy (especially Sicily) and the south of Germany (mostly Baden-Württemberg), showing the emergence of a specific reception regime aimed at the control of movements of people on the move.

Paper long abstract:

Since the early 80s and more pronouncedly since the beginning of the XXI century, reception facilities for asylum seekers have started dotting the landscape of the EU. These facilities are most of the time located outside the urban centers and are characterized by a detrimentally low level of services (such as means of transportation, sanitary provisions, and cooking facilities). The living conditions within often verge on the uninhabitable, rising critiques from both civil society and (non-)institutional actors. Moreover, scholars and other actors have pointed out to which extent the strategic placement of camps generates illegal labor and hinder the integration of newly arrived people. Despite the hard criticisms, both the EU and EU Member States have continued turning peripheral facilities into huge hubs for the reception of asylum seekers. In this paper, the author compares the camps located in two different regions of the EU (Sicily and Baden-Württemberg) which represent two entry points: one into the EU as a whole, and the other into Germany (one of the most preferred destination). In this way, the paper shows the logistification process undergoing in the EU, taking into account the spatio-temporal dimension created by the camps, and how asylum seekers navigate this forced condition, often in unexpected ways.