Ethical Code

Université Libre de Bruxelles, Université de Liège

Università degli Studi “Suor Orsola Benincasa” di Napoli

Università degli Studi di Salerno

Laura Bazzicalupo is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Salerno and she is director of “Soft Power. Revista euroamericana de teorÍa e historia de la politica y del derecho”. In the first period of her work she focused on leading figures of the late modernity such as Thomas Mann e Musil, Il sismografo e il funambolo. Modelli di conoscenza e idea del politico in Thomas Mann e Robert Musil, (Liguori, Napoli 1982) and Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt. La storia per la politica, (ESI, Napoli 1995). Her name is however linked to the introduction in Italy of the biopolitical debate. Among her books: Il governo delle vite. Biopolitica ed economia (Laterza, Bari 2006), Biopolitica. Una mappa concettuale (Carocci, Roma 2010), Politica. Rappresentazioni e tecniche di governo (Carocci, Roma 2013), Dispositivi e soggettivazioni (Mimesis, Milano 2013). She has edited and prefaced the Italian Edition of J. Butler, E. Laclau, S. Žižek, Dialoghi sulla sinistra. Contingenza, egemonia, universalità (Laterza, Bari 2010).

The essay focuses on the effects of the power of naturalization of differences, that is classifying principles of biopolitical devices. Biopolitical/thanatological management of populations, using the naturalization of human for exclusionary purposes, is supported by a flexible form of governmental inclusiveness organized by an economic logic: one option does not exclude the other. The racialized subaltern uses his own body for a form of strategic and antagonistic identification. The juridical de-identification, induced by economic evaluation criteria, helps practices of self-management that are political in a different way from traditional one. The subjects who actively fit into the governmental system bypass exclusion in an interesting though problematic way and are oriented towards new and experimental subjectifications.

Keywords: Biopolitics, Ratialisation, Exclusion/Inclusiveness.

“Sapienza” Università di Roma

The notion of citizenship, as conventionally perceived of in Western tradition, seems to loose its ability today to function as a universal and shared value. We can get a sense of this change by looking at the different political conceptions that run through the critical approach of the “Subaltern Studies” collective, and through the investigation of Balibar and Rancière. From this point of view, democratic practices based on communitarian auto-regulation can be considered as laboratories of a variety of different tools of knowledge that exist beyond the traditional boundaries imposed by the political space of sovereignty (as conventionally understood in Western culture).
According to these perspectives, and also to Max Weber’s insights on the “Western city”, we have to acknowledge the notion of citizenship as dynamic and always in-the-making (let us call it “constituent”). In the light of this, the idea of social inclusion needs to be rethought as a “Right of Hospitality”.

Keywords: Citizenship, Hospitality, Social Inclusion, Cosmopolitanism, Rights.

University of Bologna/London School of Economics and Political Science

Since the early 1990s, the relative stability that had characterized Europe’s post-war asylum regime has given way to radical and widespread restrictive policy change, provoking one of the worst contemporary “migration crisis”. Migration has been high on Europe’s agenda and a main cause of concern for European citizens, alarmed by the levels of “illegal” migration as well as by the humanitarian duty of safeguarding the rights of people who are attempting to cross the borders. Focusing on “humanitarian narratives” as a communicative structure that disseminates the moral imperative to act on vulnerable others through a wide repertoire of popular genres, this paper examines the mediated representations of distant human suffering as it is constructed in public communication within two institutional contexts of humanitarian aid organizations and border control agencies. Highlighting how the discourses typically associated with the humanitarian aid organizations are today gaining importance in the context of border control, the paper sheds light on how this discursive dislocation of humanitarian narratives takes place and what types of political and epistemological implications it has.

Keywords: Humanitarian Discourse, Border Control, Inequality, Solidarity, Communication.

Seconda Università di Napoli

The article aims to analyze the transformation in the global governance of human rights under neoliberalism. Specifically, the work describes how the paradigm shift occurred over the seventies, from welfarism to neoliberalism, delegitimized social rights as a crucial component of human rights. While the lack of instruments for measuring social rights is mainly attributed to methodological reasons, the study stresses the political and ideological reasons that caused a delegitimization of social rights, as well as the hegemonic role of neoliberalism and its theory of human rights in this process. The article proves the neoliberal governance of human rights both in the United Nations’ helplessness and states’ reluctance to implement social rights. The conclusion stresses the strategic role of measurement for the persistence of neoliberal paradigm.

Keywords: Human Rights, Neoliberalism, Measurement, Global Governance, United Nations.

Université Blaise Pascal, Aubiére

This investigation purposes to explore and define what the notion of “culture of war” means. The “culture of war” would appear like the negative side of the “culture of memory” which feeds now, mainly for the Occidental societies, the moral values. Henceforth, “culture of memory” provides or determines the most influent frames of interpretation of the historical and current violence. Though “culture of war” seems to be sent back at the back of “culture of memory”, it remains very present and influential within the common world, and for the imagination. This investigation leads us to interrogate a notion like the “brutalization” (from G.L. Mosse). It compares how appears the reality of violence through the eye of either the “culture of memory”, or the “culture of war”.

Keywords: Culture of War, Culture of Memory, Moral Value, Brutalization, Cruelty.

Institute for Advanced Study School of Social Science, Princeton

Studies of the police tend to pit two theses against each other: the first one is
the thesis of the “insularity” of the police and it emphasizes the discretionary power of police agents; the second one is the “instrumentalist” thesis which considers policemen as agents of public authority. Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Paris area on the patrolling work of the public safety units of the police, and more specifically anti-crime brigades, makes it possible to solve this apparent contradiction between the notion of a state-within-the-state and the conception of the police as the armed branch of the state. Building upon the observation of repressive practices seeking to enforce legislation on drugs and resituating the notorious “result-driven management” within the context of the general reorientation of penal policy, the article suggests that the insularization of police activity constitutes the best means of its instrumentalization, especially in poor neighborhoods. It is by doing what they want that policemen also do what is expected of them. The unequal distribution of the use of force and of sanction against underprivileged populations composed mostly of recent immigrants overlaps with and legitimizes the unequal distribution of social resources. By justifying its policy in the name of collective security and the common good, the penal state thus reproduces the social order while, paradoxically, weakening public order.

Keywords: The “Insularity” of the Police, The “Instrumentalist” Thesis, Anti-crime Brigades, Social Order, Ethnographic Fieldwork.

Université Libre de Bruxelles

Based on ethnographic research in an immigration detention centre in Belgium the author discusses the evolution of the regime to which the detainees are subjected. In the official language of the Immigration Office, this evolution is called humanisation of detention. A reconstruction of the changes shows that instead the regime was changed for the well-being of the staff. In fact, immigration detention must be understood as a result of the rise of warehousing practices of the penal state. The staff of the centres has the task of executing the punitive measure of detention. However, this became too burdensome for the staff and so the regime was gradually humanised without change in legislation. All levels of staff were implicated in this change. The author argues that the changes were made to account to different actors: inside the Immigration Office accountability was directed to the staff, while externally this process was called humanisation.

Keywords: Immigration Detention, Implementation, Governing Immigration through Crime, Street-level Bureaucracy, Ethopolitics.

University of Kent, Brussels (BSIS)

The concept of bearing witness has acquired a paradigmatic value following the work that appeared in the twentieth century and bred a forceful discussion on the significance of a witness and its subjectivity and ethics. It also led to dogmatic positions and limitations, negations and negotiations, possibilities and impossibilities. This paper explores the act of bearing witness to exception through the conflict in Kashmir to understand the case of body and its origin in order to dehomogenise the figure of the witness. It is done to widen its scope, to understand its reorienting into new forms, occasionally becoming more radical, and sometimes choosing to moderate themselves under a different logic. It offers an understanding about the local medical worker as a witness but not limiting it to the terrain of superstes or testis and other categories as suggested by Giorgio Agamben (1999) and Didier Fassin (2008, 2012). The objective is to understand the local medical worker as a witness who testifies not only in place of those he or she treats, but to his or her own condition as an actor in conflict, thereby mixing the “clinical with the political”, using Fassin’s phrase.

Keywords: Witnessing, Kashmir, War, Exception, Humanitarian.

Università degli Studi di Genova

The article is based on ethnographic materials collected during several fieldwork experiences in the borderland between Egypt, Israel and the Gaza Strip from 2009 until 2011. The study is based on participant observation and on several interviews conducted around the border crossing on the Egyptian side. During the unpredictable openings of the Rafah border crossing, thousands of people queue in front of the terminal, waiting to cross. Through the presentation of some paradigmatic case studies, this chapter attempts to answer some crucial questions: how does this “triangular” border work? When and where does it work? Who is allowed to cross it? Who is not? Is the image of the border as a membrane compressed between two opposite thrusts – “crossing borders” and “reinforcing borders” – able to answer to these questions? Instead of marking a sharp discontinuity between inside and outside, the border “works” producing its specific space, time, knowledge and power.

Keywords: Ethnography, Borders, Egypt, Gaza, Strip.

Università degli Studi “Suor Orsola Benincasa” di Napoli

This article aims at analysing the results of a collective research conducted by URiT (The Social Topographies Research Unit) and the Italian Non-Governmental Organization called “Un ponte per…”. Here, we investigate the social and civil structures of the post-war Iraq through a study of humanitarian organizations. In the first part of this article, we describe the results of the two questionnaires filled by the organization managers and the simple members of thirty-four Iraqi voluntary organizations.
In the second part, we analyze the contents of these interviews paying attention to the rhetorical discourses about the “western civilization” of the Iraqi people. Our hypothesis is that the invasion of Iraq represents a clear understanding of the relationship between war and democracy in the Western society and of the consciousness of war as an instrument of global order.

Keywords: Civilize, Voluntary Associations, Iraq, Invasion, Humanitarian War.

Université Libre de Bruxelles

This article looks at the policy making of integration policies in Western Europe. Until recently much attention has been paid by scholars to policy making at the national level but less is done at the European level. I look at policy making at the European level, i.e. soft policy tools launched by the Commission to enhance convergence of national policies. I argue that the strategies to circumvent the Members states’ reluctance towards the European level leads to an approach promoting sharing of “best practices”. As a consequence of this strategy, European initiatives have not a direct effect on policy making and the national level remains the most important. However, this does not mean that initiatives launched at the European level do not have any effect. Indeed, they contribute to the diffusion and depoliticization of integration policies, help some actors to gain legitimacy and upload to the European level the concern of integration policy as a means to control migration.

Keywords: Europeanization, Policy-Making, Integration Policies.

University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies

Starting in the late 1970s, the agricultural sector has undergone dramatic changes in Europe, leading to the development of an intensive model of production that is oriented to global markets. In this context, the use of low cost migrant labour and the resort to informal labour arrangements have become the main tools to support this system and to face the increasing competition from cheaper foreign goods. This research is aimed at the study of the informal management of migrant agricultural labour in Italy and the UK and the role of informal brokers that provide a variety of services to local employers. The hypothesis proposed here is that these intermediaries are rational and functional economic actors, whose role is embedded in a wide process of informalization of the economy. Moreover, this system requires the presence of an extremely malleable labour force, which is reproduced through a series of practices of power that push migrants into a condition of vulnerability. The research will be conducted through an ethnographic approach based on direct observation and in-depth interviews with migrant agricultural workers and informal brokers. This will help understand the different dynamics of informal employment and shed light on the hierarchical structure of the agricultural labour market.

Keywords: Agriculture, Migrant Farm Workers, Labour Intermediation, Informal Brokers, Structural Vulnerability.

Università degli Studi del Salento, Lecce

Since the end of the Seventies the Latin American countries have been precursor in experiencing the failure of Friedmanite theories and have endured a double form of impunity: the first one linked to human right violations, which have been committed by the dictatorships, and the other one linked to the social consequences of neoliberal economic policies. In the previous years, rarely the Latin American continent has been considered a possible case study compared to the political, economic and social strategies, which have been fielded by institutional actors and civil society. In spite of the same crisis, which is facing the West today, passed in North America “backyard” almost a decade ago. Today, we can look at current forms of resistance and struggle, from which the emergence of new modes of production and development are conceived and are leading the area to economic growth and unprecedented social.

Keywords: Neoliberalism, Anti-hegemonic Globalisation, Social Movements.

Université Libre de Bruxelles, Université de Liège

This article aims at analysing the relation between the dominant approaches to the study of Italian mafias and the actual growth of these criminal organizations abroad. Firstly, I will try to explain how the majority of these socio-economic and anthropological studies have fostered, on one side, the criminalization and stereotyping of Italians and, on the other hand, the reproduction of a “liberal falsification” of mafia phenomena which did not help to frame an effective fight against organized crime (Vercellone, Lebert 2001; Santino 2006). In conclusion, I will propose the discussion of a different theoretical framework. This approach tends to go beyond the classic interpretive paradigms about mafias, investigating the dynamics of the capitalist market economy and the relational system in which criminal organizations are rooted and conduct profitable economic activities interacting with the society, policy makers and institutions (Santino 2006; Braudel 1979).

Keywords: Italian mafias, South of Italy, Organized Crime, Capitalist Market Economy.

Università degli Studi “Federico II” di Napoli

This research investigates the meaning of the expression “right to the city” theorized by Henri Lefebvre. Today this right is probably the only form of citizenship that includes every inhabitant of the metropolis. The theory and practice of Lefebvre are spreading in the new social movements for the right to housing. The research explores the historical causes of the housing crisis in Italy and describes the main public policies of governments to solve this emergency. This text focuses on the urban history of Naples and genealogy of social movements for the “right to housing” since 1950.

Keywords: Right to the City, Naples, Social Movements.

Università degli Studi “Suor Orsola Benincasa” di Napoli

Université de Montréal

Università degli Studi “Suor Orsola Benincasa” di Napoli