Border Encounters: How Citizens React to Immigration Detention in Italy

Experiences of borders are commonly studied from the perspective of the ‘non-citizen.’ Especially in Southern Europe, individuals without legal status must navigate increasingly complex systems of border control, including visa regimes, pushbacks, asylum, policing, administrative detention, or deportation. Citizens, however, are naturally assumed to be unaffected by these developments. Yet, as borders expand into unexpected spaces, the everyday citizen begins to confront borders through work, daily life, and/or politics. Studies show how some citizens may begin to enact the border as immigration officers or humanitarian workers, while others try to contest the border in solidarity with people on the move. Less explored is how these practices renegotiate notions of inclusion and exclusion for citizens themselves. I approach this question through participant observation and 27 semi-structured interviews collected over five months of qualitative field research with lawyers, activists, politicians, government officials, immigration detention center workers, healthcare professionals, and families orbiting around a Centro di Permanenza per il Rimpatrio (CPR) in Italy. I show how encounters with the ‘borders’ of an immigration detention center expose ‘cracks’ in understandings of what it means to belong. Drawing from Floya Anthias’ idea of ‘translocational positionality’, I illustrate how actors’ spatial position generates deeper reflections on identity, privilege, and power in relation to the border. By revealing moments of rupture for those already entitled to the rights and benefits of the state, I encourage migration studies to move beyond a static notion of positionality and consider the far-reaching effects of borders and diverse experiences of belonging.