Lorenzo Rinelli

Esta intervenção surgiu do aumento da utilização de tecnologias de reconhecimento facial na gestão da população, mais especificamente no controle da migração europeia. Inspirado por essas circunstâncias, reflito sobre o uso de lentes ópticas desde o início do uso da câmera pelos europeus como arma colonial até os dispositivos de captura de imagens atuais como uma ferramenta de rastreamento para detectar e acampar pessoas em movimento. Creio que esta metodologia arqueológica com sensibilidade estética permite revelar como as técnicas disciplinares contemporâneas de captação de imagens são produzidas por uma relação complexa de poder e saber enquadrada na mesma lógica biométrica de procura da verdade que marcou a dominação colonial europeia. Concluo minha intervenção apresentando uma poderosa obra de arte de uma artista contemporânea que rompe a reivindicação ilusória de verdade científica e imparcialidade que ainda coloniza o sistema de verificação visual e evocando raízes africanas ...

This article problematizes the rhythm of Rome that emerges as a symphony from the multicultural agenda of the new city urban grand plan. Officially the plan aims at giving voice to different sounds of the immigrant communities living in the city; in reality, I sustain, it renders their rhythm unintelligible, their essence never a possibility. After framing the ideas behind the new grand plan for Rome, I engage in a contrapuntal reading of two documentaries L’Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio(Ferrente, 2009) –The Vittorio Square Orchestra, and Come un Uomo sulla Terra(Segre & Yimer, 2008) - Like a Man on Earth. By comparing the two on the light of roman urban policies and European migration control practices, I establish how the former despacializes other ideas of communities and reinforces the homogenization of immigrants’ unique experiences of the urban.

More than twenty years ago Edward Portes pointed out that “The major contemporary migration flows do not follow a blind economic logic, but are commonly patterned by historical bonds of hegemony and the structural imbalance of peripheral societies subjected to the influence of more powerful nations” (2000, 161). To comprehend and reflect on that structural imbalance within our interconnected world while challenging the current discourse on Euro-Africa mobility is the fundamental premise of this comprehensive volume. Part of the “Border Regions” series, “Expanding Boundaries: borders, mobilities and the future of Europe-Africa relations” edited by Jussi P. Lane, Inocent Moyo and Christopher Changwe Nshimbi consider Africa-Europe’s borders and the phenomenon of migration that traverses them through a holistic perspective in which challenges and opportunities coexist in a complex way (Rinelli 2015). Between the lines of several chapters, we discern the intellectual stance to call into question two unique and related problems that often condition outcomes of numerous investigations on Africa-Europe relations through the lens of mobility. First and foremost, the question of limited research funds for African scholars located in Africa is addressed. Next, a political economy of knowledge that leads to a proliferation of research that specially focuses on emigration of Africans towards Europe and read it as a threat turning the security spotlight on is highlighted. With regard to the former, academic literature has normally given prominence to foreigner scholars whereas African voices are seldom audible (Ranciere 2006). Here lies the fundamental strength of this volume, which also represents its greatest risk by attributing validity simply through a geographical construct. The organization of this volume in three main sections is appropriate for the purpose of challenging at once both issues mentioned above. What is more, for a cross-disciplinary collection, the whole volume reads well with a concise and clear prose that leads the audience conversant in Migration Studies, Border Studies but also in Conflict and Security Studies, to knowledge making. It does so by incorporating alternative framings and visions that otherwise have been for the most part extremely politicized and Eurocentric. Take for example the first part which problematizes the concept of the externalization of European migration control. That is arguably in the last twenty years the main European border policy that can be condensed in the transfer of border management to third countries and which has been the subject of heated discussions on many occasions such

This article theorizes the dynamics that emerge from the intimate relationship between contemporary African migration, liquid borders, and law around the channel of Sicily, between Italy and Libya. There, in the same waters where Ulysses and Aeneas roamed for years, whose epic journeys are considered foundational within the European identity narrative, today the trajectories that migrants boats traverse are disrupting and shuffling the European geographical limits. As a response, states are enacting a policy of containment that renders African migrants’ presence at sea invisible, while criminalizing human solidarity enacted by private organizations as well as individuals. Making use of a legal discourse analysis I will dig the premises behind the antinomic concept of criminal solidarity that emerges today in Europe as a somehow coherent system of thought, shaped by laws, codes of conduct, rules, and rulings. Specifically, by analyzing the rulings of one tribunal in Sicily, I will ma...

Based on an ongoing group effort with undocumented migrants, this article highlights a series of processes, problems, and instances that allow us to theorize the political subjectivity of undocumented migrants. More specifically, the essay draws on fieldwork in Lampedusa that culminated in the LampedusaInFestival event, without limiting itself to a single ethnographic study. This work looks at how the island of Lampedusa has acquired a symbolic status, serving as both the camp and the gateway of Europe, with the power to attract and catalyze different subjects, some of whom are active in political struggles — their undocumented status notwithstanding.

This book challenges the common European notions about African migration to Europe and offers a holistic understanding of the current situation in Africa. It advocates a need to rethink Africa-Europe relations and view migration and borders as a resource rather than as sources of a crisis. Migrant movement from Africa is often misunderstood and misrepresented as invasion caused by displacement due to poverty, violent conflict, and environmental stress. To control this movement and preserve national identities, the EU and its various member states resort to closing borders as a way of reinforcing their migration policies. This book aims to dismantle this stereo-typical view of migration from Africa by sharing cutting-edge research from the leading scholars in Africa and Europe. It refutes the flawed narratives that position Africa as a threat to European societies, their economies, and security, and encourages a nuanced understanding of the root causes as well as the socioeconomic fa...

Distorção de lentes: captura de imagem, racismo e subversão da fotografia colonial à "iborder"

This intervention emerged from the increase of use of facial recognition technologies on population management, specifically on European migration management. Inspired by these circumstances I reflect over the use of optical lens from the early use of the camera by Europeans in colonial times in connection to contemporary image capture devices as a tracking tool to detecting and encamp people on the move. I believe that this archaeological methodology with an aesthetic sensibility allows to reveal how contemporary disciplinary techniques of image capture are produced by a complex relation of power and knowledge framed within the same biometric logic of truth-seeking that marked the European colonial domination. I conclude my intervention by featuring a powerful artwork of a contemporary artist that with her artwork disrupts the illusory claim of scientific truth and impartiality that still nowadays colonizes the system of visual verification, by upsetting its cluster of relations of power, by evoking forgotten African roots of modernity.

This essay examines insurrectional asylum-seeking and refugee practices that highlight and disturb the legal and spatial relationship between refugee camps, zones of capture, and cities. Through a critical consideration of the logic of the refugee camp and its intersection with the law, technology, security, and humanitarian discourses, we map a series of practices emerging from the proliferation of camps, the urbanization and normalization of refugee camps, and their virtualization and inscription on human bodies. The essay engages as well, insurrectional enactments and everyday movement(s) in Tel Aviv, Rome, and Nairobi that affirm today's refugees’ and asylum seekers’ right to the city. In doing so, we raise ethical and political questions about the equivalence of the rights of citizens and those of stateless persons and the entanglements between camps, cities, and camp-cities.

As I write this intervention, Italy, the country where I dwell, is in a complete lock-down mode while the epidemic's impact on Italy's mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. This publication is based on my present-time reflections as a social scientist and thinker with a specific preoccupation with border studies, highlighting the ethical and political implications of the epidemic in Italy, particularly for migrant workers. This piece is written as the health crisis unfolds with no end in sight but with the inevitable contraction of the economy and the subsequent well-being of migrant workers when the pandemic is under control. It is a snapshot of our time and of a personal journey.

"Onwards ad-agio then, but together, because it is within the empty space next to us that the impact of our power over the other’s concern materializes, and where the basis for judgments about the very essence of any community- to-come, dwells."

This article theorizes the dynamics that emerge from the intimate relationship between contemporary African migration, liquid borders, and law around the channel of Sicily, between Italy and Libya. This is one of the deadliest and most trafficked migratory passages in the world. By analyzing the rulings of one tribunal in Sicily, I will make an attempt to expose how rigid conceptions of borders naturalize state’s efforts to define the limits of national territory, while conversely, I will consider how the micropolitics of justice are capable of shaping the contours of discourses on current migration.

The development of digital media and the availability of new technologies have had an important impact on how nowadays trauma of displacement have been documented and narrated by victims in different contexts. This intervention aims at discussing ways in which those memories can – or not – be gathered and elaborated in the digital realm. I will be looking among other things at my personal visual project for the Italian national association for civilian victims of war [ANVCG] and African asylum seekers for the elaboration of scenario planning laboratories with high school students in the Island of Lampedusa. There, within the borderscape, a combination of oral biographies and aesthetic tools –video making, storytelling, drawing and design-collapse the digital generational gap and unbridle students' fervid imagination around the peculiarities of the geographical place and the possibilities of time, in times of crisis. In other words, I eventually consider the cathartic effect of aesthetics by combining archival and interactivity possibilities with regards to the generational gap and technological leap which permeates this historical transition in which we happen to be.

In questo momento di estrema fragilità per l’Europa dovremmo guardare alla migrazione nel modo in cui guardiamo a noi stessi. La diplomazia europea ha un ruolo fondamentale all’interno del progetto
umanitario di lungo periodo volto a dirimere i conflitti e democratizzare i regimi che soffocano la società civile africana. C’è la necessità impellente di sviluppare politiche innovative per moltiplicare i potenziali benefici sociali ed economici di questa giovane popolazione in movimento,
e quindi per rendere tale movimento sostenibile.

Migration is sustainable when it meets the needs of countries of origin, transit and destination, while accompanying migrant populations without depleting natural and human resources Under what conditions do we consider migration sustainable? What do we mean by sustainability of migration in an age when more people are on the move on a global scale? What does this mean with regard to the specific case of the African continent? While intra-continental African migration has decreased by approximately 38% in the last 15 years, the number of people moving from one African country to another is still greater than the number of those leaving Africa for Europe by approximately 68.5%. Extra-continental emigration to Europe is on the rise. With regard to Africa, the increased movement of people is also caused by the fact that, from the late 1990s, there has been a sharp and proportional increase in “riots and protests” (ACLED, 2016) whose nature, causes and effects go beyond the scope of this paper. However, the reality is that the number of African young people is rapidly and relentlessly expanding against the backdrop of limited opportunities. To address this, there is a need to develop new policies to capture the potential social and economic benefits of Africa’s population growth and to make population movements sustainable. While the question of sustainability in general remains contested, sustainable migration between the two continents of Africa and Europe is one that meets the needs and priorities of countries of origin, transit and destination while aiding voluntary and forced migrant populations by avoiding the depletion of natural and human resources, more so human life. Policy choices and actions can capture the enormous potential of African migrants to turn them into a healthy, educated, empowered labour force that can contribute to the real and sustained economic growth of both Africa and Europe.

Based on an ongoing group effort with undocumented migrants, this article highlights a series of processes, problems, and instances that allow us to theorize the political subjectivity of undocumented migrants. More specifically, the essay draws on fieldwork in Lampedusa that culminated in the LampedusaInFestival event, without limiting itself to a single ethnographic study. This work looks at how the island of Lampedusa has acquired a symbolic status, serving as both the camp and the gateway of Europe, with the power to attract and catalyze different subjects, some of whom are active in political struggles — their undocumented status notwithstanding.

This essay examines insurrectional asylum-seeking and refugee practices that highlight and disturb the legal and spatial relationship between refugee camps, zones of capture, and cities. Through a critical consideration of the logic of the refugee camp and its intersection with the law, technology, security, and humanitarian discourses, we map a series of practices emerging from the proliferation of camps, the urbanization and normalization of refugee camps, and their virtualization and inscription on human bodies. The essay engages as well, insurrectional enactments and everyday movement(s) in Tel Aviv, Rome, and Nairobi that affirm today's refugees’ and asylum seekers’ right to the city. In doing so, we raise ethical and political questions about the equivalence of the rights of citizens and those of stateless persons and the entanglements between camps, cities, and camp-cities.

This piece looks into the urban dimensions of migrants' journey from Africa into Europe. Specifically, it follows few African migrants into the city of Rome. In this piece, I locate one of the new frontiers of Europe within a paradox of the city of Rome that is both fundamental and vital to its economic expansion: an inexorable growth of buildings that goes together with a mounting rejection and marginalization of an emergent immigrant population. The analysis of this paradox is crucial and reveals the way cityspace as a striated space is traversed by memories, sounds, images and experiences. A sort of living and pulsing archive that is transformed and re-membered in interesting ways by the new migrants. The paper takes into consideration the ways in which migration control policies and migrants’ lived experiences transform and have been transformed by the city.

This article problematizes the rhythm of Rome that emerges as a symphony from the multicultural agenda of the new city urban grand plan. Officially the plan aims at giving voice to different sounds of the immigrant communities living in the city; in reality, I sustain, it renders their rhythm unintelligible, their essence never a possibility. After framing the ideas behind the new grand plan for Rome, I engage in a contrapuntal reading of two documentaries L’Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio(Ferrente, 2009) –The Vittorio Square Orchestra, and Come un Uomo sulla Terra(Segre & Yimer, 2008) - Like a Man on Earth. By comparing the two on the light of roman urban policies and European migration control practices, I establish how the former despacializes other ideas of communities and reinforces the homogenization of immigrants’ unique experiences of the urban.

This article examines the 2006 Fanta advertising campaign for Italy, which employs Hawaiian cultural particularities inscribed in a generic tropical scenario to sell the Fanta soft drink to the world market. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s work on faciality, I aim to show how media promotion of leisure products reinforces the colonial perception of Indigenous cultures, Also, and less obviously, I aspire to comprehend how Transnational Corporations’ (TNCs) advertising allows both the construction and alteration of determinate geographical spaces and cultural practices that eventually become evocative to the potential consumer. I am interested in the process of coding that neutralizes Native peoples’ unique geographical and historical expressions. This process I have in mind constitutes the sounding board for the subjectification of the viewer, as stereotypical signs of Native cultures become the referent for commodities.

Transcultural Cities uses a framework of transcultural placemaking, cross-disciplinary inquiry and transnational focus to examine a collection of case studies around the world, presented a multidisciplinary group of scholars and activists in architecture, urban planning, urban studies, art, environmental psychology, geography, political science, and social work. The book addresses the intercultural exchanges as well as the cultural transformation that takes place in urban spaces. In doing so, it views cultures not in isolation from each other in today's diverse urban environments, but as mutually influenced, constituted and transformed. In cities and regions around the globe, migrations of people have continued to shape the makeup and making of neighborhoods, districts, and communities. For instance, in North America, new immigrants have revitalized many of the decaying urban landscapes, creating renewed cultural ambiance and economic networks that transcend borders. In Richmond, BC, Canada, an Asian night market has become a major cultural event that draws visitors throughput the region and across the US and Canadian border. Across the Pacific, foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong transform the deserted office district in Central on weekends into a carnivalesque site. While contributing to the multicultural vibes in cities, migration and movements have also resulted in tensions, competition, and clashes of cultures between different ethnic communities, old-timers, newcomers, employees and employers, individuals and institutions. In Transcultural Cities Jeffrey Hou and a cross-disciplinary team of authors argue for a more critical and open approach that sees today's cities, urban places, and placemaking as vehicles for cross-cultural understanding.

This book explores the transformation of migration control in the post 9/11 era. It looks at how border controls have become more diffuse in the face of increased human flows from Africa and presents a critical analysis of the dispositif of European migration control, including detention without trial, derogation of human rights law, torture, "extraordinary rendition", the curtailment of civil liberties and the securitization of migration. By examining the role of Gaddafi’s Libya in the last ten years as a gendarme of Europe, it argues for a re-visioning of borders and frontiers in ways that can account for their dialectical nature, and for the dialectical nature of political life.

This video documentary explores the capacity of Lampedusa to bring together stories of African errantry that translate into a vision of a European community yet to come. A polyphony of voices, a mingling of emotions: the theme of the smuggling of asylum-seekers is explored through first-hand accounts by survivors and rescuers and those of humanitarian workers and human rights specialists. While the necessity of the opening of legal migration channels in order to prevent the trafficking of human beings emerges, the documentary also stresses the importance of youth involvement in the current humanitarian crisis.

RINELLI, L.: African migrants and Europe: Managing the ultimate frontier. London; New York: Routledge, 2016. 149 p. ISBN 978-1-138-80051-9._

Lorenzo Rinelli graduated from University of Rome, La Sapienza (Doctor of Law: International Public Law; Master's degree: International Human Rights Law) and from University of Hawaii at Manoa (Doctor of Philosophy: International Relations and Affairs), where he participated in the curriculum development at the Department of Political Science. He designed a class on border theory focused on state control, fundamental rights of individual, refugees and migrants. His research interests have been for a few years focused on immigration and social change in European cities, European institutions, societies and EU migration control policies within the Mediterranean basin and over the Maghreb. Until the year 2007, he served as a Liaison Officer of Italian Red Cross. Nowadays, he works as a teacher and researcher at the University of California in Rome Study Center, Italy, and at University of Hawaii. He is active researcher on International Migration and Comparative Politics with a particular focus on Africa and migration to Europe, European minority, religion rights and racism in Europe. At the University of California, he leads the following courses: The Changing Face of the Mediterranean: Migration in Southern Europe and Globalization and Crisis in Spain and Italy. His strong interest in mentioned topics is based on the fact that his parents were migrants themselves.

The reviewed book entitled African Migrants and Europe: Managing the ultimate frontier was first published in 2016 in London and New York for the scholars and student of European Studies, African Studies, Security Studies, International Relations, Global Studies, Comparative Politics, Cultural Geography, Migration Studies and Border Theory. The volume represents a contribution also to Migrant Studies, filling information gaps of current understanding what is happening in the Mediterranean basin and what political practices are implemented by EU and Italian government with the main purpose to secure their territory. "Book was born out of indignation and inspiration, caused by the relentless political strength" (author).

The book offers information about the historical trajectory of the flows from Africa towards the European continent, deals with the contemporary migration flows and explains the dynamics of African migration in the context of misleading information from media images and news. The author points out how border controls have become diffuse, transformed, and he reveals aspects that were deliberately withheld due to improper approach during the unwelcome increase in migration flows from Africa. Author perceived and clearly introduced critical analyses against externalisation of European migration controls (externalisation of migration management in Europe). At the same time, he describes the plight of African migrants, accompanied by inhumane treatment in the various camps in the Sahara Desert, Libya and the Mediterranean, and later further accentuated in detention camps for migrants and the attitude to the issue of migration in various European cities. In the book, we can see the collision of two different worlds: the global North, deliberately turning the blind eye on the problems associated with migration, and on the other hand enormous area stimulating what the European Union now calls migration crisis. The book demonstrates how a small island such as Lampedusa, almost invisible on a map, constitutes a barrier to the continuation of migration flows, but at the same time serves as migration flows accelerator, the place of stoppage for the migrants, thus having direct impact on the entire European space. This Italian island with its community, and consequently Italy as a state, has become the centre of a discussion that surpasses the national importance. The author asks and answers questions: What's the picture about migration? What can be heard? What can be seen? What cannot be heard, and what must remain invisible?

The main purpose of the book is to restore basic idea of borders (the author also succinctly points out the difference between borders and frontiers) in the light of contemporary African migration interventions on European territory. The author criticises contemporary artificial borders, created and conserved by the state, and fuelling tensions. "Feuilles éparses" is epigraph of the book taken from Abbé Pierre, French priest who set up Emmaus International made up from 350 member organisations operating in 37 different countries in Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Abbé Pierre has spread a testimony of solidarity among people who have experienced exclusion in attempt to achieve their fundamental rights, values of sharing, humanity and justice, who wholeheartedly fought against poverty and exclusion. I identify with the authors statement: "This book is for those who walk strenuously from one life to the next, always with courage and faith."

It is important to point out that the book offers highly sophisticated approach to the issue of African migrants and Europe. From my point of view, author has written by now unrivalled and original book, with many challenges for EU and also for us as individuals. Book offers not only the expansion of the territorial and ethical boundaries, but also an expansion of boundaries of the issue well beyond what can be presented by international media and politics. Only time, however, will show whether the author was wrong in his assumptions or not.

It is important to point out the book has many positive aspects. Lorenzo Rinelli personally visited Lampedusa and affected areas, where he did his research with considerable impartiality and neutrality to the European institutions. The work is enriched by the testimonies of African migrants, who reached the European borders, and by author's own photographic archive. To explain complex issues related to the African migrants and their relations with the EU, author uses various comparisons and inspiration from documentaries touching upon the same topic, such as Golden Door, Like a Man on Earth, and L'Orchestra di Piazza Vittoria. He investigates how the entire EU apparatus and complex framework of immigration laws and policies shape the life conditions, choices, expectations and behaviours of the migrants

The book is divided into eight chapters, each one dealing with the issue of African migration from another part of the journey into Europe. The author compares different areas of migration flows from the Central Africa to Europe. Each part of the journey represents a "door" which migrants need to open in order to continue. On one hand, border represents a crossing point and point of passage, but at the same time, it is an obstacle in transitions, where selection and filtering take place. Thus, it becomes an area of potential outbreaks of violence. The Sand door, Blue door, Brick door and Virtual door are the main doors that migrants need to pass. Individual chapters discuss those borders, which are not neutral lines, but are defined by power relations, including trade or investments. Each chapter starts with an impressive citation, which outlines the basic idea of the next pages. The author is dealing very precisely and expertly with the term of externalisation, its genesis and changes leading to singled out and undocumented immigrants. He perceives also the security dimension of this issue, because illegal migrants may represent a threat to international peace and stability. In his words, "there is migration, therefore, there is a risk..." The book explains how the bureaucratic European migration control and practices have been implemented in the North Africa and Mediterranean basin and how migrants deal with the crossing of the Sahara Desert and Sea. Author dissociates from a scientific approach to migration perceived as "privilege" for host countries or governments. He outlines the problematic concept of borders, discusses different kinds of possibilities to design them, focusing on natural character of frontiers and intersections between African migrants' trajectories and national identities. The Mediterranean Sea represents a "Blue doof, combined with the so-called "Virtual door", represented by satellite and security technology employed by the EU to guard the area of Mediterranean basin. In this part of the book, author answers the question what is the real importance, function of Lampedusa, and presents the intimate relations between African migrants, borders and justice. He defines the relationship between law, institutions, and the individuals that transforms into visible boundaries. Consequently, Rinelli described the southern limits of Europe as the complex net of relations between legal framework, institutions and individuals, both migrants and not. Author also looks into productive tensions generated by the interaction between migrants and new available technologies.

An important contribution of this volume is the idea of new urban development plan for the city of Rome, envisaged as "Rome - Peace Capital of the Mediterranean". The author analyses the shortcomings of the current state, and proposes solutions not only for Rome, but also for other European cities facing the issue of migration. The book is an invitation to "see differently" as we pass through a series of various "doors"; it provides numerous questions that will not leave you indifferent to the issue of African Migrants and Europe.
AuthorAffiliation

Mária Stupáková *

* Mgr. Mária Stupáková is a PhD. Student at the Department of International Relations and Diplomacy, Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Kuzmányho 1, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic, e-mail: maria.stupakova@umb.sk.

London and New York, Routledge, 2016, pp. 192 ell'introduzione alla raccolta di saggi connessi alla propria espe-rienza di insegnamento presso la Columbia University di New York Edward Said individuava nelle migrazioni l'evento più significativo degli ultimi tre decenni trascorsi. Era il 2000 e non sarebbero ba-stati i successivi quindici anni a scalfire quella asserzione, a spostarne i termini o affievolirne i presupposti. La cosiddetta questione migratoria scuote oggi l'Euro-pa, mettendone radicalmente in questione politiche e rappresentazioni, apparati normativi e costruzioni retoriche. Il libro di Lorenzo Rinelli racchiude al tempo stesso una risposta a questi even-ti e un complesso tentativo di riposizio-namento. Le pratiche di sconfinamento non sono soltanto il terreno d'indagine su cui l'autore si misura, ma rappresentano più radicalmente la modalità attraverso cui il testo e la riflessione sono costruiti. Attraverso una ricognizione che intreccia processi legislativi e dispositivi tecnologi-ci, storie di vita e figurazioni estetiche, produzioni discorsive e pratiche spaziali, l'autore scompone il proprio oggetto di ricerca-le migrazioni dall'Africa in Eu-ropa-e lo sottopone a sguardi ed ap-procci di volta in volta differenti, che se da un lato accrescono l'impressione di complessità, dall'altro rivelano il carattere parziale e instabile di qualunque tentativo di analisi. Il gesto teorico e politico che sostiene la riflessione e tiene insieme le sue parti consiste in un radicale ripensamento del confine, delle sue politiche e delle sue estetiche. In linea con una densa tradizio-ne di pensiero oggi definitivamente af-fermatasi all'interno dei Border Studies, il confine perde nel testo di Lorenzo Rinelli qualunque illusione di fissità. Il suo senso va dunque re-inscritto entro una dimen-sione dialettica e performativa: il confine non è, accade. E accade ogniqualvolta le differenti forme di controllo della mobili-tà su scala statale o sovrastatale si scontra-no con le traiettorie di chi sceglie di aggi-rarle surrettiziamente o di sfidarle aper-tamente, accade nelle frizioni fra queste due forze e nelle resistenze che a partire da esse è possibile attivare. La capacità dei migranti di negoziare attivamente le for-me e le modalità di relazione rispetto a questi spazi e a queste performance del confine rappresenta uno dei terreni più densamente attraversati nel testo. L'occu-pazione da parte di un gruppo di rifugiati eritrei di un'area nei pressi della stazione di Ponte Mammolo e il sistema di relazio-ni che l'ha abitata, lo sguardo di Dagmawi Yimer e lo sforzo di riappropriarsi di un discorso sulla rappresentazione di cui il documentario Come un uomo sulla terra è testimonianza, le proteste dei migranti trattenuti nei campi e negli altri luoghi di detenzione disseminati alle porte d'Eu-ropa, e ancora la singolarità delle storie e delle traiettorie, costituiscono alcuni dei punti in cui il migrante da oggetto-di sguardi, politiche, teorie-torna a farsi soggetto-di rappresentazione, diritto, desiderio. La struttura del libro-così come lo stile di scrittura-ha una forte carica sugge-stiva. Molti degli otto capitoli in cui il te-sto è articolato prendono il nome di una porta, connotando così tanto le singole trattazioni quanto i luoghi su cui vertono come occasioni di apertura e di passaggio. I primi due capitoli conducono il lettore sul terreno teorico che farà da sfondo alla riflessione, polarizzandosi rispettivamente intorno al concetto di esternalizzazione e a quello di confine. È a partire da queste N