Fiorenza Picozza - The Coloniality of Asylum

The Coloniality of
Asylum

New Politics of Autonomy

Series Editors : Saul Newman and Martina Tazzioli

In recent years, we have witnessed an unprecedented emergence of new forms of radical politicsfrom Tahrir Square, Gezi Park and the global Occupy movement, to Wikileaks and hacktivism. What is striking about such movements is their rejection of leadership structures and the absence of political demands and agendas. Instead, their originality lies in the autonomous forms of political life they engender.

The New Politics of Autonomy book series is an attempt to make sense of this new terrain of anti-political politics, and to develop an alternative conceptual and theoretical arsenal for thinking the politics of autonomy. The series investigates political, economic and ethical questions raised by this new paradigm of autonomy. It brings together authors and researchers who are engaged, in various ways, with understanding contemporary radical political movements and who approach the theme of autonomy from different perspectives: political theory, philosophy, ethics, literature and art, psychoanalytic theory, political economy, and political history.

Titles in the Series

Spaces of Governmentality: Autonomous Migration and the Arab Uprisings

Martina Tazzioli

The Composition of Movements to Come: Aesthetics and Cultural Labour After the Avant-Garde

Stevphen Shukaitis

Foucault and the Making of Subjects

Edited by Laura Cremonesi, Orazio Irrera, Daniele Lorenzini and Martina Tazzioli

Italian Critical Thought: Genealogies and Categories

Edited by Dario Gentili, Elettra Stimilli and Glenda Garelli

In the Marxian Workshops: Producing Subjects

Sandro Mezzadra

Anarchisms, Postanarchisms and Ethics

Benjamin Franks

The Urban Enigma: Time, Autonomy, and Postcolonial Transformations in Latin America

Simone Vegli

The Arab Spring Between Transformation and Capture: Autonomy, Media and Mobility in Tunisia

Oana Prvan

The Coloniality of Asylum: Mobility, Autonomy and Solidarity in the Wake of Europes Refugee Crisis

Fiorenza Picozza

The Coloniality of
Asylum

Mobility, Autonomy and
Solidarity in the Wake of Europes
Refugee Crisis

Fiorenza Picozza

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Copyright 2021 by Fiorenza Picozza

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020950801

ISBN: 978-1-5381-5009-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN: 978-1-5381-5010-8 (electronic)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

This book is a testament to a decade of involvement in migrant struggles, in praxis, and thought. It was written in different geographic locations and is woven of uncountable conversations and heated arguments, as well as affection, bitterness, rage, hope and even joy what Audre Lorde would describe as the erotic. Its second draft was elaborated during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico City, an ocean away from my native Italy, and from London and Hamburg the northernmost ends of the geography of my heart. The predominance of online communication during the pandemic made space for retaking some old connections on the other side of the pond while strengthening new ones, conspiring with a new elective Mexican family. In my darkest moments of that period, I was held by the virtual presence of Palestinian, Afghan, Syrian, Cuban, Mexican, Ethiopian and Iranian friends, who helped me cope with the ruptures, separations, uncertainties and fragilities of my own migration having they, or their beloved ones, been migrants too. They all deeply suffered from the consequences of global coloniality and the unfairness of border regimes, yet they never derided my more privileged preoccupations. It is to them that this book is dedicated, for these mutual solidarity, complicity and tenderness are the most precious learnings and gifts that I have received from the last decade.

Intellectually, politically and affectively I owe an awful lot to the teachers, guides, comrades and students who have accompanied me in the course of my MA at the School of Oriental and African Studies and PhD at Kings College London. Nicholas De Genova was the incredibly thorough and supporting supervisor of the dissertation that provided the foundations for this book. Danae Avgeri and Francesco Bosso were its most attentive readers, as well as dearest partners in crime and levity. Martina Tazzioli is the unwavering bastion that orients many of us, and I owe her the very publication of this book. My PhD examiners, Shahram Khosravi and Bridget Anderson, allowed me to conclude that chapter of my life in the best possible way, encouraging me to continue writing far beyond what I could have expected. Alongside them, I am deeply grateful to Phil Hubbard, Paru Raman, Sami Everett, Hannah Schling, Simone Vegli, Adam Elliott Cooper, Elena Fontanari, Bernd Kasparek, Mical Nelken, Gavriel Nelken, Simona Pagano, Maurizio Totaro, Yari Lanci, Samir Harb, Anna Grimaldi, Juan Grigera, Sam McLean and Sam Hayward all of whom have accompanied me in unique ways through the journey of researching, writing and teaching.

Furthermore, the political and narrative imagination that animates this book was deeply nourished by Habib Zadran, Mahmoud Qudaih, Dagmawi Yimer, Rajaa Shamam, Aischa Abdirihman Dirir, Tanja van de Loo, Amarela Varela, ngel Martnez Filosoflow, Annika Schnitzler, Ernesto Morales Bautista, Gabriel Brito Nunes, Chiara Mammarella, Diego Ferraris, Piero Consentino, Fabin Villegas, Ali Alizadeh and Marco Carsetti.

George Sidaoui drew the wonderful maps that visualise the places and trajectories I narrate and was one of the dearest companions at the time I wrote my thesis. Andrea Contenta read the last draft of this manuscript and thus had to fulfil the troublesome task of cheering me up against my continuous loss of meaning.

My father needs a special mention for convincing me to complete this book when I was only a step away from giving up. To my mum, I owe the scorching fury that animates the text; to my sister, the tenderness to soothe it, as well as the burdens she took to pave a smoother way for my coming into this world. To Carolina Purificati, I am bound through a deep-rooted friendship which keeps renewing itself as the waves roll onto the shore and back. And I thank Alan Moreno for his infinite patience in accompanying me through my shadows and for the bright days in Puebla looking for cave paintings.

To all the people in Hamburg, who in a way or another supported me in the course of fieldwork, I owe more than they could realise and more than I could convey here; this book would not exist without their generosity and companionship. For my London crew, I have infinite gratefulness and love; the years I spent there were among the most beautiful and dreadful experiences of my life and they all helped to enlarge my way of thinking and feeling. To my home or idea thereof in Italy, I have returned once more, to absorb and permeate the love of my summer companions while submitting the manuscript. Despite feeling I can never return permanently, it is one of the places that allow me to dream, bloom and feel through my skin the most even during these dark times.