Workshop 3 – Politics of Public Space
‘Can you here me?’ – Phone
Centers and the Struggle for
Public Space
Not to be cited without permission.
Please note that references to interviews are not reported in this paper (they all refer to interviews undertaken in the period March 2008-February 2009)
'Can you hear me?' - Phone centers and the struggle for public space
Urban policies focused on perceptions of unsafety may be theorized as a form of vengeful, revanchist urbanism (Smith, 1996), in an on-going management by political elites of constituencies' anxieties. The resulting interventions tend to be played-out in strategies to ‘re-order’ and ‘clean’ urban space from a dangerous other (Dal Lago, 1999), towards whom all fears are catalyzed (Palidda, 2008; Petrillo, 2000). In this paper, I investigate into this form of urbanism, by drawing on empirical data collected through my phd research work in two Italian cities which are characterised by different political traditions: Verona and Modena. In particular, I will focus on the regulation of phone centers and on the conflicts that have emerged, by drawing on on the narratives of all the actors involved. This will allow to shed a light on how parts of public space are being transformed through practices of control and how phone centers-owners have been resisting with respect to these changes.
i. Introduction
'The revanchist city'1 is more than a dual city in race and class term. It is a city where the benign glect of the other half has been superseded by a more active viciousness that criminalizes a whole
ehaviours and that blames the failure of urban policy on the populations it was supposed to
ith, 1996). Revanchist policies can be described as a 'reaction against the supposed 'theft' of desperate defense of a challenged phalanx of privileges, cloaked in the populist language of ality and neighbourhood security' (Smith, 1996: 211). Many of the resulting interventions have ed-out in strategies to ‘re-order’ and ‘clean’ urban space from a dangerous other, in an on-nagement of residents' anxieties.
Aktinson (2003) argues that the revanchist city can be understood on the basis of three main strands, namely: a mode of governance, resulting from an increasing decentralisation and discretion that allow local authorities to act in coercive ways; a set of programmes designed to secure public space; a prophetic and dystopian image of a downward spiral of social relations in which vengeful polices are thought as ameliorative of public places, seen in turn as representative of an urban malaise; a reference to economic objectives relating economic urban development to the securing of city spaces.
The aim of this paper is that of investigating what the author considers to be a very significant ample of revanchist urbanism: the regulation of phone centers in Italy. Infact, it enshrines a very tested issuethat has and is still at the center of a hot debate, as some local2, as well as
ress coverage3 suggest. Modena and Verona were chosen as case studies because they are
e very few cities, for the time being, where the issue of phone centers has come to the fore at evel4. Moreover, their different political subcultures make it interesting to compare
the sake of scientific comparison, it should be specified that Verona and Modena have a
1 Smith drew this concept from the French ultra-right 'revanchist' populist movement, which throughout the last
decades of the 19th century reacted against the liberalism of the 2nd Empire and the socialism of the Paris Commune.
2 As far as the case studies are concerned, the issue of phone centers was dealt with in L'Arena (Verona) and in L'Informazione, Il resto del Carlino, La Gazzetta di Modena (Modena).
3 It is mostly the case of Metropolis, the Sunday supplement of the national newspaper La Repubblica, that deals specifically with immigration related issue.
4 The issue was first brought up in the Lombardy Region, and in particular in Brescia and Milan. Verona and other cities in the Veneto region followed, as well as Modena in the Emilia Romagna. As this article is being written, the issue is emerging also in other cities in Tuscany. See 'La protesta, Norme discriminatorie sui phone center' in Metropoli, 42, 3, 21st December 2008, Lettere.
n of respectively 260,000 and 170,000 residents (Istat, 2008), with a similar incident of ts corresponding to roughly 10% (Istat, 2008).
One aspect that the literature on the revanchist city does not seem to emphasize is what reaction, if any, such policies stimulate on the side of those they are targeted at. Hence, this paper will focus on the conflict (Tilly and Tarrow, 2008)5 that resulted out of phone centers' regulations to show that while public space is being progressively 'annihilated by law' (Mitchell, 1997), such risk is counterbalanced, at least in part, by the resistance of phone centers-owners6. This will be also instrumental to show that much can be gained from a pragmatic stance that 'starts with the analysis of actors's engagements rather than that of (physical) space (Breviglieri and Trom, 2003). A range of scholars (Doron 2000; Keil 1999; Lees 1998; McCann 1999; Mitchell 1995; Soja, 2000; Smith, 1992) have deployed the theoretical insights of Foucault, Lefebvre, and de Certeau to explore the 'counterspaces' of resistance that can challenge their growth-machine-dominated representations of space (Mac Leod, 2002). However, they have underestimated that the current erosion of the urban fabric needs to be analyzed at the level of dynamic social relations (Mac Leod, 2002).
The first chapter sets the issue of phone centers into the context of revanchist urbanism. The second ves an introduction to the history of this type of commercial activity and highlights some of the
roperties that, arguably, can contribute to its identification as a 'public space'. The third part an analysis of how the 'trouble'7 has emerged. A discussion follows on the related practices of d the resistance they have been met with by phone centers- owners.
The work presented here is part of the preliminary results of an on-going phd project on immigrant llective actions in the context of urban safety policies in Italy. The project started in March 2008
e completed by November 2009.
5 The author refers to the theoretical frame on 'contentious politics' (Tilly and Tarrow, 2008), which intends a conflict as 'relating to claims impacting on other actors'.
6 It should be specified that while this paper will refer to the owners of phone centers, they are owners of the activity, not of the premises, which they (mostly) rent out from Italian residents.
7 The concept is drawn from Breviglieri (2003) (my translation from the French word 'trouble') and it indicates the emergence of the feeling that 'something is happening' without necessarily immediately resulting in a more consistent feeling that 'something is not working'.
1. Revanchism urbanism in Modena and Verona
1.1 Is Smith's work applicable to the Italian context?
Smith mostly discusses on US policies aimed at rendering homeless people invisible, by highlighting dynamics of gentrification. As Mac Leod (2002) rightly points out, 'the revanchist-city framework' might stand accused of being a slave to New York, as it was the case for the Global City perspective (cf Hamnett, 1995). Nonetheless, with many European cities suffering widening socioeconomic inequalities and intensified expressions of social exclusion, two key questions are particularly axiomatic: the extent to which a punitive vernacular might now form part of a mandatory political response intended to discipline the deleterious social consequences generated by a neoliberalizing political economic agenda (Mac Leod, 2002); the extent to which a conception of unchecked political hostility might be apposite for an understanding of broader changes affecting cities, countries and political projects globally (Atkinson, 2006). 'Operating through the housing market (gentrification), policing and welfare retrenchment, revanchist urbanism has struck writers in both North American (Slater, 2004; Wyly and Hammel, 2005), British (Atkinson, 2003) and Western European (Uitermark and Duyvendak, 2005) contexts' (Atkinson, 2006: 3).
Arguably, Smith's work can be most fruitfully appropriated in light of the Italian literature on the 'convenient enemy' (Palidda, 2008; Dal Lago, 1999). Indeed, both lines of argument suggest that a process has slowly developed whereby all fears deriving from a wide and deep structural crisis (Petrillo, 2000; Palidda, 2008; Smith, 1996; Atkinson, 2006) have been catalyzed into an anti-social behaviour discourse which has diverted attention towards specific categories of people, such as newcomers (Palidda, 2008; Petrillo, 2000). Indeed, when we feel most threatened by economic problems, health, etc. we tend to be hostile against anything which is somehow ‘strange(r)’ (Kuehne, 2002). Innumerable scholars have taught us that humans often handle strangeness by blaming the victim (Lofland, 1998), in what Dal Lago (1999) calls the 'tautology of fear'8. Hence, a visceral, vengeful revanchist reaction can become the common denominator of public discourse, particularly when fuelled by politicians, intellectuals and police forces stressing on perceptions of insecurity, thus contributing to the development of a 'securitarian spiral'9(Palidda, 1994; Dal Lago, 1999; De Giorgi, 2000). Media contribute to it too, in the measure that they screamingly reaffirm such perceptions through television programming (Smith, 1996), to start with but not only.
8 He precisely refers to the social construction of the 'deviant migrant' resulting from a reversal whereby the executioner becomes the victim.
9 The concept of the 'sicuritarian spiral' supports the existence of a directly proportional relationship between perceptions of unsafety and effective unsafety.
Unfortunately this dialectic has proved unable to address urban problems at their very root (Pavarini, 2006; Petrillo, 2000; Braccesi, 2004). There has been a failure to widen the spaces of access to and exercise of rights (Pavarini, 2006), while residents’ fears and demands for urban safety have been increasingly legitimised: predictability and safety have become non-negotiable principles of social life (Atkinson, 2006) and crime now surpasses healthcare and the economy as public anxiety number one' (Gilmore, 1996; Selmini, 2004; Pavarini, 2006). Mayors have acted accordingly, by promoting a whole new series of local safety policies.
1.2 Phone centers regulations as a revanchist form of urbanism
To start with, a brief overview of phone centers' regulations needs to be sketched out, in order for the reader to have a sufficient understanding of this complex legislative framework. For the sake of synthesis and simplification, the main pieces of legislation, as far as this paper is concerned, are the following: national anti-terrorism decree 155/2005; Veneto regional law 32/2007, put forward by the then Veneto region health councillor and current mayor of Verona (effective since December 18th 2008), Emilia-Romagna regional law 6/2007 and Modena local regulation 188/2007 10 (effective since January 2009). The first mainly requires owners to register customers' personal details prior to their access to telephone and internet services. The regional laws and the Modena local regulation introduced much stricter hygienic, sanitation and structural requirements, as to equate them to any other commercial activity. Furthermore, they restricted their commercial license to the provision of telephone and internet services, with the exception of money transfer, in the case of Modena11. Interestingly, the Constitutional Court has recently ruled against Lombardy regional law 3/200612, by defining it as unconstitutional13. Considering that similar appeals have been made in Verona and Modena, it is likely that a similar sentence will be pronounced for them too.
With reference to Atkinson's (2003) strands of analysis, none of the above pieces of legislation
10 This provides with application principles with reference to Emilia-Romagna regional law 6/2007 which, contrary to
the Veneto regional law, is not specific for phone centers.
11 These limitations blatantly run counter national law 248/2006, known as decreto Bersani, which provides for the ample deregulation of any commercial activity.
12 Sentence 350/2008.
13 The sentence was passed on these main grounds: (1) phone centers are a communication activity that should be
regulated by national not regional nor local authorities; (2) the law stands in sharp contrast to EU regulations on the
'freedom to communicate'; (3) the hygienic, sanitarian, structural requirements introduced are considered as too strict.
esplicitely refer to economic objectives or the securing of public space. Yet, as it will be shown later, an economic dimension was entrenched in local shop-owners' complaints, which encouraged the drawing of both the regional laws and the Modena local regulation. On the other side, the issue of safety emerged during interviews with local officers: 'even though phone centers are a simple economic activity, they have and will continue to call for a multi-disciplinary approach: they need to be regulated from a commercial, urban safety and a social integration point of view' (interview nr). A prophetic dystopian image can also be highlighted at the core of these policies, as it will be further discussed later. Importantly, it can be confirmed that such vengeful policies can be understood as a mode of governance. This is particularly true for Italy, after the introduction, in 1993, of national law 81, that accorded larger discretionary powers to mayors (Pavarini, 2006; Selmini, 2004).
1.3 Modena and Verona: two similar revanchist cities?14
Modena and Verona are part of different political subcultures (Messina, 2001): the former belongs to the 'red zone', characterised by a local politics of an integrative type, in which political choices are made locally and political participation is highly valued; the latter belongs to the 'white zone', characterised by a local politics of an aggregative type. The main characteristics of the red subculture are the politicization of society, with the predominance of the public and political over the private and the social, and municipal socialism, based on the direct intervention of government in local life to favor the unemployed and the poor. The white subculture is characterised by political socialization, emphasizing private solutions based on predominantly catholic values, and an antistate localism, with the tendence to limit politics to essentially negative activities, such as the defense of property against the power of the national state.
Of course, their political background has evolved and is a bit more complex than the framework by Messina allows for. Starting from the 80s, new demanding challenges, including the progressive aging of the population, an increasing unemployment and the arrival of the first waves of non- European immigrants, has put Modena political system under strain and new actors have appeared on the urban scene: catholic associations and neighbourhoods' committees (Barberis, 2008). As far as Verona is concerned, it should be stressed that in 1994, for the first time, the new party lead by Silvio Berlusconi runned for election, together with a right-wing coalition consisting of the Christian Democratic Center and the Lega Nord. With the exception of the Zanotto's mandate
(2003-2007), it is still a right wing coalition that governs the city.
Some scholars (Furedi, 1997; 2005 and Braccesi, 2004) argue that (similar) urban safety policies tend to be put forward irrespectively of any affiliation to right or left wing parties. While revanchist policies are not necessarily issued in the framework of urban safety, as the case of phone centers clearly shows, it is reasonable to expect that by throwing light on a city's safety policies, some hints can be given on its revanchist profile.
Urban safety measures, in Verona, have been introduced with an increasing consensus of residents. However, they have been granted more space in the municipal programme since 2007, with the wing coalition which is now on power having built its electoral campaign on a securitarian stance. This was constructed around the fight of irregular immigrants15 and immigrants' shops, particularly phone centers and kebab's, as a hide-out of illegality16. Since the beginning of the mandate, the local authority has promoted a whole range of safety policies including the installation of unfriendly parch benches17, the restriction of the food delivery service for homeless people to specific areas out of the town center18, new policies to fight the phenomenon of street vendors19, the involvement of the military force to patrol the town center20. In addition, the mayor has operated along the promised line, with an overt discriminatory approach towards ‘all those who are
different’. Just to cite a few examples: the public housing regulation was revised as to prioritise the access of residents born in Verona21; the newly created immigrants consultation body is under revision for abolishment22.
In Modena, a rather different picture emerges. With the exception of an ordinance to remove beggars from the street and a dubious project, titled 'Ombra nei vicoli', to deal with the disturbance caused by immigrant children playing outside in the streets, a quick revision of some of the local authorities' projects suggests that the local authority is much more prone towards a safety approach priviledging mediation and situational prevention: 'Progetto zona Tempio', relating to conflict
15 Irregular immigrants refer to immigrants that cannot be considered as regular residents because their permit to stay has experied.
16 See http://portale.comune.verona.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=9229 (accessed on 10th January 2009)
17 L'Arena di Verona, 'Panche 'antirelax' segati i braccioli', 23rd December 2007, pg. 12
18 As reported, in January 2009, by volunteers of 'La Ronda della Carità', an association responsible for this service. 19 L'Arena di Verona 'Supermulta a chi compra il falso', 1st August 2007, pg. 11
20 L'Arena di Verona 'Un patto Tosi-Maroni', 25th February 2009, pg. 1
21 L'Arena di Verona 'Case Agec, precedenza ai veronesi' 6th Septembre 2007, pg. 7
22 Information relative to the above mentioned interventions can be partly found on the website of the local authority
http://portale.comune.verona.it. Information about the revision of the immigrants consultation body was given by the association itself during informal meetings.
mediation; 'Parco delle mie brame' to deal with generational and ethnic conflicts relating to the fruition of the park; various projects in collaboration with Associazione VivereSicuri, promoting activities to prevent and monitor urban decay, campaigns to sensibilise residents on various social issues and initiatives to remove racist and offensive graffitis.23
Even though more examination would be needed in this sense, the above seem to confirm the hypothesis by Braccesi (2004): while right wing parties tend to focus on either a more visible involvement of mayors themselves with respect to urban safety demands, or on their delegation to the national government, left wing parties mostly activate social interventions and mediation types of activities. This is well exemplified by looking at the case studies presented here. However, the fact that a phone centers' regulation was introduced in both cities suggests that the revanchist mode is not a necessarily dominant or crudely upward or unalterable course in public life, but rather a modulating and uneven characteristic of political and urban life (Atkinson, 2006).
2. From a commercial activity to a disappearing public space? The genesis of phone centers
2.1 Phone centers as a profitable business investiment
The first phone centers in Italy were opened approximately 10 years ago. Today there are about 30 both in Modena and Verona. The majority are located in central parts of the city or close to it, particularly in areas where the percentage of immigrant residents is considerably higher with respect to the rest of town. This is hardly surprising considering that it is immigrants who make up the largest share of customers. They are managed almost entirely by immigrant residents24, who have been in the country for minimum 6 years and who have relevant work experiences to date (Castagnone and Gasparetti, 2008; interviews nr). The majority come from Bangladesh; others from Nigeria, Marocco, Ghana, Pakistan, Algeria.
Phone centers are generally a family-run business that provides with a living for one or more family units. At the beginning, they focussed on telephone and internet access. Later in the years, following insisting requests by customers, new services such as money transfer, video rental, food selling, etc. were offered. It was their limited job mobility (Ambrosini, 2008) that encouraged immigrants to invest in phone centers. In the late 90s, they represented a very good business opportunity for those who succeeded in recognising the latent demand of many immigrants to keep in contact with their
23 See the webite of Modena città Sicura, the office responsible for safety policies: http://www.comune.modena.it/cittasicura/
24 In Verona, all of them are managed by immigrants,. In Modena two were managed by Italians, till last December, while now there is only one Italian owner.
families at cheap prices (Glick Schiller et all, 1995; Vertovec, 2004). Moreover, they had relatively low entry barriers, in comparison with other entrepreneurial activities25. In other words, this business was chosen as part of a well thought project and not just as an ephemeral job undertaken by individuals inclined to risk taking (Guarnizo, 2003). Importantly, the ultimate aim of many owners was to redeem their right to be considered as legitimate citizens and to find a safer 'professional haven' for an easier renewal of their permit to stay26 (interviews nr).
Things have changed, however. In combination with the diffusion of competing products and services, the new legislative framework introduced above has provoked a pervasive crisis in the sector and many shops have been forced to close down27.
1.2 Phone centers: beyond a commercial space?
Phone centers represent a good example of the re-appropriation of urban space (Althabe, 2006). Despite the great array of communication options available, everyday cheap international telephone calls account for one of the main sources of connection among a multiplicity of global social networks (Vertovec, 2004). They serve as a kind of 'social glue' (Vertovec, 2004) and are one of the most significant (yet under-researched) modes of transnational practice affecting migrants’ domestic and community life in both sending and receiving countries (Vertovec 2003; Mahler 2001).
Apart from having a crucial function in the form of 'connective transnationalism' (Ambrosini, 2008), phone centers have slowly become a veritable meeting space for many immigrant residents. It is 'a place where caregivers often meet on their day off, where friends meet and chat (...) [and a place that] provides access to social networks': when newcomers first arrive they look for housing and job information and it is often here that they find them' (interviews nr). Interestingly, all interviews with local officers confirmed that there is a widespread awareness of their social function. But there is more to this. Many phone centers-owners offer support - often free of charge - to fill in and translate paper and electronic burocratic documents, in a sort of informal . Furthermore, they somehow seem substitute the local municipality when it does not succeed in
25 Interestingly, this aspect barely came out from the interviews undertaken with phone centers-owners.
26 According to the requirements of national law 189/2002, known as Bossi-Fini, the permit to stay needs to be renewed every 5 years. One of the main problems lies in the fact that in order for it to be renewed
applicants must
have a job. At the same time, if their contract is over, they can hardly get one without a permit to stay. 27 According to the figures given by the police and according to phone centers-owners, both in Modena and Verona 7
to 10 closed during 2008. It is still uncertain how many will close in the coming months due to the new pieces of legislation considering that some of them are not in the position to comply with some of the requirements.
reaching out to immigrants or any other urban user - apparently it is not unusual for tourists and residents to walk in and ask for a toilet, since pubs and restaurants located in the centre of town do not always have one (interviews nr).
These specific properties of phone centers make them resemble to 'public spaces', in the measure they generally provide with unrestricted access (Benn and Gaus, 1983; Franck and Paxson, 1989; Mela, 1996; Fyfle and Bannister, 1996). Some local officers in Modena (interview nr) have themselves described phone centers as a kind of public space to justify some of the requirements put forward by the local regulation, including, for example, that of furnishing the shop with chairs so that customers can sit inside instead of hanging outside and disturbing neighbours. But phone centers also recall 'public realms' (Lofland, 1998), because they are 'centers of communications' and 'parochial realms', because they are characterised by a sense of commonality among acquaintances and neighbours within the community (interviews nr). However, neither realms nor spaces are geographically rooted (Lofland, 1998). As such they breed no consensus. Whether they are considered as private, parochial, public or private is always a matter of conflict and negotiation to be derived from actors and ultimately the way they 'engage' (Thévenot and Boltansky, 1991; Thévenot and Boltansky, 2006; Thévenot, 2006) within a given environment. Arguably, this calls for a pragmatic stance capable of focusing on the 'micro-politics of troubles' (Cefai and Joseph, 2002: pg. 63), instead of resigning to reading every phenomenon according to a logic of domination or to reconduct any conflict to a system of power (Cefai and Jospeh, 2002).
3. Phone centers-owners and their strugge
3.1 Narratives on the emergence of a 'trouble'
Any analysis of the micro-politics of troubles can only start with the investigation of a 'problematic situation' (Dewey, 1993). As confirmed during interviews with residents, policemen and local officers, the 'trouble' of phone centers gradually emerged through residents' complaints, pointing mostly to the disturance by 'groups of jobless immigrants who constantly hang around phone centers and talk very loud' (interviews nr), 'indulge in drinking alchol and, maybe, even carry out illegal activities, such as drug dealing' (interviews nr ), 'abandon empty bottles on the pavement, that they often even use as toilets' (interviews nr). In short, most complaints related, and still relate, to problems of pacific cohabitation. Interestingly, however, a grammar of 'irregularity' is attached to the interpretations reported above, with interviewees stressing on the fact that it is jobless
immigrants who hang around phone centers and undertake activities considered as 'deviant', possibly with reference to the accepted 'moral order' (Durkheim, 1963), if not 'illegal'.
Far from denying existing conflicts, residents’ claims can be hardly justified with a progressive diversification of inhabitants’ use of urban space (Martinotti, 1993): young people tend to meet, chat and drink outside pubs in the same way that immigrants do in front of phone centers. Yet, it is the latter who are the object of a ‘moral panic’ (Cotesta, 1999; Dal Lago, 1998; Palidda, 1998; Maneri, 2001), as it will be argued next. A first analysis suggests that residents's claims were circumscribed to their (undesired) 'public visibility' (Debauge, 2003). However, they go well beyond it, to include a definition of a 'common good' (Thévenot and Bolstanki, 1991) (...) [the neighbourhood], intended as a public space requiring 'réserve' and 'retenue' (Pharo, 2001). Immigrants have repeteadly appropriated it in a way that disturbed its enjoyment, thus producing a sense of discontinuity. As a result, they started being considered as 'deviant' individuals contributing to urban decay with 'irreconcilably different ways of living' (Breviglieri, 2007), in the way they break the rules of the 'bon voisinage' (Breviglieri, 2007). This provoked a sense of 'unbearable'28 (Breviglieri, 2009), alongside the prevailing of the will to protect one's own private sphere over any anthropological inclination 'à habiter' (Breviglieri, 2005). Hence residents resigned to put pressure on the municipality for defensive components to be adopted.
One of the solutions which is generally experimented to cope with residents' complaints is that of introducing forms of regulatory control (Lofland, 1998), despite the fact that they are hardly ever successful in any way and that contemporary regulators often appreciate their essential
pointelessness. As a local officer in Modena commented: 'obliging phone centers-owners to put extra chairs inside their shops, might not help preventing their customers from hanging around outside the shop. But we are trying to do something about it, because residents have called for us' (interview nr). Policemen, on their side, have admitted that the number of inspections has increased considerably, particularly since the introduction of the new pieces of legislation and their
frequency29, as well as the number and types of police forces30 involved, inevitably raises the doubt
28 My translation from the French 'insupportable' used by Breviglieri (2009) which highlights a situation which marks a mouvement undermining even any dispute for the definition of what a 'common good' is.
29 Various owners, both in Verona and Modena, have reported that they have had more than 1 check per week, at times, even when nothing was found irregular.
30 Including national and local police, carabinieri (a body of the police force belonging to the army), guardia di finanza (a body of the police force responsible for border control and for investigating fraud), the municipal police.
that their objective was not so much about trade conduct, but rather of a political nature31. When explicitly asked for a motivation, police authorities invariably replied that it is part of their duty to carry them out particularly when, as in this case, they need to remind shop-owners that a new relevant piece of legislation will be effective soon and when they need to check for compliance with it. Furthermore, they insisted that it is for them 'to collect residents' complaints and to try and respond to them in the quickest and most efficient way' (interviews nr).
Phone centers-owners lamented the fact that inspections are often called for by other shop-owners who have the feeling that 'they are under-regulated and have special opening hours' (interviews nr). Yet, they are still very puzzled about the new legislative framework. They do accept the national law, on the ground that 'it is a national piece of legislation and it is to do with security and terrorism, so it is important for the country (...) even though phone centers have nothing to do with terrorism' (interview nr). On the contrary, they fail to accept the regional laws and the local regulation, as they are understood as nothing but discriminatory.
Narrative evidence from residents and shop-owners suggested that police officers have been repeatedly asked to carry out inspections not only because of the disturbance by some groups of immigrants but also because this type of activity stirs up forms of mistrust, in the measure it offers a whole variety of services, including the transfer of large amounts of money. Some owners also doubt they have managed to survive, without recurring to illegal activities, in face of the fierce competition of mobile operators. Police officers, mostly in Modena, confirmed, however, that the dialectic phone centers - terrorism/ illegal activities is very weak, if not pointless at all, despite the fact that national decree 155 introduced registration requirements on the basis that investigations made them emerge as 'hot spots'.
Arguably, the negative imaginary of phone centers has been strenghtened by the media, as suggested by the literature (Maneri, 2001; Cotesta, 1999; Van Dijk,1994). This seems to be particularly the case in Verona, where a systematic press review of l’Arena32, the main local newspaper, has shown that relevant articles are associated with pictures that invariably portray phone centers during inspections by police forces, when not by the mayor himself. Additionally,
31 This doubt was raised by two lawyers (who declared to be right-wing oriented) who have been working on some appeals in relation to the closing down of some shops. They argued that these clearly discriminating policies might provide with a tentative answer to residents' fears.
while they provide accounts of (Italian) residents' opinions33, they hardly allow for phone centers-owners' voice to be heard. An exception is provided by an article that was published last December (L'Arena, 2008), just before the regional law became effective. It will be interesting to investigate whether this might represent a significant step in their visibility. In Modena, on the contrary, they have had the chance to speak up34. The research carried out so far has shown that the foundation of a dedicated associaton of phone centers-owners, some years back, has been crucial in this sense. In particular, the role played by the President has been vital, not only because he is Italian and speaks the language fluently but also because he has considerable experience of collective action and has apparently managed to gain the trust of members who still insist for him to represent the association. Yet, during a meeting, last December, he lamented that, possibly due to elections coming up, editorial offices have not been very responsive in the last two months, to the detriment of their collective actions not being echoed.
3.2 On police controls: are phone centers-owners resisting at all?
The preceding paragraphs suggest that phone centers-owners are not mere recipients of a policy conceived by others (Cefai et Pasquier, 2003) but have somehow managed to make their voice heard. While the scientific literature tends to focus on principles and procedures inacted by public authorities, the configuration of public problems does not always take place in decontextualised public spaces alongside the deployment of rational justifications. It is also part of actors' engagement in their more familiar worlds (Thévenot and Boltansky, 1991; Thévenot, 2006). In this sense, a 'politique du proche'35 is very instrumental in digging out an important, and yet generally ignored, dimension of the 'res publica'. It is capable of showing how the 'common good' at stake is actually constructed in a tension of belongings, affiliations, personal and familiar issues, in contexts where ordinary citizens experience everyday problematic situations.
The rest of the paper will therefore focus on inspections as well as on 'familiar forms of engagement' (Thévenot and Bolstanky, 1991; Thévenot, 2006) to show that phone centers-owners have opened up to a 'public arena'36, even though they have often adopted a low-profile attitude and
33 See for example L’Arena (2005; 2003).
34 Only a selective press review of the three local newspapers for the period 2007-2008 has been undertaken so far. 35 The concept is hardly translatable. It does not refer to the local scale, nor to the private realm (as opposed to the
public one) but it rather refers to something that is experienced as important and as relating to the everyday life of
actors (Cefai, 2007).
36 The concept is drawn from Cefai (2002: pg. 58) to indicate 'a scene where, in front of some spectators, the claimants to ownership of a public problem face each other' (my translation from French).
have pretended not to be interested in politics (Eliasoph, 2005). This is not to say that there have been no other forms of resistance. To the contrary, the media have been an important channel to make their voice heard and sit-in and protests have represented important repertoires too. Nor is it to idealise phone centers as 'free spaces' (Evans and Boyte, 1986)37. It is rather in the effort to appropriate a pragmatic stance which concentrates on situations of crisis and dispute (Cefai and Joseph, 2002), while accepting that trading off and negotiations are only the ultimate step in actors' dynamics (Cefai and Pasquier, 2003).
Arguably, it is inspections that have mostly contributed to the 'annihilation' of phone centers, while the new pieces of legislation have done the rest: they are virtually obliging a consistent number of phone centers-owners to close down their business38 because they cannot comply with the new requirements and they are 'shunning customers away', by demanding owners to register them prior to their access to services, as it will be discussed. Importabtly, it is with the first run of inspections that a first phase of phone centers-owners' resistance can be identified. The process is still ongoing and clearly any analysis focusing on this time span can only be of a partial nature. Yet, it can provide with a better understanding of what type of space phone centers are, what has mostly disrupted access to them and what has encouraged owners to undertake collective actions.
Customers reported that: 'When the police arrives it is at least 5 of them! They ask everyone out of phone booths, they stop them from doing whatever they are doing, including the owners, the customers, whoever accompanies them - even young children - and even friends that are just there to say hello or for a short chat with the owner (...) Then they ask for documents, ID and often their permit to stay too.' (interviews nr) Following a direct experience of inspections, some of them have actually stopped going to phone centers as they are felt as very intimidating, even if owners are said to try and make sure inspections are not too disrupting and unpleasant by trying to speed up policemen's work and by loudly contesting their disagreeable manners. Moreover, customers, particularly immigrants, do not like it to be asked for documents even in phone centers, nor to be associated with irregular or undocumented or even criminal migrants: 'I do not understand why, on top of phone centers-owners registering customers' details39, policemen need to check on everyone. And I do not understand why they do not check in cafés and supermarkets or other shops too.'
37 Evans and Boyte define 'free spaces' as 'places where individuals experience their collective power'.
38 To date, according to an estimation by phone centers owners themselves, only 14 out of 45 phone centers are left in Modena, with the remaining 31 having closed in the last 12 months. A similar situation was registered in Verona. 39 Tellink, the actual software that all phone centers in Modena and Verona use does not allow for any customer to
(interviews nr)
Owners, on their side, stressed on the unpolite and aggressive attitude of some policemen and on their reactions to them. Evidence collected in Verona was particularly informative on the presence of the mayor, who, particularly during the first months of his mandate, attended inspections personally, in a rather patronizing way, as an owner described it: 'Once I really got angry because after the inspection was over and nothing was found to be out of place he said: you are lucky, this time everything is ok (…), but I will come back, I will keep checking on you again and again because when I was elected I promised I would improve safety in Verona' (interview nr).
Importantly, difficulties with the language have often made it hard for owners to discuss with policemen or to protest in face of an apparently unjust fine or of a harsh inspection. For the same reason customers have rarely supported owners' claims in the quality of witnesses (interview nr). Not to be underestimated are the sense of frustration, increasing anxiety and even rage that were expressed by many owners who have apparently resigned to 'take it day by day' as they feel the municipality will continue harrassing' them anyway: 'Why do they not simply ask us to close down the business? They are leading all of us in that direction anyway! At least if we stop now we are not wasting any more money to comply with new nonsense pieces of regulations that we cannot even comply with (...)'40 (interview, nr). 'If eventually they force me to close down and f*** up my business, my whole life's investiment, I promise I will burn down the shop and show them that I am not just standing helpless!' (interview nr). 'I am so tired of being afraid all the time ... you never know when there will be another inspection and what new justification they will bring up to fine you. Nor do you know when the next piece of regulation will come up... because they have not finished with it! This regulation will pass and then a new one, I am sure, will arrive (...) and I keep telling immigrants with food or video stores that they will be soon hit too.' (interview nr)
As anticipated, policemen tend to stress on the fact that they only carry out their job.
Unsurprisingly, they insist that it is not their responsability to organise inspections. However, they clearly have a margin of discretionality (Lipsky, 2002) and they constantly need to take into account the human dimension of their task (Joseph, 2002). Possibly this very aspect has allowed some of them to be more sympathetic to some owners, despite the fact that inspections are hardly e with such an attitude (Joseph, 2002). Owners have succeeded in making their claims more visible
40 For example, some of the phone centers are sited in listed buildings where structural works can't be carried out.
confronting with them. In turn, the lack of answers to many of their questions has encouraged them to take further steps to 'publicize' (Thévenot and Boltansky, 1991; 2006; Cefai, 2007) their issues.
The most controversial aspect on which phone centers-owners have confronted policemen relates to the fight against undocumented migrants. This is not explicitly stated in any of phone centers' pieces of legislation but it strikes as coming out repeatedly during inspections. Policemen are very well aware of the social function of phone centers, as they do know that they are one of the first places where immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are likely to go when they first arrive in a city or town. As a result, some of the owners, under pressure as they are because of constant inspections, have been appropriating the shop’s spaces in the quality of some kind of policemen: ‘Sometimes, if I see people hanging outside I go out and try and understand what is happening, because if something bad happens within my shop or even just outside the police blames me. (…) I do not understand why I should be responsible for whatever happens inside and outside my shop, not evcen if it relates to people of my same nationality. I am not a policeman! Yes there are undocumented people that come around and now the majority of us check on all customers and would send away anyone without documents... but then the same should apply to supermarkets and any other shop. Why do they not have to comply with the same rule? (...) With all these inspections possibilities are that not a terrorist nor an undocumented migrant would be so stupid as to visit any phone center at all!' (interview nr)
Others absolutely refuse to take up a similar role and prefer taking the risk of being fined41: '(...) How am I supposed to know whether someone has regular documents or not? Unless they access services I am not supposed to ask them for any document! Who am I to stop them entering my shop anyway? They might just come in to ask for an information, to meet a friend, to use the toilet! It is not my duty to check on them! Why do they not stop them before they actually enter the country? If they arrive here the government cannot just leave them astray, they need to take care of them.' (interview nr)
Apparently, owners find it very hard in general to ask anyone for documents, because they are well aware that customers, especially immigrants and tourists, do not understand nor accept such a request easily. They are particularly sympathetic with immigrants, because they do know 'what it means to be stopped and asked for documents anytime, anywhere, even while simply walking down
41 According to the national decree 155, after the third time a phone center-owner is fined for not having registered customers the relevant police authority must close the shop for a minimum of 3 days up to six months.
the street, just because you are unlucky to be there (...) they feel alarmed even when they are
regularly documented or are regularly waiting for their permit to be renewed' (interview nr). This is why at times they let go of registrations, if they have already registered customers once42. Indeed, they do try and explain the reasons for it but they are not always successful and they have
repeatedly lost customers because of it.
Angry as they were about inspections, they have been confronting with colleagues working both in the same and other cities. This has not been done only during specific meetings they have called for, but also informally in phone centers, where they regularly meet for issues relating strictly to their business43 or family affairs. Infact, they do not only have long working hours, they are also short of a meeting place - a part from LAPAM and the Coordinamento Migranti44 occasionally providing them with a meeting room. Eventually, owners in Modena came to the decision to organise a lockout, last December, to show that 'their claims are not just about money and business' (interview nr). In short, their familiar engagements have contributed to the development of forms of solidarity that have been instrumental in the organisation of collective actions. Not only, while it is only a restricted number of owners that actively partcipate in collective actions, many of them participate in their organisation or at least keep constantly in touch with colleagues to be informed about any progress and to bring their own contribution to it. A similar situation was found in Verona, despite the fact that owners have not yet founded an official association (interview nr).
Of course some of them are blamed as inactive or selfish, but the research so far has rather
highligthed a different way to engage. Particularly in Modena, owners stressed on the fact that they are a bit afraid of exposing themselves because they do not have the support of a large circle of friends, as others have in larger cities, like Bologna, or in their country of origin (interview nr). In addition, when partecipating at meetings, both in Verona and Modena, attendants often reported on informal conversations and meetings they have had with other colleagues that could not join because of family or work related reasons. Similar time and practical constraints have been also highlighted in other research works on immigrants' political participation (Mantovani, 2007). They
42 This is a very good example to testify the discretionary power of policemen: it is still not very clear whether the correct interpretation of national decree 155 requires the registration of customers everytime they access services or if it is sufficient to register them once and then simply give them a personal password to use the services. Policemen confirm there is an interpretative problem. Yet, owners have been repeatedly fined for it.
43 As the selling and buying of telephone lines which are sold by some of them to a network of shops.
44 In Modena they have been occasionally invited by LAPAM, a local workers' union, to use one of their meeting rooms, even though the Union has had to deal carefully with the issue since most of its (Italian) associates are not very happy with the Union sympathizing with immigrant entrepreneurs, particularly phone centers-owners. In Verona they have occasionally met at the Coordinamento Migranti, a local immigrants' association.
indicate that their desengagement can be understood by highlighted the constant precarious status in which they often find themselves, even after years of permanence in Italy, as far as housing and work opportunities are concerned (Mantovani, 2007).
It was mostly through tourists that owners found out that the requested registration of customers' personal details is unique to Italy. After the negative reactions of some them when asked to show their ID, owners started undertaking an kind of inquiry (Dewey, 1929) to try and understand whether it was indeed only in Italy that this kind of requirement was introduced by the law. The confirmation of this fact provided owners with one of the strongest motivations to resist: the feeling they are being discriminated against, not only as phone centers-owners, not only as
immigrants, not only in Modena and Verona with respect to other Italian cities, but also with respect to phone centers-owners and immigrants in the rest of Europe. Importantly, however, owners in Verona have been widely discussing against collective actions built on persistent claims over their rights, while advancing that 'pragmatic actions' should be prioritised. A similar observation was made by Mantovani (2007) in her research on immigrants' associations in the Veneto region.
The issue of undocumented has been repeatedly addressed to the police: meetings have been eventually organised to discuss on it. Some clarifications have been given, both in Verona and Modena an agreement was reached, even though it was of an informal kind, whereby inspections would come to a temporary halt during summer 2008 - before the regional laws and the local regulation became effective. Nevertheless, it was owners who called for them, after numerous confrontations with policemen during inspections. No specific support or mediation was provided for by municipalities, not even in Modena where a participative process was set, in 2007, for the definition of the local regulation45. This further shows that a pragmatic stance is crucial in the way it allows to reach beyond the instruments and tools of deliberative democracy. It highlights that contrary to what authors such as Koopmans et al (2005) and Tilly and Tarrow (2008) argue, it is not necessarily political opportunity structures that explains the processes of collective actions, nor discoursive opportunity structures (Koopmans et al, 2005).
While some of Mantovani's (2007) observations on the difficulties encountered by immigrants to
45 Unsurprisingly, owners are still very skeptical about the actual effectiveness of this whole process, as they argue that
the local authority did only accept one of their requests - ie. the permission to offer money transfer services
alongside phone and internet access - and that they refused to actually debate at all on the issue.
carry out any form of collective action or to get involved in political participation locally can be confirmed, the research conducted so far on phone centers has highlighted that some mouvement towards forms of political participation can indeed be found. While they are not necessarily evident, a pragmatic stance allows to further research on it and possibly to speculate on future developments in this sense.
4. Some (temporarily) concluding remarks
This paper has argued that a revanchist mode is observable in Italian policies. The case of Verona makes it rather evident, particularly as far as the strong visible presence of the mayor and his sicuritarian stance testify. Contrary to what Atkinson (2006) states, a fully-fledged investigation might well indicate that it is a dominant and upward course in local public life. In the case of Modena, phone centers regulation still suggest a move towards more coercive stances which stress the need to clear certain groups away from areas to safeguard the public. Of course an unequivocal statement is hard to produce before developing a nuanced inquiry into urban politics.
A more detailed examination of phone centers-owners' collective actions will be crucial to provide evidence on how they are resisting to the anniliation of public space and to demonstrate that in spite of its increased commodification, it is 'always in a process of being shaped, reshaped, and challenged by various groups and individuals' (McCann 1999:168). Importantly, the conflict that has emerged is providing immigrants, with the chance to raise their voice and make it heard (Allasino et al, 2000). As demonstrated, much is to be gained from a pragmatic stance which starts with the analysis of their engagements, in the way it helps overcome one of the main limitations of political theory: that of focusing on the normativity of public space (Colombo, 2007). This paper has tried to show an example of how phone centers-owners move between forms of familar engagements and how these help develop pertinent and effective arguments to publicize the public good at stake. It has also tried to support that there is no opposition between familar forms and civic forms of engagements and that they must be rather intended as a continuum. However, the process of resistance is still under way and a longitudinal analysis will better highlight the various forms of engagements that have characterised and will characterise phone centers-owners' collective actions.
'Politicians cannot simply base urban policy on what experts define as scientifically evaluated best practice. They also have to consider the raw play of power and the rhetorical pressing of buttons that evoke the darker human emotions (Stenson, 2007). It is difficult to deny that safer public space should be the goal of public policies. Nevertheless, there are different routes to achieving it. The question is therefore not whether we want safe urban spaces, but whether current trends to cope with this issue will actually deliver the healthy public places that residents call for (Atkinson, 2003). To conclude: 'That the city is become a new Wild West may be regrettable, but it is surely beyond dispute; what kind of Wild West is precisly what is being fought out' (Smith, 1996: 232).
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