The long way home
Access to housing, rights and social inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees in Turin, Italy
Magda Bolzoni, Enrico Gargiulo, Michele Manocchi*
Paper presented at the International RC43 Conference 2013
At Home in the Housing Market - Amsterdam (The Netherlands), 10-12 July 2013
Session: Citizenship and Access to Housing
This paper deals with the relationship between access to housing and social inclusion through the case of
asylum seekers and refugees in Turin, Italy.
The absence of formal pattern of spatial segregation (i.e. refugee camps) in the Western countries should
facilitate the process of social inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees. The access to housing has been
acknowledged as a crucial step in a path of integration. Yet, they often experiences major forms of
marginalization and exclusion exactly in the access to a proper accommodation.
Through the analysis of the case of Turin (Italy), the paper explores the stringent frame of constraints and
opportunities asylum seekers and refugees have to deal with, focusing on access to housing and to the
social rights that appear related to it. Moreover it investigates their coping strategies, such as actions and
practices of claim, attempt of empowerment and alternative re-appropriation of the idea of being at home.
In so doing, it underlines that the current system actually leads to indirect forms of socio-spatial exclusion
and it calls for concrete policies of inclusion and of access to housing that consider refugees as social actors
rather than just victims, burdens or policy objects.
(*) Department of Cultures, Politic & Society
University of Turin
Lungo Dora Siena 100 A – 10153 Turin (Italy)
magda.bolzoni@gmail.com ; enrico.gargiulo@unito.it ; michele.manocchi@unito.it
© The authors
Not to be quoted without permission