Term to Exclude: Rom Populations as Immigrants/Nomads in (Southern) Italy

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate of the workshop “Immigration and Gateway Cities” through the analysis of a specific, “side” aspect of the whole thematic. The conditions of Rom populations in (southern) Italy present very (stereo)typical characteristics, nevertheless, I suggest they might be critical exemplifications of global issues which regard millions of people - immigrants but not just them –, in the whole Europe: the so called “blackening” (Yiftachel, 2009) of insurgent informalities and citizenships. The presented cases – the “temporary” nomad camp of Palermo and the stake of the camp of Ponticelli in Napoli – and the general Italian context will appear to be some kind of sharp declinations of global tendencies which keeps appearing, with their very specific local aspects, here and there in the whole Europe. At the same time, it will be discussed how the described processes are somehow entrenched in the European legislation and policies on immigration. From a general point of view, the paper will discuss some issues of urban exclusion within Europe, in the new and specific forms exclusion has been declined in the last decades. The aim is trying furnishing a critical reading on the concept of EU as “single market which want to offer opportunities to all” (as termed by the call of paper). In a theoretical frame, building on “extreme” cases may be an opportunity to reflect on some growing global tendencies which might be already unrecognised - or just neglected - by institutional and academic politics and planning. In other words, and from the point of view of the planning discipline, I suggest that such kind of narratives dramatically evidences the need for the planning discipline to renew its tool-kit, which is, at the same time, stop assuming for itself a “technical” role, fully accepting its political one and fostering “activist” (Young, 2001) attitudes.