Frustrazione/potenzialità. Il sapere antropologico nella quotidianità di un progetto di accoglienza di rifugiati e richiedenti asilo

This paper reflects upon the practical implications arising from the attempt to adopt anthropological tools and knowledge in the everyday life of a project for the reception of asylum seekers and refugees. Through the reflexive use of ethnographic examples, the author identifies three main issues that emerge when anthropology is involved in the daily management of projects for asylum seekers and refugees. The first one concerns the benefits that an anthropological acknowledgement of the complexity of social reality can provide against the bureaucratic need to simplify and control. The second one is defined as “projectism” and calls into question the bureaucratic tendency to repeat projects despite their apparent failures. The third one concerns the different temporalities at stake and highlights the advantages deriving from the anthropological ability to displace oneself from the frenzied reality of a reception project. The author argues that anthropology has an enormous potential to improve everyday reception practices, thanks to its ability to shed light on the asymmetrical nature of the relationship between social workers and guests of reception facilities.