Accueillir l’invisible : Ethnographie des initiatives de lutte contre l’exploitation des travailleurs saisonniers immigrés à Syracuse, Sicile

Details

Supervisors

Mazzocchetti, Jacinthe ; Pouppez de Kettenis de Hollaeken, Delphine

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en anthropologie, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

enThis monograph is based on an ethnographic study conducted between November 2024 and November 2025 in Syracuse, Sicily, focusing on local initiatives to combat the exploitation of migrant seasonal workers in the agricultural sector. Using the case of the Ostello di Cassibile, this work examines the ambivalence of reception facilities. This camp, intended to house workers during the potato harvest, is situated within a context of local tensions surrounding their presence in the village’s public space. Whilst the camp improves certain material living conditions, it also constitutes a monitored and conditional space which may, unwittingly, reproduce forms of marginalisation and violence from which it purports to protect those it hosts. The research thus analyses how accommodation can simultaneously protect, organise, constrain and keep at a distance migrant workers who are essential to the local agricultural economy. Finally, this work situates the construction of this camp within a broader landscape of initiatives in Syracuse aimed at combating exploitation, notably through the Punto Territoriale* project and the network of associations behind it. (*Anonymised name)