Questioning Illegality in Everyday Life: An Ethnographic Overview of African Migrant Groups in Rome

The issue of illegal migration is today part of the public debate
and has begun to interest European scholars in conjunction
with the changing political panorama that in the 1990s was
affected by a new era of international migration. The
phenomenon of migration is seen as a problem of public order,
and therefore as linked to the issue of security. Restrictive
policies throughout Europe have driven migrants to illegal
methods of entry and residence. But what exactly does
illegality mean? How is this concept constructed and
represented by various social actors? How is it produced by
institutions? In this article, we focus on the meaning of ʻliving
illegallyʼ in migrantsʼ everyday life in Italy. Through the results
of ethnographic research among African migrant groups in
Rome, we attempt to question the concept of legality, analysing
forms of construction and incorporation of illegality, the
perceptions and representations of social actors towards
working practices and the obtaining of documents, and finally,
forms of ʻillegalʼ construction of legality in which the migrantsʼ
agency gives life to new forms of alternative citizenship and
resistance through the elaboration of survival strategies.