Book Review of Bovo, M. (2024) Migration landing spaces: processes and infrastructures in Italy. London: Routledge.
by Claire Pang (PGR Student at the School of Geography and Planning): zpang5@sheffield.ac.uk
Martina Bovo’s “Migration landing spaces: processes and infrastructures in Italy” was published in May 2024 as part of the Routledge Studies in Development, Mobilities and Migration, which examines the field of mobilities and migration with a focus on international development. Within 150 pages, this book analyses the author’s doctoral research in Palermo, Italy—a crossroad city along the Mediterranean migration routes.
Central to the book is the conceptual framework of “landing”—the “long and tentative process of approaching a new destination” (p.22). In the preface, Bovo draws inspiration from the portolano (pilot book), a maritime handbook containing personalised navigational guidance that helps sailors approach unfamiliar shores. Contrasting rigid instructions in manuals, information provided in pilot books is open and non-normative. Such resources are absent for migrants who landed in Palermo, whose prolonged transitory status challenges migration and urban governance based on dualistic categorisation, such as legal/illegal immigrants and permanent/short-term residents.
In other words, there is a fundamental conflict between increasingly mobile bodies, diverse migratory subjectivities with different temporalities, and planning policies that attempt to govern migration through rigid categorisation and permanent residence.
In the introduction, Bovo argues that despite the indeterminate length of stay and uncertainty towards permanent settlement, migrants arriving via the Mediterranean route do impose an “intense use of territory” (p.3). They do not simply flow through the city, but create needs for new services (e.g. arrival-related social services) and reappropriation of spaces (e.g. public spaces transformed into temporary shelters). The book examines the landing process through a spatial lens and phenomenological approach. This means starting from spaces are sites for observations, focusing on the material dimension (physical location, layout, and material quality), and placing emphasis on practice over category. The approach reflects both the author's background in architecture and urban planning and responds to scholarly calls for a territorial perspective on migration that transcends nationalist and ethnic frameworks.
The research methodology combines desktop research, field observations, architectural documentation (floor plans), and 52 semi-structured interviews with both “landing migrants” (refugees and asylum seekers, p.7) and other stakeholders, conducted over eight months in 2020. By adopting multiple methods and involving multiple actors, the author creates an ethnography of space, depicting the dynamic relationship between people, practices and places.
Chapter 2 elaborates on the concept of landing and provides a theoretical foundation for the research. Tracing a trajectory from the concentric circle model to contemporary work on arrival neighbourhoods and infrastructure, Bova demonstrates the persistent scholarly interest in the material and social conditions facing newcomers. The increasingly diverse patterns of migration since the 2000s have prompted scholars to call for the liberation of temporariness and territorial confinement. Papadopoulou-Kourkoula’s (2008) work on transit migrants, and Meeus, Arnaut, and van Heur’s (2018) work on arrival infrastructure problematise the static view of migration that compartmentalises experiences into clearly defined phases, revealing instead a more gradual and open-ended process. The notion of arrival infrastructure also expands the geographical unit of investigation to where arrival happens, including everyday spaces outside the limit of neighbourhood boundaries. Building on these studies, the word “landing” indicates a gradual process and explicitly references the ground condition upon which migrants caught themselves. Borrowing insights from population studies, the author further illustrates how the plurality of populations and diverse territorial usage clash with migration policies and planning practices that remain dominated by assumptions of permanency and sedentariness, resulting in highly regulated entry and exit processes both administratively and spatially.
Chapter 3 contextualises the study within Palermo's specific circumstances. As the EU has adopted more restrictive border policies since the 1990s, asylum-seeking has become one of the few remaining legal entry paths. Italy's response—a polycentric, phased reception model involving various institutional and civil society actors—reveals complex ground-level dynamics where migrants move between formal and informal support systems.
Chapter 4 provides a multi-scalar analysis of the urban spaces used as landing infrastructure through empirical work. The account at the meso level is compositional. As the author leads us on an urban walk, a public dorm, the historic centre, associations, public parks and plazas, and shops unfold as different typologies of landing spaces. While some are closely related to reception, others become relevant through migrants’ everyday spatial practices. The micro-level analysis examines spatial configurations of three specific sites—an immigration office, a public health clinic, and a third-sector help desk—illustrating how the spatial layout and operations are deployed to regulate behaviours. This granular analysis demonstrates how material features such as visibility, accessibility, and porosity also have a social dimension that is crucial for migrants who demand plural, low-threshold, and flexible spaces.
The book ends with several practical implications such as revisiting the “public”, calling for more phenomenological studies to enrich the planning vocabulary, and using space as the site for experimentation.
While not bounded by a single theoretical framework, this book presents a successful synthesis of interdisciplinary work from migration studies, urban studies, population studies, as well as architecture and urban planning. The emphasis on the material and spatial context is clearly demonstrated through references to architecture and planning theories such as “Ephemeral urbanism”, case studies of good design and planning practices, and the inclusion of visual materials. The micro-level studies echo Suzzane Hall’s work in “The Migrant Paradox” (2021), where sketches of floor plans are used to represent the subdivision of ground floor spaces that cater to multiple functions simultaneously. The book’s reflection on urban planning practices and advocacy for planning with indeterminacy connects to broader discussions of the right to the city, tactical urbanism, and participatory planning.
The argument could be strengthened through a more explicit and in-depth engagement with relevant theoretical frameworks. For example, the discussion of individual competency, materiality, and practices in Chapter 2 invites analysis through the lens of social practice theory, particularly Schatzki's (2002) theorisation of how social practices and material arrangements are inherently spatial. Applying this to the everyday practices of landing migrants in various public spaces, such as the reception centre, could help to show how unfamiliar environments and existing infrastructures constrain or enable the formation of new spatial practices. Additionally, a more detailed discussion of the research methodology, including consideration of alternative approaches such as participatory mapping or photography, would enhance the study's methodological rigour.
Nevertheless, this book makes a valuable contribution to understanding the material dimensions of migration at the local level. By highlighting diverse territorial uses, temporal patterns, and migrant subjectivities, it effectively challenges conventional planning paradigms and offers fresh perspectives on accommodation and integration processes.
Reference:
Hall, S.M. (2021) The Migrant’s Paradox: Street Livelihoods and Marginal Citizenship in Britain. University of Minnesota Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv1g809h9.
Meeus, B., Arnaut, K. and Heur, B. van (2018) Arrival infrastructures : migration and urban social mobilities. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Papadopoulou-Kourkoula, A. (2008) Transit migration: The missing link between emigration and settlement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schatzki, T. R. (2002) The site of the social: a philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.