Getting sick in reception. Mental distress in a transit centre for migrants in southern Sicily

Abstract

This paper describes a work experience as an anthropologist/cultural mediator in an Italian reception centre in 2015, the year before the hotspot approach was established in the migration policies. The focus of the article is an ethnographic case of a Gambian woman diagnosed with affective disorders. The ethnography aims to shed light on some aspects of the ambiguity of the category of “vulnerable person” and the interweavings between the reception system, the personal experiences of migrant people with their horizons of expectations, and the working conditions of the workers. In particular, the article intends to highlight first, how the generalization of the category of “vulnerable” makes it impossible to distinguish among various types of vulnerability and the different approach that they require. And second, it shed light on the ambivalence of the anthropologist himself in reception contexts, as he is embedded in working, structural, personal, and hierarchical dynamics that limit his possibility of action