Il supporto legale nel sistema di asilo/accoglienza italiano. Un’analisi socio-antropologica della performatività del diritto tra mandati istituzionali e pratiche giuridiche

Legal support in the Italian asylum system. A socio-anthropological study of legal performativity between institutional mandates and professional practices. This article aims to shed light on some features characterizing the practice of the right of asylum. In the frame of an extensive international literature that highlights cross-national differences and emerging definitions in the construction of the “deserving asylum-seeker”, this article focuses on the frictions in the management of refugee status determination in Italy, resulting in very fragmented local practices. Such practices will be analyzed according to ethnographic research on the role of the legal operators supporting asylum seekers, namely semiprofessionals key actors in constructing the written narrations submitted to asylum caseworkers. Nonetheless, their work is under many pressures related to increasingly hostile norms, emergency framings, and limited acknowledgment