Refugees Reception and the Construction of Identities: Encountering Kurdish Refugees in Italy‪.‬

Introduction 1. As noted in Alastair Ager's analysis (1999: 17)--which draws on the work of Bracken et al. (1997)--two main approaches to refugee studies have emerged, approaches which theorise refugee experience from completely different angles. While modern discourse is concerned with problem-solving perspectives, and especially with a 'responsibility to act' (Bracken et al. 1997: 435-436, quoted in Ager 1999: 17); post-modern discourse is concerned to problematise prevailing world order, and to include alternatives voices and narrative. Post-modern theorising thus supports analyses where 'a responsibility to otherness' (ibid.) is central, a responsibility which presupposes both an engagement with the other, and a more inclusive self/other encounter. International Relations (IR) critical scholars have precisely embarked on this latter perspective, in open contrast with the IR mainstream, and are overwhelmingly preoccupied with problem-solving approaches as related to questions of sovereignty, global refugee crises, border controls, humanitarian emergencies and economic burdens, to name only a few. IR critical literature has, among others, problematized the construction of refugee identity as passive, silent, and depoliticised (Soguk 1999; Nyers 1999; Rajaram 2002), and uncovered the interconnection between the existence of (refugee) camps and post-9/11 politics of control (Edkins 2000; Bigo 2002; Perera 2002; Huysmans et al. 2006), as inspired by the work of Giorgio Agamben (1998; 2003).