Abstract

Based on a specific sense of the concept of «clandestinity» - as a potential deportability which hangs over the whole migrant population - the article aims at exploring the effects that the peculiar condition of clandestinity produces on the relationship between migrants and «third places» - i.e. multipurpose spaces intermediate between domestic space and workplace: cafes, bars, taverns, squares, etc. It is proposed an analysis that starting from places of disciplination such as the dock in the port of Lampedusa (Sicily) - a place symbolizing the negation of subjectivity, where a specific image of migrant bodies has been shaped over time - comes up with a reflection on possible places where migrants' condition and experience could find a listening context. Such a context is supposed to guarantee to migrants' narrations the dignity of political and poetic expression, as a precondition for the emergence of a public sphere. During the intermediate stages of this path we will focus on the mode of attendance of cafes and bars from a transnational perspective, focussing in particular on the mechanisms of legitimation migrants are subject to, and on the specific form of attendance of third places during the so called «clandestine trip», where peculiar security problems arise.