(In)Visibility. On the doorstep of a mediatized refugees' squat

Migrants’ squats often inhabit marginal and “out of sight” urban areas, placed at the intersection of institutional neglect and alternative strategies for self-managed living. Yet, at times, migrants’ informal settlements become highly visible places, as they can find themselves in the spotlight as symbols of governmental failure and urban decay. This chapter reflects on hurdles and conundrums of negotiating access as a researcher within such a place. It is based on a number of ethnographic encounters that took place at “Ex-MOI”, a housing squat in Turin’s abandoned Olympic Village that became catalyst of local anxieties, as well as of national xenophobic propaganda. Entering a housing squat, inhabited by documented and undocumented migrants, is nothing but obvious. This task was complicated by an intense mediatic attention - experienced as deeply violent by the squat’s residents - as well as by an imminent eviction, which entailed heightened precarity and suspicion. Yet, this scenario offers a fertile perspective to look at some underlying aspects of the ethnographic encounter, such as the refusal of the research subject to be “domesticated” for academic purposes, the ambivalent role of different kind gatekeepers, as well as cross-gender dynamics within fieldwork. Moreover, as the housing squat was mainly inhabited by male African migrants, this chapter seeks also to reflect on the implications of conducting ethnography as an instantly “visible presence”, that of a white woman in a predominantly black masculine setting.