Description
Since 2018, the Italy-Slovenia border and the city of Trieste have become an integral part of the so-called ‘Balkan Route’, contributing to this border’s stratified history. This chapter starts from material traces as a lens to look at the everyday violence that people on the move are subject to in Trieste. This, I argue, contributes to the creation of “cramped spaces” within the urban tissue. Adopting the conceptualisation of Walters and Lüthi ( 2016), I look at “cramped spaces” as spaces of spatial segregation which may become spaces of resistance, struggles, and negotiation of collective practices of “becoming and remaking”. Looking at intimate traces can provide an interesting angle to look at the intersection between the material and discursive realms, and the interplay between the scales of everyday life and of official narratives concerning the presence of people on the move in Trieste. In fact, intimate traces produced in response to everyday violence testify to migrants’ struggles and place-making tactics in this territory. At the same time, the intimate sphere is co-opted into anti-migration narratives of ‘garbage’ to divert the attention from the local government’s inaction.
