A welcoming city and nowhere to live: private hospitality and the urban politics of reception in Bologna

Abstract

ABSTRACT Private hospitality – sometimes referred to as family hosting or homesharing – consists of private citizens hosting migrants for periods ranging from a few weeks to several years. Since 2015, there has been a rapid expansion of active private hospitality initiatives across Europe. Though many programs started as informal housing arrangements coordinated by grassroots organizations, local and state governments are increasingly investing in private hospitality as a reception strategy. This paper focuses on the urban approach to private hospitality in Bologna, Italy, a city with a progressive reputation and a vocal commitment to implementing and innovating programs of migrant reception. I draw from ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2022 to showcase how Bologna’s urban context and the actions of resident hosts, migrants, and practitioners shape the creation and evolution of private hospitality programs in the city. Though stories of resident-led hospitality can be deployed by municipal administrations as evidence that a city is welcoming, a site of moral urbanism, they also capture the enduring inhospitality of a city where migrants need willing hosts to secure safe and reliable housing.