‘I was a refugee, at first’. Aspettative, desideri, fallimenti e ricostruzioni nell’esperienza degli studenti rifugiati a Torino

Abstract

In the last years, Italian universities have implemented several programmes supporting refugees who want to start university, or return to studies after forced migration. Drawing on the projects developed at the University of Torino, this paper analyses students’ different trajectories, across the difficulties posed by a different academic environment, the imagined possibilities, the obstacles to self-realisation. The paper looks at the interplay between different forms of precarity – material (citizenship status, housing, job), social and existential: how are university careers constructed and reconstructed? Is it possible to imagine being university students, even in a condition of constant insecurity and partial inclusion? Particularly, the paper explores how experiences of suffering are shaped by the discrepancies between students’ desires and aspirations, possibilities offered (or not) by universities, and family and social expectations.