Skip to main content

Source: Sara Forcella

Researcher Highlight: Sara Forcella

Routes is currently highlighting the diverse work conducted by our members on issues of migration, mobility and displacement. Here we feature an update from Dr Sara Forcella, Postdoctoral Fellow at IASH - The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. 

I am the program coordinator of Fuori Passo ETS, a non-profit association based in Italy that provides legal, social, educational, linguistic, vocational, and psychotherapeutic services for people with a background of (forced) migration. The main aim of the association is to promote the achievement of individuals’ socio-economic independence, as well as wellbeing, not only through the facilitation of inclusion but also by strengthening active interaction within the (current) country of residence. In this respect, Fuori Passo employs an integrated approach that both deals with people’s basic needs, which are essential to ensure dignified life conditions, and boosts human “requirements”,1 namely the total of interests, aspirations, prospects, and affective relationships enriching every individual’s living experience. Based on this approach, each person is given support on multiple levels and considering different aspects of everyday living, where needed, with the ultimate intent of facilitating the pursuit of their life projects. In this respect, Fuori Passo also runs a project of transcultural-artistic activities that encourages deeper knowledge of the territory in which migrant people reside and takes them to places of art and beauty, together with locals. Through the use of culture and art as cognitive, social, and recreational instruments, awareness of and critical engagement with the surrounding reality is fostered, while spaces and conditions to strengthen social cohesion are created. In keeping with the formation of a culture of mobility, equity, and justice, Fuori Passo is, therefore, strongly committed to building a community of both mobile and non-mobile, migrant and non-migrant individuals. This is meant to be as a natural laboratory of life within which the interplay of persons with different backgrounds and experiences generates new praxes for social challenge and change.  

  1. Fagioli, M. (2019), Death Instinct and Knowledge, Rome: L’Asino D’oro, p.21. 

Date: 24 September 2020

Read more University News