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Giovanna Santanera
Anuac
The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men in reception centers in Italy
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Giovanna Santanera
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Università di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men in reception centers in Italy
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                                          2022 | Anuac. Vol. 11, n° 2, Dicembre 2022: 205-228




The use of smartphones and the quest for a future
among West African men in reception centers in Italy
Giovanna Santanera
Università di Milano-Bicocca




Abstract: In this article, I will analyse the creative use of smartphone by West African
men living in reception centers in Torino, in Italy. As the usurpation of time has become
an integral part of the European border regime, I place migrants’ media practices in re-
lation to their claims for temporal justices. Drawing on ethnographic data, I argue that
the use of smartphones – and especially the making and sharing of images – represents a
practice of future making, which is linked to the dimension of hope and desire more than
that of nostalgia. After having considered the mobile phone as an instrument for “killing
time” during the slow daily routine of the reception centers, I will go on to analyse how
the skillfully crafting of one’s own virtual image helps to carry out migratory projects
and to obtain a residence permit. Finally, I will turn my attention to the materiality of
the smartphone. As an “object of desire,” it is part of a chain of gifts and counter-gifts
capable of unlocking new scenarios through the creation of relationships. I conclude that
the smartphone can be seen as a weapon in the battle over time which is proper of con-
temporary migration politics and governance.

Keywords: Smartphone; Mobile photography; Forced migration; West Africa; Italy.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Giovanna Santanera
The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men in reception centers in Italy.
2022 | Anuac. Vol. 11, n° 2, Dicembre 2022: 205-228.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-5123
206	Giovanna Santanera

Introduction1
   A young Ivorian man was about to leave the emergency reception center2
in the province of Torino, where he had lived for the last two years. He was
moving to Malta where he hoped to finally find a job. The refugee recalled his
experience with these words: “I arrived in Italy, I knew that when you arrive
and you have no documents, you are nothing. I accepted that and I stayed put
for two years. Only ate and slept. Now I have documents and can no longer
continue to just eat and sleep. It’s time to get up”3. Demba, a young man from
Mali with a two-year humanitarian permit, expressed a similar sensation of
time slowed down. “You need to have patience, it takes time”4, he commented
when faced with the umpteenth unanswered job application. Meanwhile, an
asylum seeker from Mali named Djibril described his particular perception of
“empty” time as spending afternoons “waiting in the park”5.
   Many researchers have shown that in the reception centers asylum seekers
and refugees tend to experience time as “suspended” in a sort of perpetual
present. Their days follow one another, each the same, month after month,
year after year with the hope of achieving some type of protection and finding
a job (cf. Jacobsen, Karlsen, Khosravi 2021; Marchetti 2016: 126; Pinelli 2008,
2015: 13). That is how the experience of asylum seeking tends to transform
itself into an ordeal of waiting, made particularly stressful by the uncertainty
of the outcome and the duration, since the procedure times can vary consid-
erably. Some asylum seekers, for example, are heard by the Torino Territorial
Commission a few months after having formalized their international pro-

1. I would like to thank the cooperatives that welcomed me inside the reception centers they
   managed, the staff, and all the asylum seekers and refugees I met during my research.
   Some of them have become dear friends and for that I am grateful as well. Finally, I thank
   the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on my article.
2. The emergency reception centers (knows as CAS, Centri di Accoglienza Straordinari) were
   opened in 2014 at the request of the Interior Minister to accommodate and discipline the
   growing number of foreign citizens who disembarked along the Italian coastline and could
   not find accommodations within the ordinary system of the large governmental centers
   (CARA) and the territorial projects (SPRAR). CAS are run through the prefectures in col-
   laboration with cooperatives, organizations and hotel facilities. This emergency solution
   has been protracted over time, such that during my field research most of the asylum
   seekers in Italy were housed in emergency reception centers (Marchetti 2014: 61, 2016:
   137; Colucci 2018: 172). In 2017, Italian CAS housed around 170,000 people (source: Inte-
   rior Ministry).
3. Adama, 13 October 2017. To protect the anonymity of my participants, I have used pseud-
   onyms.
4. Demba, 13 September 2017.
5. Djibril, 5 January 2018.


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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men       207

tection request. Meanwhile, others wait for more than a year to be called,
without any explanation on the part of the police headquarters or the pre-
fecture, regarding the reasons for the delay. The unpredictable waiting times
are due to the malfunctioning of the system but also represent control tactics
and management techniques used on the migrant subjects which have been
actively refined by the state authorities (Pijpers 2011: 432). In this respect,
Ruben Andersson (2014) considers the active usurpation of the migrants’ time
as an integral part of the European border regime. In his words, temporality
has become a “multifaceted tool and vehicle – even a weapon of sorts – in the
fight against […] migration” (Anderson 2014: 2). In this “battle over time” (An-
derson 2014: 5), however, the migrant subjects are not passive but have put
in place various forms of reappropriation of time that constitute “claims for
temporal justices” (Fontanari 2017: 26).
    In this article, I will analyse the use of smartphones by West African men
living in reception centers in Italy as a “weapon” in this battle for time. I
will neither look at new information and communication technologies as
instruments for keeping in contact with “one’s own past” and assuring a
“co-presence” in the homeland and the host country (Diminescu 2005; Bal-
dassar 2008; Madianou 2016). Nor will I analyse smartphones as devices in the
hands of “smart refugees” (Dekker et al. 2018) for “illegal” border crossings
(Gillespie, Osseiran, Cheesman 2018; Kaufmann 2020: 173; Wall, Campbell,
Janbek 2017; Zijlstra, Van Liempt 2017). Instead, in these pages I will consid-
er how mobile technology helps the migrants to “end” the journey and build a
life in Italy. In this sense, I argue that the use of smartphones – and especially
the making and sharing of images – represents a practice of future making
that enables forced migrants in reception centers to exert a certain control
over their own future. Working against the grain of the European border re-
gime’s temporality, the smartphone does not involve collective and open
contestation to change the system (it can happen, but that is not its most
common use); it rather entails a form of “individual self-help” (Scott 1985:
29) to survive the system. In this regard, it recalls a “weapon of the weak,” in
James Scott’s sense of the term (1985; cf. also Iroulo 2021) to the extent that
it implies silent everyday forms of micro-resistance that eschew direct con-
frontation, being hidden behind the mask of public compliance (Scott 1985:
34). This “oblique” mode of action encounters an equally “oblique” count-
er-offensive, exemplified by the continuous commentary of the case workers
in reception centers, who reproach the forced migrants for their excessive



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208	Giovanna Santanera

use of smartphones (even if they are aware that they too are always online)
and give paternalistic advice to learn to be disconnected and enjoy in-person
interactions. This de-legitimation of forced migrants’ media practices echoes
(and forcefully brings into their everyday lives) the more general indignation
of Italians (and Europeans) towards the digitally connected refugees, disman-
tling the image of suffering and empty-handed victims which are welcome
in so far as they are incapable of any autonomous action (Leurs, Ponzanesi
2018: 6).
   After having considered the mobile phone as an instrument for “killing
time” during the slow daily routine of the reception centers, I will go on to
analyse how the production and circulation of images of oneself online help
to carry out migratory projects and to obtain a residence permit. Finally, I
will turn my attention to the materiality of the smartphone. As an “object of
desire,” it is part of a chain of gifts and counter-gifts capable of unlocking
new scenarios through the creation of relationships. The battle for time that
I will delineate in the following pages takes place in situations of extremely
unbalanced power, where in other instances, the same use of smartphones
accentuates the condition of surveillance and powerlessness, through the
datafication of migration (Allen 2020; Metcalfe, Dencik 2019; Madianou
2019; Gillespie et al. 2016). These considerations constitute the backdrop of
this article that focuses on the creative use of smartphones by the migrant
subjects.
   The analysis presented is based on ethnographic research conducted in the
province of Torino, a city in the North West of Italy, from 2017 to 2019, with
young men coming from West Africa, who went through the asylum applica-
tion process. I carried out participant observation, discursive interviews and
digital ethnography. The research was also fed by my work experience as a
social and legal worker, starting in 2014 and continuing through 2019. I did
field research in reception centers, in parks, markets, legal studios, doctors’
office waiting rooms and at associations frequented by my interlocutors as
well as in the hallways of the police headquarters and in the waiting rooms
of the prefecture, where Torino Territorial Commission interviews take place.
Over the years the research spaces changed, given that many of my interloc-
utors left the reception centers. In some cases, they re-entered, after having
left Italy “illegally” and submitted a new request for international protection
in another European country. Although many of them arrived in Torino “by
chance,” from southern Italy transported by bus to a first reception center in



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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men                  209

an outlying area of Torino, those who obtained a form of protection and found
work often stayed in the city, making Torino their home6.
   The emergency reception center of Alpignano, in a small town just a few
kilometers from Torino, where I did most of my fieldwork, was not “typical.”
Its “uniqueness” was often recognized by those who lived there and defined it
as “paradise” compared to other CASs in the area, because it was efficient and
well run7. This CAS allowed me to observe the strategic use of mobile phones
by the asylum seekers and refugees when the system works and is implement-
ed at its best.

Smartphones for killing time
    The smartphone is the quintessential “polymedia” platform (Madianou,
Miller 2012; Madianou 2014). In reception centers migrants use them for tele-
phoning, taking pictures, looking at videos in streaming, chatting, listening to
music, playing video games, etc. to the extent that they always seem to have
it in their hand. Its central role was highlighted both by the social workers –
who accused them of their excessive use (“they are always attached to their
phones” is a frequent complaint) – and by the asylum seekers, who considered
it their most precious possession. Thanks in part to their pocket money, the
investment in a mobile phone became their first purchase.8
    The “attachment” to the mobile phone – which is certainly not specific to
migrants – acquires a particular meaning if put in relation to the “empty pres-
ent” that characterizes life in the reception centers. The various applications
– first and foremost, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – consti-
tute some diversions for “killing time” and “distracting themselves,” while
making use of the Wi-Fi at the facility. After being in Italy for only a few weeks,
a young Ivorian expressed his desire for a smartphone, not only to talk to his
family in his hometown – often relatives were reached more easily by calling
with a prepaid card – but also “to have something to do” and “to unload.”9
For weeks, in fact, he found himself in a situation of particular suspension,
deprived of the possibility to go out of the CAS, waiting to be able to formalize

6. This confirms what was also found by Colucci (2018: 61), showing that Italy is not neces-
   sarily a country of transition. Those who obtain a residence permit and find a job tend to
   stay, instead of continuing their journey to other European countries.
7. There is extensive literature that highlights the shortcomings of the Italian reception sys-
   tem (cf. Altin 2019; Manocchi 2014; Marchetti 2016; Pinelli 2014; Pinelli, Ciabarri 2015;
   Vacchiano 2005).
8. In reception centers, people are entitled to € 2.50 daily, known as pocket money.
9. Daouda, 15 December 2017.


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210	Giovanna Santanera

his application for asylum and receive a temporary residence permit. There
were many asylum seekers who, like him, used their mobile phones to fight the
boredom and stress and to help relieve one’s “loaded head.”10
   Navigating on social media constitutes here a means of isolating oneself
from the surrounding world and distancing, at least temporarily, anxieties
and worries. In this sense, the use of the smartphone works as an “antidote”
(Eriksen 2021: 60) to the empty time of waiting. Its healing ability comes with
perils, though. Like taking medicine, it assumes a therapeutic value, soothing
the pain, but “proper doses” must be worked out, in order to avoid adverse
effects.11 Djibril voiced this risk particularly when he sustained that “it’s
not good to stay inside at home all day sleeping, eating, going on Facebook,
WhatsApp, it’s not good…” with his hand on his head indicating the weight
of these thoughts.12 When they are abused, social media no longer work as
means of evasion and connection, but accentuate the sensation of isolation
and desocialization, which is typical of life in the camps.

Mobile photography and the question of visibility
   When used strategically – and not just for “killing time” – smartphone apps
can transform into an instrument for successfully navigating the uncertain
situation of the present towards the future one desires. This happens when
migrants are able to use social media to control the image of themselves that
they project to others.
   The question of visibility – that is who sees what – is crucial to forced mi-
grants’ lives. Zachary Whyte (2011) describes the asylum system in terms of
the “myopticon.” The reference is, obviously, to Bentham’s and Foucault’s pan-
opticon (Foucault 1977). In a panopticon, the inmates are unable to know if the
chief inspector is watching them or not. The uncertainty leads them to presume
that they are always under surveillance and to internalize control. The situa-
tion appears differently among asylum seekers. They are aware of not always
being monitored, as they leave the reception centers, go to Italian language
school, attend churches and mosques, and, in some cases, work. Their concern


10. Salim, 1 December 2017.
11. Ambivalence about communication technologies is underlined by various authors. For ex-
    ample, Diminescu (2020: 75-76) compares migrants’ ICTs to a pharmakon, that in Ancient
    Greece was both a medicine and a poison. Horst and Miller (2006) maintain, instead, that
    the use of cell phones in Jamaica resembles drug and alcohol consumption, such that it
    fogs the mind and relieves pressure.
12. Djibril, 3 October 2017.


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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men               211

is more about what the various authority figures with whom they interact (e.g.
social workers, the police, lawyers and members of the Territorial Commission)
see when they look at them, since the success of their asylum applications de-
pends on the image of themselves that they are able to transmit. In fact, the
legal-bureaucratic process of the asylum application is based on the telling of
one’s own life story so that recognition of international protection depends, to
some extent, on the ability of the applicant to control their own representation
(Beneduce 2019; Sorgoni 2013). Thus, there is the anxiety of being misrecog-
nized, the sensation of not being seen or of being seen in the “wrong” way,
the fear of being forgotten. The following example may help to understand
the situation. According to the image they had of the asylum seeker (positive,
exemplified by a “collaborative” asylum seeker, or negative, characterized by
an asylum seeker who is considered to be “ungrateful” or “full of demands”),
case workers facilitated or not access to information and people (such as law-
yers), therefore acting as actual gatekeepers. As a young Gambian explained to
a Ghanaian asylum seeker who had just argued with a social worker:
      Without these workers we cannot do anything, they are the ones who give us
      everything, everything goes through them. It’s true that everything comes
      from God, but nothing arrives directly from God right now, everything
      passes through Francesca and Sara13 [the social worker and the head of
      territorial reception services at the cooperative that run the reception
      center, respectively]. The most important thing at this time is to think about
      the Commission because these people [Francesca and Sara] can write things
      about us, they can help us or stop helping us and we can’t do anything. I’m
      afraid of Sara! And you should be too!14

   On another level, the need to control what others see and know, structures
interpersonal relationships among the inhabitants at the reception centers. At
the center in Alpignano around twenty asylum seekers lived together, three per
room. Despite being a well-run center where the case workers were attentive
to the needs of the guests, some rules favored a situation of forced intimacy
between people who happened to live together “by chance,” without any pre-
vious acquaintanceship. For example, the immigrants had no compartments
with locks for putting their belongings away safely and, in fact, things were
often stolen. They were unable to lock their rooms and had to eat and cook
all together using the same pots and pans. This situation was reminiscent of
the idea of “intimate strangers” (cf. Ndjio 2006), characterized by distrust and


13. Also in this case pseudonyms have been used.
14. Bouba, 2 August 2017.


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212	Giovanna Santanera

diffidence. Yet, simultaneously, there was a need to collaborate and establish
relationships. This ambiguity encouraged an increase in speculation and gos-
sip that generated a fertile ground for the spread of backbiting and witchcraft
suspicion. In the words of a young Ivorian man:
      I have no friends at the camp… I talk to everyone, but here everyone thinks
      only about themselves. They put us here together, and because of this, we
      know each other. Here I talk to everyone but I don’t tell my secrets to anyone.
      Nobody tells their secrets. You know… in Africa this is how we are, we have
      this thing about jealousy… if the others see, for example, that you have a
      work contract, they can become jealous and hurt you...15

   As a result, people needed to reveal a little bit about their lives to avoid
too much speculation and gossip, but without exaggerating and thus making
themselves vulnerable. This was done through strategic openings and clos-
ings with each other. For example, a young Malian who had found a job with a
contract kept the good news hidden to avoid creating jealousy. Jealousy could
incite mystical attacks by the other inhabitants of the center, causing possible
job dismissal.16
   Finally, another important question has to do with the depiction of one’s
own life in Italy that is communicated to the family back home. Thanks to so-
cial media and smartphones, forced immigrants can always be reached by their
relatives and friends at home who want to have information about their new
lives (sometimes they expressly ask for photos and videos), along with finan-
cial help (cf. Tazanu 2012). Nurturing good relationships is essential, insofar as
relatives from the home country offer both comfort during difficult times and
prayers that help migratory plans to be successful. Once again, it’s about main-
taining channels of communication that are “controlled,” balancing between
disclosure and concealment. For example, a Nigerian asylum seeker had an in-
ternship that offered very low wages; he did not let his family know about his
work in order to avoid having to send them extra money that he cannot spare.
   Within this framework, mobile photography plays a central role. Whether
photography has always been an important part of the migration experience,
with the arrival of mobile phones’ cameras connected to the internet, its
meaning has, at least partly, changed. Photography is no longer limited to im-
mortalizing “special” occasions such as births and religious ceremonies to be


15. Adama, 13 October 2017.
16. The spiritual insecurity and fear of witchcraft attacks concern not only immigrants who
    reside in the reception centers, but are part of the experience of many Africans who live in
    precarious situations in Torino (Beneduce 2004; Taliani 2016).


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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men                  213

shown to the family back home. Instead, it enters into the everyday life of the
migration experience, obtaining new roles and meanings beyond just bolster-
ing memories (Prieto-Blanco 2016). It was not by chance that the guests at the
Alpignano reception center photographed a little bit of everything, not only
the noteworthy events. When I asked what their favorite subjects were, they
had no single answer. In the phones’ photo galleries, they kept self-portraits,
group photos, scenes from everyday life, landscapes and consumer goods
(such as cars and TVs displayed in stores), copies of documents of which they
fear losing the originals, all mixed in with images of friends and relatives in
various parts of the world downloaded from the internet and social media.
This was a cluster, where past and present were combined, and important im-
ages were put together with insignificant ones that could be erased with no
regrets17 (Santanera 2018). When it came to posting online, however, they be-
came much more selective in their choices. In the rest of this section, I will
examine the strategies carried out by migrants to control the circulation of
their photographic image among different audiences. To illustrate this point,
I will recount the story of Bouba, an asylum seeker from The Gambia.
   Bouba was 20 years old when he arrived in Italy. He comes from a well-off
family from a village in the northern region of The Gambia where he lived
with his extended family. His father is a tailor, and together with his brother,
he runs a large shop. Bouba was still a student when he first came across some
“beautiful images”18 posted on Facebook by some fellow countrymen living in
Italy and Germany. These pictures instilled in him the idea of leaving, of try-
ing his luck in Europe. The allure of the photos, he recounted, “kept my mind
from school. I said now I want to go to Europe… I made up my mind… they
made up my mind for me.”19 With his thoughts already in Europe, he crossed
the Sahara and arrived in Libya where he set off for Italy. After this extremely
dangerous journey, upon his arrival, he was confronted with the difficult life
of asylum seekers. Bouba felt he was deceived by the images which had made
him dream in such a way and blocked the friends on Facebook who had posted
them. He had few friends in Torino, either at the “camp” (the name he used to

17. Generally, the operative systems showed the images downloaded from the internet in the
    “gallery” folder, together with all the other photos taken (aside from saving them in ad
    hoc folders).
18. This expression was used by Bouba himself, 29 July 2017.
19. Bouba, 23 June 2017. This interplay between the flow of images and the flow of people
    shows the contemporary work of imagination, as understood by Appadurai (1996: 5).
    Similarly, Kleist (2016: 9) writes that in Africa social network consumption can foster mi-
    gration and nurture the hope of living a better life in distant places.


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214	Giovanna Santanera

refer to the reception center) or outside, among Gambian soccer teammates.
“Making friends,” he said, “is really hard, […] one doesn’t go beyond a hello
and some small talk.”20 When someone asked him to be friends on Facebook,
however, he became diffident, “I don’t like this since I’m afraid of gossip. I
don’t want them to know too much about me because otherwise people can
talk about me, say that I did this and that, they can hurt me. On the outside,
they smile but inside they can be very dark.”21 This is why Bouba decided to
cancel his old Facebook account and open a new one where he only accepted
contacts from people he trusted. On the other hand, he did not let himself be
photographed unless it was with his own cellphone. He did this to avoid the
circulation of his image beyond his control, among unforeseen viewers. When
friends in The Gambia asked Bouba to send pictures of his new life in Italy, he
was reluctant. He could not avoid the request without seeming impolite and
damaging relationships. He did not want to mislead others with false hopes,
but he also did not want to show the difficulty of his present situation. There-
fore, he decided to take advantage of the WhatsApp “status” option in which
the photos he uploaded of himself were automatically cancelled after 24 hours
and could neither be downloaded nor circulated.
   Bouba’s case shows that the spread of digital photographs online is part of
the building and destruction of relationships, as in the opening and closing of
possible futures. In particular, it demonstrates how digital photography, in its
material dimension, allows forced migrants to strategically toy with the visions
of others in a way that echoes the politics of secrecy, which is typical of cell
phone use in other contexts (cf. Pype 2016a; Archibault 2017; Waltorp 2020).
Migrants’ “games” in Italy are especially “serious” because they draw into play
the success of migratory projects, and the possibility of working and staying
legally in Italy (without falling into the clandestine condition of invisibility).
Thus, asylum seekers’ online photographs not only evoke memories, affection
and nostalgia, like analogic photography once did (Chalfen 1987); they can
also be associated with feelings such as anxiety and fear. More than creat-
ing memories, functioning as “clocks for seeing” the past, they seem to deal
with the dimension of the future. In this regard, the careful juggling between
displaying and disguising, visibility and invisibility, represents a strategy to
successfully navigate the uncertain situation of the present, towards the fu-
ture one desires.

20. Bouba, 4 August 2017.
21. Bouba, 4 August 2017.


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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men       215

Images of the past, images of the future
    Before he got on the boat from Libya to the Sicilian coast, Djibril copied
the telephone number of a Malian acquaintance living in Italy onto a piece of
paper. That piece of paper, laminated in order to be water resistant during the
crossing, is the only thing he brought with him besides a little bit of money
that he spent in Lampedusa to buy a cell phone. Instead, Seydou, an Ivorian
asylum seeker, traveled with a SIM card. When I met him for the first time, he
had just finished writing down all his saved numbers on paper. He would call
them shortly afterwards on a reception facility mobile phone to let them know
he had arrived safely in Torino. Bouba arrived at the reception center unable
to carry any item from his past, not even the clothes in which he crossed the
Mediterranean because they were wet and dirty so he left them on the boat
that rescued him off the coast of Sicily.
    David Parkin (1999) underlines the importance of the objects that forced
migrants carry with them in their travels, not just the useful ones but also (and
perhaps in particular) those of emotional and sentimental value. Like genuine
“transitional objects,” mobile objects help the mobile subjects to rebuild a
sense of continuity with the past that allows them to imagine a viable future,
acting as a bridge between “pieces” of a life which have been disconnected
in a way that is often traumatic. This “self-inscription” in non-commodity
objects is particularly crucial when people are required to interface regularly
with individuals who believe they are not trustworthy. If one’s own network
of relationships cannot be invested in emotionally, non-humans temporarily
assume the job of conserving the precluded social personhood and sense of
the future, becoming bearers of pre-traumatic hopes (Parkin 1999: 308).
    These considerations recall the context of the Italian CASs, where the asy-
lum seekers must establish relationships with individuals who tend to treat
them suspiciously, expecting something underhanded and dishonest from
them. For example, the reasons for denial of international protection by mem-
bers of the Torino Territorial Commission very often allude to the fact that the
answers given during the interview are not credible, such that the so-called
“interview preparation” carried out by the legal workers is generally filled with
advice on how to appear “sincere” (for instance, directing one’s gaze into the
eyes of the commissioner while speaking instead of looking down, according to
the usual way of showing respect in West Africa). Moreover, in staff meetings
it is not uncommon that social workers begin to speculate about the deception
carried out by the migrants to cheat on the weekly shopping; in other cases,


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216	Giovanna Santanera

they insinuate that depression and psychological distress are simulated by the
individuals to obtain medical reports to present at the Territorial Commis-
sion, with the hope of receiving a humanitarian permit (cf. Fassin 2001, 2005;
Fassin e d’Halluin 2005, 2007). In this context, characterized by enormous dis-
trust, the absence of “transitional objects” stands out. The lack of mementos
from one’s past risks to undermine the possibility of bridging the gap between
past experiences and future potential, “for it is through the skills and objects
one may take that one’s future may be given shape, at least from the perspec-
tive of the departee” (Parkin 1999: 305).
   Within this context, pictures, texts and videos circulating on social media
may work as valuable substitutes for transitional objects, acting as supports
for selective remembering, forgetting and envisioning future possibilities. Re-
turning to one’s social media profile after the long journey towards Europe is
an emotionally intense moment where, retrieving all lost messages and posts
of friends and family, is like rediscovering a familiar environment in the vir-
tual world.22 Upon arrival at the reception center of Alpignano, for example,
Demba reconnected to Facebook for the first time after more than a year. He
read the dozens of messages received from his acquaintances who, having not
heard back from him, started to fear that he had died. The feeling of return-
ing online thus became, in his own words, a “rebirth.23 The news from home
received periodically on WhatsApp is equally significant, because – similar to
browsing Facebook and Instagram – it allows for a connection with who you
were, that can function as the basis for imagining who you will be. As Bouba
recounted: “I like chatting or receiving photos from my sister, it brings me
back to my old life”.24 It is worth noting that transnational communications do
not always have these positive effects; when the “bringing back” feeling and
the digital closeness are too vivid, negative emotions – such as loneliness and
despair – might prevail. In this case, digital devices become drivers for depres-
sion and passivity, blocking the possibilities of the future, as laying on a bed
all day scrolling social media becomes the only possible coping mechanism
for nostalgia.
   In an interesting way photographs can play a crucial role in keeping a positive
imagination of the future alive. While consuming texts and images of one’s own
home country allows for “recovering” pieces of oneself (when nostalgia is not too

22. As reported by Stremlau and Tsalapatanis (2022: 67), many sub-Saharan Africans do not
    have regular internet access during their journey to Italy.
23. Demba, 8 October 2017.
24. Bouba, 22 December 2017.


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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men       217

intense), the production of new photos represents a means for fantasizing about
one’s desired future. In West Africa, a certain visual culture has connected popu-
lar photography to the dimension of imagination more than to that of memory.
Yoruba photographers of the 1960s-80s are key figures from this point of view;
with their itinerant studios, they would travel around West Africa, spreading
trends and styles that shaped a genuine photographic ecumene. Specializing in
portraits of people, in their shops they offered their customers, through access
to backdrops (for example painted skyscrapers, cars, interiors with televisions
and refrigerators) and props (such as clothes, telephones, watches, and umbrel-
las), to be represented with emblems of modernity. In some cases, they also did
retouching to modify physical aspects, making adjustments on the negatives
with a pencil. Portraits made in this way did not strive to “fix” the subject in
a specific moment of his/her development but, rather, tried to represent one’s
transformative potential. In this sense portraits from West Africa eschewed re-
alism to create a space of performative involvement where one explores and
“feels” new roles and images of self, anticipating possible futures (Peffer, Cam-
eron 2013; Wendl 2001). These images were not conserved in albums but were
given to relatives and acquaintances in order to receive compliments and elicit
admiration. The far-reaching circulation of one’s own “ideal self” helped attest
to one’s potential improvement. Furthermore, it contributed to accomplishing
this, by placing oneself at the center of webs of extensive relationships and by
building a reputation. These practices of self-display have continued on after
the advent of mobile photography (Vokes 2019: 208-209).
   In photos they posted on Facebook, my interlocutors looked into the cam-
era posing in nonspontaneous ways, sometimes inspired by black hip-hop
movements. Their clothing was also somewhat fancy and could include such
gadgets as ear-buds and a mobile phone visible in one’s hand. The back-
ground, when visible, tended to consist of cars and other consumer goods or
monuments of Torino. These portraits can be seen, not so much as realistic
representations of migrants’ lives, but rather as visualizations of their aspira-
tions. The appropriation of hip-hop imagery and the representation of oneself
next to some luxury goods, in particular, can be interpreted as images of a de-
sired masculinity. For young Africans, often trapped in situations of perpetual
dependence (Cruise O’Brien 1996; Honwana 2012; Honwana, de Boeck 2005)
that denies their access to full manhood (Fuh 2012; Dery 2019; Perry 2005;
Shultz 2021), emigration constitutes a way of trying to reach the desired adult
male status with an economic and social position that allows for having a wife



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218	Giovanna Santanera

and maintaining an extended family, according to the widespread model of
man as a father and a provider (Ammann, Staudacher 2021: 264). In the words
of Moussa: “No one is happy to leave his home… but when you leave your
home, you do so with a goal: to find a job and to help who is ‘behind you.’ I
did that for my siblings because they shouldn’t have a life as difficult as mine
and because they may suffer less.”25 The expression “look for yourself in Eu-
rope” – used by many francophone Africans speaking about their decision to
leave – evokes, among other things, this identity journey, where emigrating
offers a space for reinventing the masculine self. In Italy, one often falls into
a condition of helplessness and subordination. This can lead to the claim of
power positions due to gender, at least in the online world, with an exagger-
ated performance of masculinity to compensate for the social and economic
deprivation experienced in the offline life.26 Clothes and poses used in the im-
ages on social media clash with those of the offline world, where it is necessary
to keep a “low profile,” so as not to attract the police’s attention, in a climate
where the representation of young African men as violent and dangerous pre-
vails. “We can’t go out in our undershirts…” Omar warned me, implying that
on the streets of Torino one needs to resort to other performances of the self.27
   Barbara Pinelli (2013) demonstrates that fantasy – understood as the
hope of providing a prospect for one’s future that is different from the pres-
ent (Moore 1994) – is not simply evasion, but constitutes an impulse towards
change. It acts as a first step towards the life one desires, in contrast to the
sense of “stuckedness” (Hage 2009; 2015) that permeates the experience in the
reception centers. From this perspective, the unrealistic portraits of migrants
appear to be powerful affirmations of oneself and of one’s own potential for
moving forward in life, real agency manifestations. It is the ability to imagine
change which ensures that, in the present, there is the possibility of finding
the resources to “not give up” and of continuing the pursuit of one’s projects.
The wide circulation of images on social media contributes to reinforcing these
dynamics. Posts, comments and “likes” enable one to cultivate a pool of “weak
ties” (Granovetter 1973; Eriksen 2021: 66) that could be useful once a person
has left the reception projects (Santanera 2018). The experience of an Ivorian


25. Moussa, 30 October 2017.
26. Charsley and Wray (2015) write that migrant men in positions of weakness may search for
    “hyper-masculinity,” reasserting the dominant models of manhood, instead of rejecting
    them. Cf. also Pasura, Christou (2017) on the rupture of the sense of masculinity experi-
    enced by African men in transnational settings.
27. Omar, 12 September 2017.


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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men               219

political refugee seems to confirm this hypothesis. Upon receiving a travel doc-
ument from the Torino police headquarters, he decided to leave the Alpignano
reception center and move to Malta. The destination choice, discouraged by
the social workers (who saw it as an island with fewer job opportunities and
new language barriers), was made following a “survey” among Facebook con-
tacts. The assessment ended up being on the mark. From the moment he was
in Malta, he immediately found a job in construction along with a room to rent,
thanks to local contacts he had cultivated over time on social media. Having
put away some money, he returned to the Ivory Coast and finally got married.

The object of desires
   One last aspect of the connection between mobile phones and the future
concerns the materiality of its technology. The smartphone, besides being a
means of communication, is also an object with its own social life (Appadurai
1986), that gets bought, given, lost, stolen, broken, fixed, re-sold, thrown away
and preserved. In what way does the temporality of ICTs enter in resonance
with the temporality of life in reception centers?
   The smartphone occupies a very particular place within the CASs, such that
it is one of the few objects that migrants purchase and choose freely (with
the price acting as the only constraint). My interlocutors were familiar with
the various brands and models on the market and changed devices as soon
as their financial situations improved (for example, thanks to being a paid
intern), searching for “nicer,” as well as “faster” cell phones. Here desire plays
a considerable role in contrast to the logic of need that generally governs the
running of the reception centers. For example, Omar, a Gambian refugee,
matched his clothes – a red shirt and light grey pants – with his white Sam-
sung and its red cover that he had just bought, through a form of “everyday
design” (Horst 2016) that enhanced the look of his new purchase. On the oth-
er hand, the social workers tended to label as superfluous anything besides
the most basic necessities (cf. Porcellana 2016). This resulted in poorly main-
tained rooms, where various types of furniture did not match and were put
together haphazardly, found here and there, at flea markets and sales.28 The
lack of an environment in which one could reflect oneself was painful, as these
words from a Gambian refugee made clear: “Because, you know, when you live


28. In some cases, migrants personalize their spaces for example by hanging posters next to
    their beds. These personalization practices have been interpreted as forms of resistance
    (cf. Agier 2014: 18).


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220	Giovanna Santanera

alone you can set up your room, put your things in there, whereas if you live
with lots of people, you can’t… Now I only think about wanting to find a job
that gives me money every month to have my own home”.29 In this context, a
smartphone – a “beautiful” personal belonging that is chosen carefully – is an
object with a strong identifying value, that allows one to recover, in a minis-
cule way, a hint of the life about which one dreams for the future. As such, it
is experienced as both a highly singularized object (Kopytoff 1896) and a glob-
al commodity that anticipates a desired life of consumption. To declare – as
often happened – that one’s mobile phone is “outdated” or “old” constitutes,
therefore, a claim on one’s own better future.
   Another aspect of connection between the materiality of communication
technologies and the dimension of the future emerges from the circulation of
devices. In Africa ICTs have become quintessential gifts for lovers and relatives
(Archambault 2017; Jordan Smith 2006; Pype 2016b). In Daniel’s account re-
garding Ghana, “No money, no love. To have a girlfriend you have to at least
give her an iPhone”.30 Also in the migratory context, smartphones continue to
be embedded in gift exchange practices. To cite just a few examples, Bouba re-
ceived his first smartphone as a gift from a Gambian acquaintance as soon as
he arrived in Italy. Drissa got a mobile phone from a female Ivorian friend and
two smartphones from an Italian woman. Despite needing money, he did not
consider the idea of selling any of his phones because “one keeps a present, it
can’t be sold”.31 Koffi, also an Ivorian refugee, bought a Samsung smartphone
for a compatriot with whom he undertook the journey from Ivory Coast to Italy.
When I pointed out that the cellphone he intended to give as a gift was more ex-
pensive than the one he purchased for himself, he commented: “When you give
a gift, you want it to be nice, to make it clear to the other person that you respect
them”.32 As these examples demonstrate, also in the Italian migratory context,
ICTs are mediators of social ties, particularly in sexual and friendly relations.
Through the creation of debt and credit chains (Mauss 2012; Pype 2016b), they
contribute to cementing relationships in a context that tends to be fragment-
ed. Expanding one’s social network is essential for the realization of one’s own
migratory projects, seeing as it is often through word of mouth that people find



29. Omar, 18 July 2017. Regarding the relationship between home and a reflection of oneself,
    cf. Miller (2009, ch. 2).
30. Mohammed, 2 August 2017.
31. Daniel, 8 August 2017.
32. Moussa, 2 August 2017.


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The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men       221

work or a room to rent. In this sense the gift, requesting a counter-gift in ex-
change, opens a chain of actions and reactions that produces a new future.

Conclusion
   In this article, I have shown that the use of smartphones among young Af-
rican men living in reception centers in Italy constitutes a “weapon” in the
battle for time that characterizes their daily life, allowing for time expansion,
more than time compression, as it is generally assumed (Vokes, Pype 2018). I
have argued that the dimension of desire and the future, rather than that of
nostalgia and the past, is at the heart of the media practices of forced migrants.
In this sense, the smartphone is fundamental for obtaining a form of interna-
tional protection and, once out of the reception centers, for finding a job and a
home. It is not simply about surfing the internet to collect useful information
(such as job listings), but about skillfully crafting one’s own virtual image,
through knowledgeable production and circulation of photographs. Immersed
in an environment in which one has little control, people at least try to steer
what happens to themselves in virtual space. “Facebook is mine, the phone is
mine: I’m the manager and I do what I want,” Bouba affirmed emphatically.33
   Precisely with reference to the possibility of “editing our world of experi-
ence, what we choose to see and what we choose to keep” (Miller et al. 2021:
224), the smartphone has been recently defined as a “transportable home”: you
are always at home in your own smartphone, write the authors of “The Global
Smartphone” (Miller et al. 2021: 219). This virtual home is particularly pre-
cious for those who do not live in a physical home. The reception center was
in fact not felt as “home,” even when people lived there for years. Yet it was
meaningfully called “camp,” bolstering – as in Agamben’s definition of camp
(1995; 2003) – the hardship of the life experience in a CAS, where existence
tends to be reduced to the mere carrying out of organic functions: “At the camp
we sleep and eat all day, that’s not right,”34 many complained. In this way the
smartphone, the most beloved object, represents a temporary substitute for the
dwelling that is lacking and, at the same time, is a useful means for building a
“true” new home, interrupting the journey to carry out one’s migratory project.




33. Bouba, 5 April 2018.
34. Sekou, 8 September 2017.


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222	Giovanna Santanera

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228	Giovanna Santanera

  Giovanna Santanera is Assistant Professor (non-tenure track) at the University of
  Milan-Bicocca. Her research interests include media anthropology, anthropology of
  technology and anthropology of migration. She conducted research in Cameroon
  on the intersection between video technology and social inequality, and is current-
  ly doing research in the field of digital migration studies. She studies the use of
  digital media by African asylum seekers in Italy and, on the other hand, explores
  the impact of digitization processes on the refugee status determination process.
  She published numerous articles and the book Camerun digitale. Produzione video e
  diseguaglianza sociale a Douala (Meltemi, 2020; Digital Cameroon. Video produc-
  tion and social inequality in Douala).
  giovanna.santanera@unimib.it




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Giovanna Santanera
The use of smartphones and the quest for a future among West African men in reception centers in Italy.
2022 | Anuac. Vol. 11, n° 2, Dicembre 2022: 205-228.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-4932
