ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the national blend of intransigent refusal towards mobility from the south and collective anxiety over Italy's vulnerability, looking in particular at crossings by sea. It considers how the greatly increased mobility since the 1990s of people from Eastern Europe and from African countries seeking work in the richer countries of Europe triggered a reaction of alarm in Italy, a sense of 'migration crisis'. It reviews the number of non-Italian writers, including both libertarians and leftists, for an 'open borders' approach to mobility as an alternative to the politics of closure that has by now become so familiar in Italy. The chapter argues that policies in Italy towards migration and mobility from developing countries, although they belong to a common European Union framework, have been nationally distinctive in that their underlying logic of protection and security is widely shared across the political spectrum and has been challenged only by small, if articulate, minorities.
