Uncontrollable Bodies : Self-harm behaviour among male undocumented migrants detained in Southern Italian CPR

Abstract: In response to the recent surge in migrants entering Italy, the Italian government has implemented several laws since early 2023 to expand the administrative detention system for migrants - mostly males - pending repatriation, commonly known as Centri di Permanenza per il Rimpatr io (CPR). Despite the large body of evidence provided by national humanitarian organizations and academic research concerning their overall detrimental effect - both on national budgets and detainees’ psychophysiological health –, these centers are still deemed as the best way to deal with the migration phenomenon. Nevertheless, the high incidence of self harm episodes recorded within these venues, together with their secrecy and isolation symptomize their problematic nature. Thus, focusing on three different administrative detention facilities located in the Southern Italian regions of Apulia and Sicily, this thesis aims at penetrating these closeted realities in order to raise awareness about the prisoners’ true living conditions and grasp the potential political weight of their self injurious gestures. Moreover, it argues for the need to partially de medicalize the approach toward this specific health issue, as it prevents to acknowledge it as a full fledged expression of rebellion against this specific detention regimeand, simultaneously, to identify the strategies used by authorities to suppress it.