Residence Roma - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 224

communities engage with their surroundings and create new forms of belonging.
my discussion of the space of Residence Roma shows how the real and imagined
cultural systems of both origin and host countries are constituted through a dia-
lectical relationship that involves belonging and displacement, grounding and
movement, and real and imagined geographies. in the case of Residence Roma,
the material geography of urban Rome combined with the symbolic and imag-
ined geography of urban senegal. The monolocale, transformed into a restau-
rant and a gathering place, highlights the dialectical relationship of individual/
communal and private/public dimensions within Residence Roma. as an act of
intentional hybridity, the creation of the kitchen-balcony allowed a degree of
preservation of cultural difference that was crucial for many of the senegalese
residents of palazzina a, especially women. moreover, it also proved useful for
contestatory actions. once migrant solidarity networks were preserved, political
action became possible. it was indeed through constant engagement with other
residents in such places as the praying rooms and the women's restaurants that
the residents of palazzina a managed to come together to form an association,
called Jappo. Jappo solidarietà senegal was an association born in the spring of
2005 to mobilize all residents during the negotiations set up to avoid Residence
Roma's evacuation. in wolof, jappo means “holding hands” and the image of
the association shows white and black hands holding each other. membership in
Jappo was open to and strongly encouraged for italians, as a way to show solidar-
ity with the senegalese community of Residence Roma. Demonstrations in the
streets of Rome and repeated encounters with the city council brought a compro-
mise resolution. after the evacuation, all the residents with a legal permit of stay
were granted temporary lodging in municipal housing.
Jappo provides a unique example of the concerted effort of senegalese dia-
sporic nonreligious association with local, municipal political forces in the ital-
ian urban context. its crucial role in the resolution of the political negotiations
with the city authorities shows that both localized and transnational affiliations
contributed to the degree of hybridization of political action “from below” by
different actors (such as local oppositional forces, the senegalese mourid traders,
and the senegalese intellectuals). Yet, all immigrants without a legal permit to
stay, who were and still are the weakest subjects of globalized and transmigrant
politics “from above,” were the ones who succumbed to the sheer pressure of
the political power of local real-estate speculations and to the larger, globalized
dimension of restrictive immigration policies. under their pressure, those who
have been denied the rights of legal visibility, citizenship, and hospitality suc-
cumb to these forces without possibility of resistance.