Camp from within: Life stories of refugees from the Balkan route

The paper presents selected results of qualitative research conducted in 2017 in refugee camps in Sid by using the observation, life stories and interviews. By relying on authors such as Agier (2011), Turner (2015), Feldman (2015) and Sanyal (2013), we proceed from the idea that refugee camps should be seen just as the places of ?bare life? and biopolitics (Agamben, 2013) but also as spaces in which identities and social relations are actively reproduced and transformed, expressing the subjectivity of refugees. In this way it is possible to identify not only the boundaries, the peculiarities and internal rules of closed institutions such as camps, but also the ways in which they are ?opened up?, challenged, reproduced, multiplied and transformed through refugee practices. This study indicates that refugee camps are a) heterogeneous sites with many physical, social and mental, fluid and relative borders; b) transformative sites where many different, intertwined regimes are transformed through refugee practices and c) sites of social transition where refugees reconstruct their lost identities and social relationships.