Coping with personhood limbo: Personhood anchoring work among undocumented workers in Italy

Abstract

Prevailing socio-legal structures create a state of personhood limbo for undocumented workers, where broader society undermines various aspects of their personhood in a way that prevents them from fully representing and embracing all dimensions of their selves in and around the workplace. But how do undocumented workers cope with personhood limbo? Drawing on interviews with undocumented workers and civil society workers in Italy, we identify specific forms of what we call “personhood anchoring work” that undocumented workers engage in to claim aspects of personhood that are meaningful to them. Our theorization suggests that workers’ experiences of personhood are influenced not only by socio-legal structures, but also by their own agentic acts in response to external conditions, as well as their aspirations, past experiences, and future plans. A key finding of our study is that these practices do not aim to create or disrupt social orders, even in subtle or hidden forms of resistance. Instead, they enable undocumented workers to temporarily position themselves within the social order. In doing so, we also introduce a new way of conceptualizing the integration of undocumented workers that can account for the possibilities and limits of retaining rather than redefining personhood in the face of prevailing constraints.