"What are we supposed to do while we are waiting?": vernacular geographies of the "Balkan Route" in Trieste

Since 2018, the Italian border city of Trieste has become a key segment in the informal migration corridor of the so-called "Balkan Route." Despite rising anti-migration rhetoric from local and national authorities, a solidarity network of formal and informal actors has been active in the city since 2019. By 2022-2023, increased migrant arrivals, inadequate transfers to other cities, and a lack of proper accommodation created a dire situation. Asylum seekers in Trieste became trapped in prolonged periods of stuckness, deprived of shelter and healthcare, leading to their segregation into specific areas of the city where informal social and political practices emerged. This project examines migrants' everyday life at the border through a “vernacular” approach, focusing on the co-construction and negotiation of knowledge in spaces marked by marginality and segregation. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Trieste (2022-2023) and interviews with around 50 participants, and it explores three key elements: urban grammars, material traces, and theories of time. The thesis posits that “vernacular actors” contribute to the co-construction of these spaces, participating in both collective political organisation and practices of place-making. I argue that “vernacular spaces” are spaces in translation, which make it possible, albeit in a limited and fragmented way, for marginalised subjects to crystallise their experiences of “wait” onto space and to negotiate collective political subjectivities through the construction of a “bordered” space and referent for their struggles, which turns tactics into strategies of resistance.