Abstract
The article analyzes the Italian public policy encouraging 'volunteering' activities of asylum seekers in favor of local administrations, whose aim is to spread welcoming feelings among the population acting against their contested passivity. Firstly the author discusses the efficiency of the policy and debuilds the governmental discourse enlightening its mystifications. Secondly, through an explorative on-field research inspired by the grounded theory method it is shown that the real nature of the promoted activities lies in unpaid work, as well as they convey a symbolic and perceived 'asylum-seekers-utility' message which has a negative impact on the public consciousness regarding the asylum issue.
Keywords
asylum seekers; public policies; volunteering; unpaid work