Negotiating Boundaries: Volunteers and Professionals in the Italian Refugee Reception System

Abstract This article explores the growing forms of collaboration between volunteers and professionals within the Italian refugee reception system through the lens of boundary work—an ongoing process of reciprocal demarcation and self-reflexivity that positions them in synergy, tension, or mutual opposition. Drawing on 33 qualitative interviews conducted at Italian reception facilities employing both volunteer and paid staff, this study explains why volunteers are welcomed in these settings. Volunteers are expected and willing to build authentic and unique relationships with migrants, expanding opportunities for housing, employment, and training, while extending care beyond the temporal and spatial boundaries of institutional reception, softening the disciplinary logic characterizing these contexts. However, we show that the boundaries between professional and volunteer care logics and practices are also carefully monitored and managed in the pursuit of a mutually beneficial diversity. These efforts are aimed at preventing care from becoming an overly individualized endeavour that could undermine bureaucratic, rights-based standards of equity and foster dependency rather than autonomy among refugees. This analysis highlights the perceived opportunities and risks of collaboration between volunteers and professionals in these contexts, contributing to a deeper understanding of the functioning and outcomes of refugee reception systems.