Internal status borders: municipal registration between emancipation, exclusion and omission in Italy

Registration promotes emancipation: by acquiring a legal individual identity, a person becomes a formal member of a community and obtains rights. However, registration also enables and reproduces hierarchies and subordinate inclusion, especially when it becomes a selective device. This article aims to highlight the ambiguous status of registration by focusing on municipal registration, a device that is analysed from a historical-theoretical perspective and by highlighting the case of European citizens. The aim is to show that municipal registration is part of a local border regime, as it promotes the internalisation of borders. By proposing a theoretical reflection and drawing on research already carried out on municipal registration, the article aims to reveal the ambiguities of registration as an internal border: in particular, how recognition, or conversely the lack of it, is used to exclude or “omit” people, thus preventing them from being fully autonomous in a legal and material sense.