Residential Bordering: The (Mis)use of Residence Status to Control Migrants’ Welfare Rights in Italy and the UK

This article examines how «residence» has been used as a mechanism to regulate welfare access in Italy and UK. The two countries have very different approaches to monitoring and registering local populations, but share a drive towards «differential inclusion» which has led to systemic paradoxes and has been characterised by discretionality and political frictions. This «residential bordering» of welfare rights has particularly targeted migrants and progressively extended to EU nationals and other vulnerable groups.