This paper investigates the organisation of migrant integration, drawing on ethnographic research at two Italian refugee reception centres. We use Foucault's concept of pastoral power to expose the paradoxical power dynamics involved in the integration, showing how various stakeholders' discourses, interactions and practices shape the integration process, and how tensions in the ethics of the pastoral relations of care simultaneously empower and control the migrants. Acting as pastors, reception centre staff translate migration policies into practices aimed at promoting integration and autonomy, while reinforcing dominant discourses around citizenship as becoming self-responsible subjects. We argue that the integration process serves as a means to govern migrants' subjectivities in ways that both sustain and constrain their freedom and agency. Subsequently, we call for a greater awareness of such tensions as a step forward in the search for more caring and ethical frameworks for organising migrant reception.
