Moving on: Italy as a stepping stone in migrants' imaginaries (original) (raw)
Related papers
Borders in Globalization Review
Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Naples (Italy) in the period 2014 to 2020, this article focuses on the rearticulation of the migration–citizenship nexus through a gender perspective. The article questions how migrant women exercise their agency despite the structural constraints that prevent their full inclusion and how they are able to cross and transgress the boundaries of citizenship and national belonging in search of better life opportunities. The data analyzed show the existential paradox linked to the migration–citizenship nexus that affects the lives of migrant women in Italy and their use of citizenship as a strategy to react to a blocked destiny, to follow one’s aspirations, and to rebalance gender relations. The article refines an integrated approach that considers the relationship between agency, aspiration, and capability as a broader theoretical framework within which to jointly study the dynamics of gender, migration, and citizenship as closel...
S. Lazar (ed.), Where are the unions? Workers and Social Movements in Latin America, the Middle East and Europe. London: Zed Books., 2017
Within the latest wave of anti-austerity protests in Europe and beyond, the Italian case is often considered to be a sort of anomaly. The country has not experienced the same coherently organized and readily recognisable forms of opposition to the neoliberal onslaught that have characterized others, such as Spain or Greece. At the same time, it has never lacked radical anti-capitalist politics, which developed in different forms. Indeed, for decades Italy has constituted, in some ways, a reference point for social movements outside its borders. Here, I wish to reflect on the presence within the heterogeneous constellation of struggles that has emerged in recent years of specific subjects, namely migrants, and on the importance of the labour dimension in their mobilizations. If not always self-evident or acknowledged, both aspects are central in understanding some of the most significant instances of struggle that have shaken Italian public opinion and the social-movement scene-all the more so following the current mediatized hype about a supposed 'migration crisis' across the EU, with Italy as one of the main locations in this spectacle.
Strategies of Navigation: Migrants' Everyday Encounters with Italian Immigration Bureaucracy
Successful encounters with bureaucratic systems require users to be familiar with ‘insider’ rules and behaviour. This article examines migrants’ everyday efforts to become and stay ‘legal’ in Italy, and shows how they need to develop particular strategies in order to do so. While these strategies help migrants in the short term, I argue that ultimately they enable the Italian state to reconcile its conflicting interests and reproduce migrants’ marginal and insecure status in Italian society. Examining everyday mundane interactions with the state and its bureaucracy reveals the various ways in which state practices produce insecurity.
The Continuing Mobility of Migrants in Italy: Shifting between Places and Statuses
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2005
In this paper, which is based on fieldwork carried out in Italy in 2001–02, I consider migrants as mobile actors, people who make choices about where they go and under what title, but people whose choices are limited by a range of factors including migration regimes, social networks and social and economic capital. The key questions considered relate to ‘status’
Labor, Citizenship, and Subjectivity: Migrants' Struggles within the Italian Crisis
Social Justice, 2012
Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author's name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pagination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.
Annali della Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione Università degli Studi di Catania, 2019
Migrant descendants associations have recently become widespread in Italy principally because of the restrictive regulations of Italian citizenship law. Their main claims focus on this issue: a redefinition of the law that takes into consideration the changed conditions of the country after migration flows. The reasons for their protests, which may explain their involvement in this special form of associations on the move, are basically the lack of recognition of equal opportunities, and exclusion from social and political participation. The paper aims to give a broad outline of second generation migrant associations in Italy, and the reasons for their protests; it also aims to understand their status in society and the sources of the choice of their mobilisation as movements. This will be examined through direct and indirect narrations (website forums and focus groups) and analyzed on a comparative basis. The objective is to stress the differences between the official voice of the ...
Migrants as activist citizens in Italy
OpenDemocracy, 2012
In 2010 and 2011 migrants behaved like activist citizens throughout Italy, initiating a new cycle of struggles in the crisis of neoliberalism. Their contestation of an exclusionary, racialized and competitive model of society could become a goal shared by migrants and nationals alike.