Lorenzo Prencipe, Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, profeta dei migranti. Il senso di un centenario / Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, prophet of migrants: the meaning of a Centennial

The centennial of G.B. Scalabrini's death is an occasion to rediscover his prophetic vision of human mobility. Scalabrini's thoughts and action originated from his two main insights. He looked at the migratory phenomenon at the international level and understood it as a part of the “social and  working class questions”, therefore suggesting that the improvement of life conditions of the mass was crucial. The other prophetic view concerned the future of the Catholic Church: Scalabrini envisioned that in that regard human mobility (encounter and coexistence of peoples) was more relevant than just the propagation of faith. At the end of the XIX century, Scalabrini was therefore the first – and for decades the only – European intellectual that understood migration in its complexity and long-term perspective.

Giovanni Terragni, Un progetto per l’assistenza agli emigrati cattolici di ogni nazionalità. Memoriale di Giovanni Battista Scalabrini alla Santa Sede / A project to assist Catholic migrants of all nationalities: Memorandum by Giovanni Battista Scalabrini to the Holy See

In the 1905 “Pro emigratis catholicis” Memorandum, Scalabrini called the attention of Pius X on a project derived from his experience at the service of Italian migrants abroad. He argued that massive migration of European Catholics towards America was different from previous colonial conquests that created a sense of “hostility towards anything European, religion included”. Since, because of migration, America was becoming a melting pot of new peoples, it was also meant to play a high degree of influence on the common fate of the world. It is in the American continent that the formation of a new, diverse and cosmopolitan society begins. By virtue of its mission, the Catholic church should not remain a passive spectator in the face of such a major transformation; on the contrary, it should take an active role for a new evangelization of the American continent through the active participation of migrants, accompanied by missionaries of their language and culture. Therefore, Scalabrini deemed necessary the establishment by the Holy See – by definition a universal and transnational institution – of a new organization in charge of coordinating the pastoral activity for Catholic migrants of all nationalities, since new demands, such as that of migration movements, must be answered with appropriate renewed structures. The Memorandum “Pro emigratis catholicis” testifies the civil and pastoral commitment of Scalabrini in favour of migrants, a commitment that is deeply rooted into his religious and social principles.

Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Migration as an international/domestic security issue

Migration is not only an international issue, nor necessarily a security issue. It is also a domestic issue with implications on the political community of those living together in the new definitions of citizenship, of loyalty with multiple references and choices, of intrusion of external and transnational factors in the internal political order. Three main questions are involved by migration in domestic security issues. First, the concern about national cohesion; second the fear about importation of external disorders in internal security areas; third, the challenge brought to sovereignty by transnational networks, associations and other flows (religious, cultural, economic, political) which are transgressing borders. The Author argues that the challenge of migration in security term is stronger in the internal context than in the international, and the strongest concern lies more in the crisis of the social link due to discriminations, unemployment, segregated and ethnicised suburbs than in the emergence of terrorism with “radical Islamists”.

Francesca Mascellini, La forza delle illusioni: donne migranti e traffico di esseri umani / The power of illusions: migrant women and the trafficking in human beings

The development of female immigration in Italy is interlinked with trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of women. The ethnic networks through which migration is facilitated are often times the channel used by transnational criminal organizations to reduce these women into slavery. Patterns of exploitation are diversified, depending on the area of origin, along ethnic lines: Nigerian prostitution is different from that of young Albanians and East European girls – due to different strategies in recruitment, transport to Western countries, and coercive measures applied to controlling trafficked women. Therefore, the prostitution of migrant women in Western countries should be treated as a complex issue within the framework of globalization. The women involved actually seem to be induced to forcibly selling their bodies in a society that creates a demand for sexual services and stimulates the corresponding offer in developing countries though dissemination of welfare expectations that induce to migrate al all costs, even as undocumented persons.

Germana D’Ottavio, Migrazioni femminili ed “agenzie nere”. Lavoratrici domestiche polacche nella provincia italiana / Migrant women and “black agencies”: Polish domestic workers in some Italian provinces

The present essay aims to introduce the theoretical and methodological basis of fieldwork with Polish migrant women in an Italian province. Methodological choices will be justified by examining the circumstances of the empirical work and a brief description of qualitative and quantitative data related to Polish migration to  western Europe. Early results available so far reveal side-effects of the regularization process carried out in June 2002 by the Italian government, and the growing importance of job mediators and illegal recruitment agencies that often take advantage of their links to allocate jobs to newcomers, that are often women employed as domestic workers and caregivers. Therefore, the complex nature of migratory flows in sending countries should be faced as well, in order to provide alternative methods for job placement, e.g. via international cooperation projects.

Maurizio Ambrosini, Dentro il welfare invisibile: aiutanti domiciliari immigrate e assistenza agli anziani / Within the invisibile welfare: female immigrant caregivers and the care of the aged

The latest regularisation process revealed the huge demand for migrant women, both for domestic work (190.000 requests) and caregiving (140.000). This article looks at assistance to aged people and is based on in-depth interviews to immigrant domestic workers, the assisted persons, care givers and the recruitment agencies. The focus is on the following aspects: overlapping of private and working sphere, tendency to request from domestic workers a “familiar” and “holistic” involvement well beyond their duties, with a strong emotional component. This article also considers the phenomenon of transnational families and the role of recruiting agencies. Ultimately, a few measures are listed for a better management of this peculiar market, exposed to non-regulated and abusive practices.

Vincenza Pellegrino, Gilles Boëtsch, Les migrations trans-méditerranéennes et le couple. Les dynamiques de réunification des conjoints marocains et tunisiens en Italie / Married couples in trans-mediterranean migrations. Dynamics of family reunions of Moroccan and Tunisian immigrants in Italy

The case-study examined in this article concerns the migratory dynamics of family reunion in immigration societies. In order to understand the migratory behaviour of Moroccan and Tunisian married couples, we have integrated quantitative and qualitative methodologies, both based on longitudinal analysis of biographies: Event History Analysis (quantitative) and Life Story Interview (qualitative). This interdisciplinary research approach allowed us to understand that the length of time since marriage and the nuptial history are the most important factors for family reunification, especially the rejoining of Moroccan and Tunisian wives with their husbands who first migrated to Italy

Mariela Ceva, Los mediadores religiosos en la inmigración de trabajadores friulanos a Villa Flandria / Religious mediators in the immigration of migrant workers from Friuli to Villa Flandria

This essay deals with the role of clergy in migration processes: how migrants are assisted during their settlement in the destination country, what kind of help is provided and what social networks are created. To highlight such aspects, the leading role of a priest who migrated in Argentina from Friuli Venezia Giulia soon after World War II is examined. Data sources are the archive of the textile industry of Algodonera Flandria and the local newspapers. Further information has been gathered through interviews with Italian immigrants and their descendants.

Marta Mercedes Maffia, Sebastián Ballina, Paola Carolina Monkevicius, Las asociaciones de inmigrantes extranjeros y sus descendientes en la provincia de Buenos Aires. Espacios y tiempos de identidad / Associations of immigrants and their descendants in Buenos Aires: places and stages of identity building

This article aims at describing and evaluating the contributions that an anthropological perspective may bring to the analysis of immigrants’ ethnic associations. We conceive these associations as bounded social spaces where the different social agents involved hold a continuous process of co-construction and signification. We deem that the main line of analysis should be to inquire how certain kinds of practices articulate each other in order to conform these social spaces as identity territories. In order to achieve this purpose we intend to examine the articulation and negotiation of time and space, as social constructs, that act recreating ethnic boundaries. These processes, embedded in power relations, are the ground from which social agents select certain cultural features (diacritics) that work as identity signs. Diacritics, thus, are considered as the heritage that represents the culture and tradition of the group around the ethnic associations, through a process that stipulates certain criteria for authenticity. This compels us to examine the processes related with the construction of the past, memory and heritage. The methodology applied consists mainly in the qualitative analysis of the information based upon ethnographical fieldwork techniques, and the data bank created from the survey of immigrants and their descendants in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Riccardo Ponti, La presenza italiana in Nuova Zelanda (1875-1950) / Italian migration to New Zealand (1875-1950)

In recent times, there has been an increasing interest around the early period of the Italian emigration, called “historical”, referring to the second half of the 19th century. While there is indeed quite a wide bibliography on the first Italian settlements in Europe, America and Australia, one can hardly find anything on some “less important” (i.e. quantitatively not relevant) emigration flows. The article illustrates the gradual migratory process to New Zealand, a small country which is geographically and culturally apart, yet in about a century of history has been receiving a number of Italian migrants. New Zealand is the last country on earth to be touched by human settlements; its history has been often and superficially confused and joined to that of its bigger neighbour, Australia. The author reviews the history of Italian emigration to New Zealand from its starting in 1870, focusing especially on the strained relations between New Zealanders and the Italian community of Wellington during the Fascist period and the outbreak of Second World War (including the stage of the internment of many Italian nationals, at that time called “enemy aliens”). The article ends with the situation of the 1940s, when a large number of Italian refugees from the regions of Istria and Dalmazia, areas lost by Italy at the end of the War, arrived to New Zealand.

Antonio Ricci, Emigranti italiani in Romania. Documenti e testimonianze di una comunità dimenticata / Italian migrants in Romania. Documents and experiences of a forgotten community

Between the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, Romania was a minor emigration destination for Italy but one of extreme interest for thehistoric, social and political implications that shaped that period. Nevertheless, the history of Italian emigrants in Romania is not very well known. Most of the immigrants were from Italian territories under the rule of the Hapsburg Empire or from Adriatic Regions, called to Romania to fill temporary skilled labour gaps in the local sector. In those years, Romania became like a new America with exploitable resources and virgin lands. The affinity of climate, territory, language and customs took the place for past political unity, favouring integration. Although not significant in numbers, the story of Italian emigrants in Romania is exemplary. These communities, which have mostly returned to their country of origin, share a complex immigration history that still, for the most part, needs to be reconstructed and deserves greater attention: the courage of these pioneers, the difficulties they faced and the signs of the work they did in Romania constitute perhaps the first nucleus of European unity, strengthened by personal work, friendship contacts and family ties. Although, in the enlarged Europe, new communities of small and mid-size Italian entrepreneurs from the North-East of Italy have settled in Romania (mainly Timisoara and the surrounding area), he descendants of Italians have serious problems receiving recognition for dual citizenship or either reacquiring Italian citizenship.

Lucia Aparicio Chofré, La discriminazione razziale in Spagna / Racial discrimination in Spain

Far more than other European countries, Spain is experiencing a constant increase in immigration flows. After an introductory analysis on the origin of immigrants and their inclusion in the job market, the article raises issues of racial discrimination and xenophobia in the public debate. In the second part, the normative process is illustrated, starting from the provisions of the Spanish constitution that lead to acquisition of EU Directives 2000/43 and 2000/78. This process appears to be still ongoing and not without difficulties, as it emerges from the terms in which the Directives in question have been translated into Spanish law, and from a serious lack of legislative provisions envisioned in this realm, especially due to the absence of independent agencies that should be established to monitor and fight racial discrimination. In this ever-changing legislative context, the perspectives of an effective protection of trafficked migrants will surely depend to a great degree from political choices and administrative practices, that should indeed be formulated, for what concerns the application of anti-discriminatory measures, in a way that considers migrants not merely as economic actors but as human beings.