Migrant voices addressing social work: listening to Italian women in Germany

Abstract

The research presented here aimed to give voice to Italian women who emigrated to Germany in the 1960s by giving an authentic account of their experiences and their coping abilities through participatory research approaches and the analysis of in-depth biographic interviews conducted 2012/2013 in the South of Germany. This type of interviewing itself often enabled the women, for the first time to reflect on their migration story, on their attachment to ‘Italy’, on their relationship with the host country, its language and culture. They usually realised late in life that an originally provisional project had become permanent. Their thinking in ‘habitual patterns’ is not to be taken as a sign of failed integration but reveals a differentiated strategy of managing the ‘in-between situation’. The higher quality of services in the host country is invariably a key factor in the decision to stay. The results indicate the benefits of recognising individual strengths in personal modes of adapting to multiple and often conflicting demands in the negotiation of multi-layered value structures. Differentiated listening skills to such voices and sensitive support strategies have far-reaching implications for both research and intervention methods in social work, and not just with migrants.

L’obiettivo della ricerca è dar voce a donne italiane immigrate in Germania dagli anni ’60 in poi. L’analisi verte sulla loro esperienza e capacità di coping. La metodologia partecipativa adottata e i dati raccolti forniscono indicazioni rilevanti per l’accompagnamento e il sostegno dei migranti da parte dei servizi sociali e educativi. Lo strumento utilizzato è l’intervista in profondità. Le interviste sono state condotte tra il 2012 e il 2013 nel Sud della Germania. Le donne intervistate, in pensione o vicine alla pensione, hanno utilizzato questa occasione come opportunità di riflettere sulla loro vicenda migratoria: cosa hanno lasciato in Italia; quale rapporto hanno instaurato con il nuovo ambiente.

Salvo alcune eccezioni, la decisione di non tornare in Italia è subentrata molti anni dopo la migrazione. Il progetto, inizialmente provvisorio, ha acquisito carattere permanente nel corso della vita vissuta giorno per giorno. Le strategie di coping emerse, sono diversificate, legate al saper “stare tra” due realtà tanto diverse, ma talvolta inconsapevoli: in alcuni casi chiarificate dal proprio raccontare durante l’intervista.

Pertanto sia nel lavoro di ricerca, sia nel lavoro socio educativo, è importante predisporre dispositivi di ascolto dei migranti, adatti a cogliere e sostenere l’ originalità delle competenze, nella varietà delle esperienze.

Keywords:

• migration/immigration
• social work education
• social pedagogy
• Italian women

Parole chiave:

• immigrazione in Germania
• donne immigrate
• emigrazioneitaliana
• intervistebiografiche
• immigrazione e coping

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Anna Aluffi Pentini studied pedagogy, psychology and languages at Rome and Mainz (Germany), finishing with a doctoral thesis on intercultural education. Since 2000 she teaches social and intercultural pedagogy at the Department of Educational Sciences of the University Roma Tre, having also collaborated since 1997 with the Free University of Bolzano in teaching and research. Her research focuses on issues of immigration, educational and intercultural mediation and educational consultation with emphasis on action research methodology. She founded a social cooperative in Rome, which runs a residential place for women refugees and an intercultural nursery school in a deprived neighbourhood. These projects form laboratories of social integration and also train social professionals.

Notes

1. This project was financed with funds from the ‘Mittner Award for Pedagogical Achievements' which the author was awarded by the Deutscher Akademischer Auslandsdienst, DAAD, in 2011.

2. http://www.fdz-metadaten.de/online/data?operation=statistikenVerzeichnis.

3. Given the volume of transcripts from the over 30 sessions, each lasting often several hours, only an initial grouping of common themes using this software has been undertaken so far. A more detailed analysis will form part of a monograph that will also relate the stories more specifically to accounts of professional practice.

4. P is of Sicilian origin, 70 years old and moved to Germany in 1967.

5. M was born in Sicily in 1929 and got married when she was 20. She arrived in Germany in 1962.

6. ‘down there’ (giù) is the usual way in which Italians living in Germany refer to Italy.

7. See previous note.