(Im)Migration Research in Italy: A European Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This article analyzes research on (im)migration in Italy since the early 1980s until the present as compared to research in other European receiving countries. Two periods are singled out. In the 1980s, the need to make sense of the dramatic Italian U-turn from an emigration to an immigration country prevails. Since the mid-1990s, some trends toward convergence emerge, following a number of theoretical and methodological challenges arising from North American research. Whereas for sociologist and anthropologist much of the debate is on social networks and transnationalism, in political science the gradual emerging of a policy approach to migration studies can be pointed out. However, despite the consolidating research infrastructure, there are still open questions and gaps in contemporary research on migration in Italy, for instance, second-generations, immigrants' associational and political participation, and last but not least, the impact of the European Union on Italian immigration and immigrant policy as well as policy making.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Asher Colombo, Irene Ponzo, and Giuseppe Sciortino for their comments on previous versions of this article.

NOTES

Notes

¹ However, some scholars contested the widespread and uncritical use of such an administrative category, since this applied also to North American and Australian citizens, who did not share the same economic, social, and political conditions of sending countries in Africa, Asia, and South America.

² This lack of knowledge can be found also today in the Asian and African contexts. As pointed out by Agadjanian and by Asis and Piper in this issue, these gaps may represent a serious obstacle in the developing of more theoretically sophisticated and comparative-oriented research on migration.

³ In this section, for assimilation I intend the old-style classical notion introduced in the 1920s by the Chicago School. As pointed out by Morawska in this issue, contemporary research on assimilation in the United States is far more complex and nuanced. However, in Italy, as in the rest of Europe (see Morawska in this issue), the notion of integration is preferred in the scientific debate.

⁴ See, for instance, the contributions on the Tunisian, Pakistani, Chinese, Egyptian, Cape Verdean, Eritrean, Filipino, Moroccan, Senegalese, Ghanian, Sri Lankan, Tamil, and Somali communities collected in Mottura (1992).

⁵ The network was established in 2004 and will be operational until 2009. It gathers together 22 research institutes representing 15 European countries. See http://www.imiscoe.org.

⁶ See the literature reviews carried out by Baganha et al. (2006) and Black et al. (2006). As for Italy, see Ambrosini (2006).

⁷ For a review of the European literature on ethnic business, see Bommes and Kolb (2006).

⁸ For a review of the international and European literature on the relations between migrations and development, see Black et al. (2006).

⁹ See also the European civic citizenship and inclusion index developed by the British Council Brussels, Foreign Policy Center and Migration Policy Group (Geddes and Niessen 2005).

¹⁰ The Berlusconi government that came into power did not formally eliminate the Commission, but it has not been appointed anymore.

¹¹ See also Soysal (1994) on “incorporation regimes.”

¹² See http://www.unesco.org/most/p97. Seventeen cities took part in the project: Amsterdam, Antwerp, Athens, Barcelona, Birmingham, Brussels, Cologne, Liège, Marseille, Milan, Oeiras (Lisbon), Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Turin, and Zurich.

¹³ Lisbon, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Brussels, Manchester, Mannheim, Toulouse, Murcía, and Turin.

¹⁴ Along with these comparative analyses, a large number of case studies have also been carried out.

¹⁵ In contrast to the rest of Europe, these are not usually affiliated with universities.

¹⁶ See, for instance, the index of monographic issues published in the period 1970–1990. In the 1970s, three monographic issues were published, all of them on Italian emigrants abroad; in the 1980s, the monographic issues were 11, eight on Italian emigrants and three on immigration flows toward Italy (1983, 1986, and 1988); in the 1990s only three monographic issues were published, one on new trends in Eastern European migrations, and two on general migration-related issues (ethnicity and religion, theological sciences, and territorial mobility).

¹⁷ FIERI is the only Italian member of the IMISCOE “network of excellence.”

¹⁸ The institute organizes an annual summer school on migration studies.

¹⁹ The group of researchers charged with gathering and analyzing data on different aspects of immigration in Italy (e.g., annual flows, labour market participation, settlement in different areas of the country, cultural aspects, etc.), has been growing since the late 1990s.

²⁰ Moreover, the Istituto Cattaneo also hosts a group of experts working in different Italian universities on immigration-related issues.