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ABSTRACT
Much of the migration literature neglects the questions of why and how “native” allies obstruct activism by immigrants and ethnic minorities. Left-wing organizations in particular are often assumed to be supportive of inclusion, and little research exists on the ways they have prevented the migrant population from having a voice in the political arena and from taking part in society as equals. Drawing on the critical theory literature, I introduce the concept of political racialization. This concept refers to mechanisms whereby political actors, in order to legitimize their work on immigration, have partially included immigrants in the political sphere, but in a relationship of “ethnic” or “racial” subordination. Through the analysis of 57 in-depth interviews with immigrant activists, I show how political racialization works within the Italian Left and how it contributes to marginalize the migrant population. I further explain how immigrant activists have challenged political racialization through their activism.
Acknowledgements
The author is indebted to the anonymous referees for their insightful comments. She also thanks Jane Jenson, Pascale Dufour, Tiziana Caponio, Johanne J. Jean-Pierre and Peter Braun for their useful advice during the production of the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Some exceptions are represented by the works by Pojmann (Citation2008), Nicholls (Citation2013) and Cappiali Citation2016.
2. To simplify, I use the expression “immigrant activists” to refer to people of migrant background with different statuses, including Italian citizens of migrant background.
3. During the pacifist mobilization for the independence of Indian under British colonial rule, Gandhi used this expression to tell his Christian allies to let Indians take up their own struggles for freedom.
4. I avoid the concept of “differential inclusion” as Mezzadra and Neilson (Citation2010) used it for a different analytical purpose than mine.
5. The Democratic Party is the main social-democratic party in Italy. It was created on 4 October 2007 by former members of the Democrats of the Left (heirs of the Italian Communist Party) and the Democracy is Freedom Party, a small party with Catholic roots.
6. I will use the abbreviations DP to refer to the interviews with immigrants active in the Democratic Party and RL for those active in various radical left organizations.
7. The increasingly hostile environment towards the migrant population is reflected in two laws introduced by two right-wing majorities with a strong presence of the anti-immigrant parties, the Northern League: Law 189/2002, also known as the Bossi-Fini Law, and Laws 125/2008 and 94/2009, also known as the Security Package (Pacchetto Sicurezza). This legislation has been criticized for denying that immigration is a structural phenomenon, for failing to address major issues linked to an increasingly diverse population and for having made immigrant workers highly vulnerable, due to its implementation of institutional racism (Oliveri Citation2012, Citation2015).
8. I owe this insight to two founders of the Immigrant Committee of Italy.
9. For an overview of these channels (see Kosic and Triandafyllidou Citation2005; Mantovan Citation2007; Cappiali Citation2015).
10. Like other European countries, Italy has not introduced local voting rights for third-countries nationals.
11. In 2014, there was only immigrant activist who was a member of the national executive of a trade union, the USB.
12. The CGIL used extensively this strategy with the goal of unionizing immigrant workers to avoid the decline of the union in face of the decrease in number of native-born Italian workers.