Immigrant women and housing issues: a symbolic magnifying glass for social and cultural changes in Italian civil movements^*

* The article is the result of the work of the three authors, but Par. 1 may be attributed to Francesca Colella, Par. 2 to Mariella Nocenzi, Par. 3 and the Conclusive remarks to Giovanna Gianturco.

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, social movements have expanded their range of action, adopting a more global perspective. Although many studies have been made of varied national and transnational movements, it still remains a little-studied field that involves the participation of immigrants, especially women, in social movements in Italy. These movements involve various problem areas. The thematic focus of our research is the housing, at the national level, and our chosen case study regards the situation as it presents itself in Rome. At a time when there seems to be less public interest in economic, social and cultural rights in favor of a broader interest in individual rights, studying the role of immigrant women in the participation of foreign communities in social movements for housing rights can encourage and support a renewed attention to this area, also because of the changing social composition of the resident population, and the emergence of old and new forms of poverty, of which the incoming immigration flows are one of the main causes. As we can see, the figure of the immigrant transforms the housing problem into a problem of co-habitation, or even better, of co-existence.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigrant women
• social movements
• housing issues
• human rights
• social inclusion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Francesca Colella teaches Sociology of the Youth Condition at the University of Aquila. Her study and research interests include: qualitative research; social change – with reference to the processes of socialization and identity construction linked to the world of work and cross-cultures; the social representations of immigrants in the media, and the construction of the sociological discipline and intellectual work in academia, with particular attention to the role of women, and the analysis and evaluation of development policies and public investment. Her publications include: (2011) Focus group. Ricerca sociale e strategie applicative, FrancoAngeli, Milano; (2009) Biografie atipiche. Strategie di costruzione dell’identità nella vita quotidiana dei giovani precari, Guerini Scientifica, Milano; (a c.d. con Grassi V.) (2007) Comunicazione interculturale. Immagine e comunicazione in una società multiculturale, Franco Angeli, Milano.

Giovanna Gianturco is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Social Research of the Sapienza University of Rome where she teaches subjects in General Sociology and Research Methodology. Her research interests focus on some classic themes of the sociological discipline, such as social change and migration processes, as well as research strategies with special reference to the use of a qualitative approach. Her publications include: L’intervista qualitativa. Dal discorso al testo scritto (Guerini, Milano 2005); Migración internacional y biografias multiespaciales: una reflexión metodológica (con L. Velasco, in M. Ariza, L. Velasco coord., Métodos cualitativos y su aplicación empirica. Por los caminos de la investigaciónsobre migración internacional (UNAM-COLEF, Mexico 2012); Immagini in movimento. Lo sguardo del cinema italiano sulle migrazioni (con G. Peruzzi, a cura di, Ed. Junior, Bergamo 2015).

Mariella Nocenzi, PhD in ‘Sociology of culture and political processes’, is assistant editor of the International Review of Sociology and member of the editorial board of the Rivista di studi sulla sostenibilità. Professor of ‘Social analysis of the city’ at the Department of Communication and Social research, she has also taught at the University of Florence and Verona. She was member of the National executive of the Italian Association of Sociology (AIS) after having served as Secretary of the AIS Section ‘Sociological theories and social changes’ (2007/2010 and 2010/2013). He founded and directs with Angelo Romeo the book series ‘Sociologie’ for Mimesis Publisher of Milan and the book series ‘Societas’ for La Nuova cultura Publisher (Roma) that have so far published works of young sociologists on the issues of the interpretations of the classics of sociology and social transformations. She is currently a member of the Committee of Guaranty of Sapienza Università di Roma and is a founding member of the Scientific Council of the Observatory Interuniversity of Gender, Gender and Equal Opportunity (GIO). Among her areas of research in national and international projects the risk society and the conditions of security and safety in globalization. She edited several national and international publications, drawn from research on environmental issues, risk, Europe, young people, equal opportunities and gender policies. Among her most relevant publications ‘Global society, cosmopolitism and human rights’, (with Vittorio Cotesta and Vincenzo Cicchelli), Cambridge Scholar, 2013; Disagio e speranze in tempi di crisi. Indagine conoscitiva sugli atteggiamenti socio-politici degli studenti di Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Nuova Cultura, 2012.

ORCID

Mariella Nocenzi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2256-4101

Notes

* The article is the result of the work of the three authors, but Par. 1 may be attributed to Francesca Colella, Par. 2 to Mariella Nocenzi, Par. 3 and the Conclusive remarks to Giovanna Gianturco.

1. Regarding the methodological level, in order to reach our goal we have chosen to use a qualitative approach, with the aim of ‘access to the perspective of the subject studied’, thus leaving the interviewee full freedom of expression and making sure that his/her voice takes precedence over the researcher’s (see Corbetta 2003, p. 72, Flick 1998, Valles 1997). On the basis of the literature on the subject, we therefore adopted a ‘descriptive-exploratory’(Agnoli 2004, pp. 91–94, see also Alonso 1998) investigative logic: that is, we have proceeded bearing in mind the utility, in this case, of a research design that, while oriented by the literature and theory, is strongly nurtured by an empirical approach, taking into account the ‘iterativity’ that characterizes, in general, the practice of qualitative research (the steps that mark the survey can also take a ‘backward’ direction) according to a ‘circular and incremental’ model (Gianturco 2005, p. 37).

2. For an in-depth study on the subject see Allegrini 2012.

3. Direzione Generale dell'Immigrazione e delle Politiche di Integrazione (2014, p. 7).

4. Among foreigners, the female incidence descends to 46% in the wage labor market and stops at 22.8% among the principals of individual enterprises (Istat, 2016).

5. A term that identifies a model of family sustainment in which women are the main economic family figure (Istat, 2016).

6. Direzione Generale dell'Immigrazione e delle Politiche di Integrazione (2014, p. 7).

7. All the interviews were transcribed with only partial language readjustments, by eliminating repetitions, and empirical materials were reordered and analyzed by thematic analysis: the transcripts were, that is, decomposed (indexing) according to this or that reference topic, in order to compare the contents of the different excerpts. The topics emerged in part within the theoretical framework and partly in an empirical phase. Consequently, the extracts were combined and reconstructed, i.e. transversalized, in order to ‘illustrate’ the theoretical discourse of the researcher and to support it in terms of praxis (see Gianturco 2005, pp. 125–30). Therefore, in our thematic analysis, a decisive role was played by the researcher’s ability ‘to place in a meaningful relationship some portions of text of variable length’ (Pozzato 2001, p. 131).