The moral perils of Mediterraneanism: second-generation immigrants practicing personhood between Sicily and Tunisia

Abstract

Second-generation immigrants are often imagined by social scientists, their receiving communities, their parents, and sometimes also by themselves, as those who should close the cycle of immigration that their parents have opened. Inasmuch as Italy is a contender in the international competition for the most ‘Mediterranean’ of countries, those youths are expected either to become Italian, fail to do so, or ascend to the globalized sphere of multiple participation, belonging and citizenship. Based on a reconstruction of several realms of action and meaning that constitute second-generation Tunisian immigrant youths' lives in Mazara del Vallo – from education, the annual voyage to Tunisia and self-identification, to kinship strategies, labor and municipal elections – I show how children of Tunisian immigrants practice a kind of personhood that receives its form and flexibility from their entrapped position in the current situation of the Mediterranean constellation in the Sicilian Channel.

Keywords:

• Anthropology of the Mediterranean
• immigrants–second generation
• Maghreb
• maritime mobility
• transnational networks
• personhood

Acknowledgements

I thank Julie Kleinman, Emrah Yildiz, Anand Vaidya, Daniel Hershenzon, Joseph Viscomi, Dan Monterescu, Marta Petrusewicz, Michael Herzfeld and the editors of this special issue for their comments.

Notes

The title refers to Michael Herzfeld's coining of the term ‘practical Mediterraneanism’ in his recent consideration of the state of the field (Herzfeld 2005), and to Jonathan Parry's treatment of the ‘dangerous supernatural forces and [the] moral peril for those who must engage in [exchange]’ (Parry 1989: 64).

My argument is based on twenty months of ethnographic research in Mazara del Vallo and several cities along the eastern coast of Tunisia.

I borrow the term ‘constellation’ from Norbert Elias (1991: 46) for the attention it draws to the historical and contingent nature of social processes. While Elias maintained the attempt to view society structurally, the latter's examination through time enabled him to show the changes it underwent, making it much less rigid than what the term would be usually taken for.

Here I follow the critique made by the microstoria group against the Annales historiographic tradition (Ginzburg and Poni 1979; Levi 1991; Portelli 1990).

See Messina (1994) for a study of the international law that relates to fishing in the Channel. For a broader and more contextualized view, see Lorris Gallico's (1979) article.

The Trapanese is generally underrepresented in historiography of the cosa nostra. For some reports that touch upon these connections, one still needs to search in parliamentary and judicial documentation (Borsellino 1991; Carraro et al. 1976; Chinnici and Mannino 1982; Niccolai 1972; Teodori 1984; Tranfaglia 1990).

The current state of affairs in Mediterranean studies follows the publication of Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell's (2000) volume. The authors' definition of the Mediterranean based on the connectivity among its constituting micro-regions was consequently temporalized, and then socialized (Algazi 2005; Morris 2003).

Both James C. Scott (1985, 1990) and Deborah Reed-Danahay (2005) explored this concept. While citing both, I would point out the plurality of socialization and regimentation projects as the specific characteristic of these youths' situation.

The last grade in the scale seems to be nowadays shared by Roma from ex-Yugoslavia and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

An argument that Mediterranean anthropology promoted, mainly surrounding shared preoccupation with honor and shame. The debate initiated with a couple of conferences on ‘Mediterranean values’ (Péristiany 1966). Later, anthropologists dismantled the cultural assumptions behind much of the debate, and showed how it accentuated prevailing stereotypes instead of examining them (see Michael Herzfeld's debate with Anthony Galt: Herzfeld 1984, 1985; Galt 1985; see also David Gilmore's earlier presentation of the ‘cultural unities’ argument: Gilmore 1982). See also Jane Schneider's (1971) compelling analysis.

See Anton Blok's (2001: 135) development and usage of the term ‘narcissism of minor differences’ for the analysis of ethnic violence.

The graffiti read: ‘Kasba Pulita’ (Clean the Kasba)]’ ‘non passa lo straniero’ (The foreigner shall not pass). The second phrase distills xenophobia out of national pride, as it had been expressed in a national song about the battle of the River Piave of June 1918.

As in the ‘liar paradox’, a couple of steadfast friends, one ‘Tunisian’ and the other ‘Mazarese’, told me once: ‘The only friendships between Tunisians and Sicilians in town are those between Sicilians and their Tunisian dealers.’

For the latest example, see the inaugural issue of the California Italian Studies Journal, titled ‘Italy in the Mediterranean’, especially the articles by Chambers (2010), Dal Lago (2010), and Fogu and Re (2010).

It matters little if those youths do not use the term ‘Mediterranean’ when they speak of themselves, because the entire maritime constellation developed in the Channel of Sicily since the 1960s without reference to the name of the sea. Only in the 1990s did politicians in town prefer it in referring to the sea that lies to the south of them. Before that the term ‘il Canale di Sicilia’ was used to denote the sea between Sardinia, Algeria and Malta, including the Gulf of Sirta. The possessive language may be explained by the fact that most of the references came when Tunisian or Libyan patrol boats stopped, arrested and shot at Sicilian fishing boats that came too close to their shores. The term ‘Mediterranean’, therefore, might have seemed too ecumenical at the time.