Antropologia Pubblica

Celebrare i mutamenti? La nuova Antropologia Pubblica

Redazione — 2024-09-06

David Turton, London, 1940 – London, 2023

Marco Bassi — 2024-08-08

Figli di migranti e italianità. Antropologia delle nuove generazioni d’Italia

Giuseppe Grimaldi — 2024-09-06

Giovani musulmani tra pratiche religiose ed etica della cittadinanza

Fiorella Giacalone — 2024-09-06

The article examines the social practices of young observant Muslims in the GMI. Their transnational dynamics are revealed, on a family and religious level, such as those relating to double loyalty (faith and constitution) as Italian citizens. The text makes clear the relationship, in their lives, between Islamic faith and Italian culture, as well as the importance of connecting ethics and religion through social and cultural practices as Italian citizens of the Islamic religion. Their narratives convey how the concepts of nationality and citizenship must find new expressions for their multiple identities.

Figli di un Dio minore? Eredità migratorie ed alterità nelle scuole di confine

Roberta Altin — 2024-09-06

Based on a brief historical analysis of the educational and social integration of the children of migrants in the Trieste border area after the Second World War, this paper seeks to deconstruct the categories of “second generation” and “children of migrants” through a comparative analysis of these concepts as applied to the construction of “Italian-ness” and Italian citizenship in the school, then and now. The aim is to show how the uncritical construction of such labels produces radical otherness, heterodetermined by a conservative perspective that tends to preserve many of the privileges of “natives” and certain social classes. The history of the Italian school and the nationalistic rhetoric still tied to the idea of “blood” lineage and belonging to the “body of the nation” show an inability to think about forms of recognition for “mobile” or heterogeneous identities, which in practice already constitute the composite historical basis of the Italian nation. The (unfinished) law on citizenship, the education of students with “migrant backgrounds”, the political and media representations indicate an Italy anchored in mythologies of an imaginary past in which identity has its “roots”. Placed in a European context or a global scenario, this vision of “Italian-ness” is myopic in its view of the demographic, social and political present/future.

Italianness at the mirror. The Juventus Club of Addis Ababa and the “return” of children of immigrants to Ethiopia

Giuseppe Grimaldi — 2024-09-06

Colonial and post-colonial structures play a key role in the analysis of the children of immigrants in Italy. However, little research has been done on this topic in the former colonies. The purpose of this article is to analyse how coloniality and post-coloniality play a key role in the determination of mobility projects to Ethiopia by Italians of Ethiopian origins. Focusing on the Juventus Club in Addis Ababa, the city’s postcolonial space par excellence and at the same time one of the reference spaces for Italians of Ethiopian origin during their stay in Ethiopia, the aim of the paper is to show the complex field of meanings within which the children of immigrants reproduce their Italianness. The Italian post-colonial structures, dynamics, and symbols that are considered, function as a mirror that reflects the relation between children of immigrants and Italianness both in Italy and in Ethiopia.

Sentirsi a casa fra Tunisia e Italia. Un confronto fra generazioni di origine tunisina sul concetto di casa

Sabrina Nefzi — 2024-09-06

Both social and legal recognition of the children of migrants within the Italian national system continues to find strong resistance, which is due, among many reasons, to an essentialized idea of culture. This is conceived as a quality intrinsic to individuals, transmissible invariably and independently of the context in which one lives. Through this article, we will see how these conceptions related to belonging and citizenship can represent divergences between different generations of the same family group. This is what emerged from a field research and semi-structured interviews conducted in 2021 and 2022 between Béja (Tunisia) and the province of Ancona. A survey that, using the “remittance houses” as a pretext, investigated the conceptions and feelings of home of some Tunisian migrants and their children who grew up in Italy, among whom the undersigned is included. In particular, the perspective of the latter showed generational differences in the way they relate to identity, especially to Italianness. A construct that causes young people to be considered as essentially “other” from the rest of their peers. Although this entails a strong influence on identity elaboration processes, we will see how this construct is played out through intragenerational networks and forms of mobility that produce new transnational identity constructions, related both to the ancestral context of origin and to macro-regional or globalized forms of belonging.

Be loud! Esperienze di maternità afroitaliana, tra nerezza, radicalità e spazi di cittadinanza affettiva

Serena Scarabello — 2024-09-06

This article explores the intertwining of maternal and citizenship practices, focusing on the experiences of Afro-descendant Italian mothers and on the meanings that blackness can take on in educational relationships and against the backdrop of hegemonic and colour-blind notions of Italianness. By approaching motherhood as a biosocial threshold, it analyses the process through which mothers seek a “good balance” in supporting the building of self-esteem and pride in their sons and daughters, while transmitting to them the political value of the colour-line, awareness of the social hierarchies associated with it and the different ways in which it is articulated in social life. Furthermore, by highlighting the lines of continuity and discontinuity traced with the parental styles adopted by the previous generation, this contribution aims to reflect on the meaning of the “radical relationality” introduced by black Italian mothers in the social spheres, understanding it not as a breaking choice, but rather as a way to expand and diversify the spaces of affective citizenship for themselves and their descendants.

Non mi chiamo Francesca. Prospettive e traiettorie di giovani donne tra diaspore marocchine in Emilia-Romagna e Lombardia

Ijjou Berdaouz — 2024-09-06

Arising from the convergence of an academic ethnographic research and a women-led group of social planning, the essay aims to explore the experiences, perspectives and projects of some women and girls aged between 15 and 35 whose parents have undertaken long-term mobility paths from Morocco to Italy. Aligned with previous research on Italo-Moroccan diasporas, the contribution intends to propose perspectives coming from a younger generation. The daily challenges they face in relation to diversified social arenas in the Italian public and institutional contexts are still too often alternatively silenced or amplified according to instrumental processes of exoticisation. In addition to highlighting the multifaceted quality of a hardly outlined “Moroccan diaspora”, the essay critically questions whether and at which “degrees” different conceptions of “Italianness” take shape, which expectations are possibly disappointed and how this eventually contributes to re-shape different versions of it. Narrations of the people involved reveal the intertwining of daily socio-material difficulties and the emergence of perspectives regarding their positioning in Italian society, both in Italy and abroad. The essay particularly delves into the opportunities and challenges of engaging in the Italian public spaces and discourses on one hand, and the potential for accessing, attending, or creating material spaces for alternative identity performances on the other.

Gli italiani non sputano per terra. L’interiorizzazione del fondamentalismo culturale dello Stato tra i giovani di origine bangladese

Andrea Priori — 2024-09-06

The sentence “Italians don’t spit on the ground” (Gli italiani non sputano per terra) echoes the statement by which a young man from a migrant family draws a symbolic border between those who deserve to be in Italy, and the undeserving. The cultural fundamentalism practiced by the state and many natives, which is based on an atavistic and exclusionary conception of culture and citizenship, is suffered on a daily basis by the young Muslim people of Bangladeshi descent featured in this article, but they in turn internalize this ideology, encouraged by brilliant careers. Based on the interpretation of interviews and other materials collected during an ethnographic research that took place in Rome between 2018 and 2020, we will see how their endorsement of a hegemonic rhetoric of “integration and security” informs three discursive movements (critique of the migrant person, critique of mobility, and critique of migrant Islam) that are resolved through an ideology of “merit”. In this way my interlocutors reproduce an exclusionary nationalism that increasingly characterizes Western societies since the so-called civic turn by discriminating between descendants of migrant families who are “integrated”, mainly through the acquisition of an “Italian culture” conceived in reifying and ultimately elitist terms, and the undeserving, namely migrant people and their “non-integrated” descendants. Their case sheds light on the relationship between nationalism, citizenship and the production of elites, suggesting that the concept of merit ends up disguising social inequalities, and that there is no escape from the phantoms of exclusionary identities in state thought.

Attivismo, politica e performance di italianità delle nuove generazioni

Giulia Liti — 2024-09-06

This article focuses on activism and engagement in public space of children of migrants. In particular, it examines the case of the Shape Academy, a project of civic activism targeting citizens of foreign origin. The objective is to reflect on the different values attributed to citizenship and the possibilities of active participation of children of migrants. A significant aspect of the Shape Academy is the proximity to institutions. It was created within the European project SHAPE (SHaring Actions for the Participation and Empowerment of migrant communities and local authorities), funded by the European Commission. In Italy, the project activities were organised by CoNNGI (Coordinamento Nazionale Nuove Generazioni Italiane), a national networkdedicated to empowering the children of migrants, which works closely with institutions such as the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies. During the project, the participants had the opportunity to engage directly with politicians and institutional figures. From the analysis of the themes, the language and the reflections proposed within the Shape Academy it emerges a particular kind of engagement in public space implemented by the new generation activists. The direct interaction with institutions influences how the new generations present and position themselves in the political arena. Children of migrants are often not recognised as Italian, even when they were born and raised in Italy. In this context, they are called upon to question their role and ‘prove’ their Italian-ness, through performative practices that emphasise belonging to the national community and replicate the practices of political communication in Italy.

Appartenenze virali. Nuovi italiani e italianità su TikTok

Francesco Bachis — 2024-09-06

In recent years, TikTok has been the fastest-growing social network among younger generations. However, it has also been the least ethnographically investigated. In Italy, some new Italians have achieved celebrity primarily (but not exclusively) through videos centered on irony and humor on racism and overturning identity and cultural diversity stereotypes. They have produced complex and contradictory subaltern voices that transcend the boundaries of various hegemonic national identities. Their videos seem to position themselves outside and against the “contested narratives” of migrant literature and second-generation associations, two phenomena that have represented both the most structured attempt to acquire a voice in the public space and one of the objects of scientific interest concerning the presence of migrant children in Italy. Although aware of the centrality of migration in the construction of identity in Italy, the contribution examines the production of some Tiktokers coming from migration around the theme of Italianità (“Italianness”) from a perspective that aims to overcome a strictly migration-oriented approach in the study of social processes related to New Italians. On the one hand, the ironic strategies used by TikTokers challenge their subaltern social positioning (expressing the ambition to become viral and successful), and on the other hand, their supposed cultural belonging (being necessarily connected to their origins). The irony used by TikTokers towards some central themes in the construction of Italianness (language and “race”) contributes to a redefinition of the concept of Italianità itself, thanks to the success of these content creators.

Analisi congiunturale, immaginazione etnografica e critica sociale. Conversazione con Tony Jefferson

Miguel Mellino — 2024-09-09

Bordes, vínculos y caminos a la inversa. Diálogo con Lucio Boschi, fotógrafo argentino y fundador del Museo En Los Cerros

Chiara Scardozzi — 2024-09-09

Paesaggi rurali. Prospettive di ricerca per l’antropologia

Valentina Lusini — 2024-09-06

Parco o No parco? Identità, natura e altri conflitti di significato nella gentrificazione di un territorio tutelato

Francesco Pompeo — 2024-09-06

Nelle campagne toscane: antropologia applicata e ricerche partecipate su neoruralismo e gentrification

Pietro Meloni — 2024-09-06

Infrastrutture per la pesca di sussistenza tra rovina, patrimonializzazione e regressione

Lia Giancristofaro — 2024-09-06

Paesaggi in movimento. Pascoli, tratturi, antropocene

Letizia Bindi — 2024-09-06

Etnografia, saperi tradizionali e prassi istituzionale nella salvaguardia della biodiversità coltivata. Regione Lazio e Università nel progetto “Saperci Fare”

Alessandra Broccolini — 2024-09-06

La riparazione socioecologica del paesaggio agrario e rurale della Piana di Gela in Sicilia

Alessandro Lutri — 2024-09-06

I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad

Ivan Severi — 2024-09-06

Recensioni

Federica Scrimieri — 2024-09-06