Dom med bidesh in shodesh: domestifikacija življenjskih prostorov, identiteta in spolne izkušnje v bangladeški diaspori

This article deals with the housing strategies and changing living styles of the Bangladeshi population in a small town in north-eastern Italy. It analyses the re-use and “domestication” of everyday public spaces, as a way of exploring how bidesh (foreign-land) space is transformed into a shodesh, home-like space. A parallel process of re-functionalization occurs in the private sphere. Different forms of cohabitation are put in place to deal with immigrants’ family-based needs, against deteriorating economic conditions. The process is not without contradictions. For instance, family reunification allows men to recover an important component of their emotional universe, possibly healing the loneliness of migration. Reunified women, though, may experience their new home as an ambivalent place of solitude. Along these lines, the paper also highlights the gap between men’s and women’s views of “home” and “homeland”, in order to make sense of their evolving ways of “feeling at home”.Članek se ukvarja s stanovanjskimi strategijami in spreminjanji življenjskih stilov bangladeškega prebivalstva v majhnem mestu v severovzhodni Italiji. Analizira ponovno uporabo in domestifikacijo vsakodnevnih javnih prostorov, da bi raziskal, kako je bidesh (tujina) preobražena v shodesh, prostor domačnosti. Vzporedni proces ponovne uporabe poteka tudi v zasebni sferi. V vedno težjih ekonomskih pogojih  zadovoljujejo družinsko usmerjene potrebe priseljencev različne oblike sobivanja. Proces ni brez protislovij. Na primer, ponovna združitev družine omogoča moškim, da okrepijo pomembno sestavino svojega emocionalnega sveta in pozdravijo osamljenost, ki jo povzroči migracija. Za ženske pa lahko združitev družine pomeni, da doživljajo svoj novi dom kot ambivalentni prostor samote. Članek osvetljuje tudi razliko v razumevanju »doma« in »domovine« med moškimi in ženskami, da bi lahko pojasnil razvoj njihovih načinov, kako »se počutijo doma«

Decline of the Centrality of Work? Critique of a Contemporary Ideology

Ricardo Antunes is an author who is still relatively little known in the mainstream sociological scene, although he may be defined him the ‘lucid narrator’ of the ‘cataclysm’ that has swept through wage labour, during the era of (neo)liberal globalisation of capitalist social relations. This review essays presents three of his important works Adeus ao trabalho? Ensaio sobre as metamorfoses e a centralidade do mundo do trabalho (Goodbye to work? The transformations and centrality of work in globalisation), published by Cortez, in 1995, and his much more recent, but equally important works are O privilégio da servidão: o novo proletariado de serviço na era digital (The new service proletariat in the digital age) and Coronavìrus: o trabalho sob fogo cruzado (Coronavirus: work under fire), published by Boitempo, respectively in 2018 and 2020

Sindikati, delavci migranti in rasna diskriminacija v Italiji v času ekonomske krize

Trade unions have a crucial role in the social integration processes of migrants. Nevertheless, some aspects of this relationship are still relatively unexplored, particularly that of the relationship between trade unions and racism and that of the trade unions’ fight against racial discrimination. This paper aims to investigate the still partially unexplored link between Italian trade unions and racial discrimination within the framework of the 2008 economic crisis. Through the narratives of stakeholders, trade unions, and migrant workers, the author provides an in-depth look at the efforts of Italian trade unions to fight discrimination and examines the main barriers that prevent migrants from being involved in unions.V procesih družbene integracije migrantov imajo ključno vlogo sindikati. Kljub temu so nekateri vidiki tega odnosa še vedno relativno neraziskani, še zlasti odnos sindikatov do rasizma in njihov boj proti rasni diskriminaciji. Avtor v članku obravnava še vedno slabo raziskano povezavo med italijanskimi sindikati in rasno diskriminacijo v času ekonomske krize leta 2008. Na podlagi pričevanj deležnikov, sindikatov in delavcev migrantov ponuja poglobljen vpogled v prizadevanja italijanskih sindikatov za odpravo diskriminacije, hkrati pa analizira poglavitne ovire, ki delavcem migrantom preprečujejo vstop v sindikate

The new ‘twice migrants’: motivations, experiences and disillusionments of Italian-Bangladeshis relocating to London

Taking our cue from an earlier study of East African Asians who ‘onward-migrated’ to the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, this paper looks at the more recent phenomenon of Bangladeshi immigrants in Italy who are onward-migrating to London. We seek to answer three questions. First, why does this migration occur? Second, how does the ethnic group we call ‘Italian-Bangladeshis’ narrate their working lives in London and to what extent do they feel ‘at home’ there? Third, what are the gaps between their expectations held before the move and the actual social and economic conditions they encounter in London? Empirical evidence comes from 40 in-depth interviews with Italian-Bangladeshis who have already onward-migrated or plan to. Most Italian-Bangladeshis move to London to escape socially limiting factory work in Italy, to invest in the educational future of their children, and to join the largest Bangladeshi community outside of their home country. In London, they describe feeling more ‘at home’ than in Italy, due to the size and multiple facilities of the Bangladeshi community, their lack of ‘visibility’ and of racialisation, and the greater sense of religious freedom. But their onward-migration experience has its more negative sides: the inability to access more than low-paid casual work in London’s service economy, the cost of housing, and the difficulty of making social contacts beyond their ethnic community, especially with those they regard as ‘natives’, i.e. ‘white’ British

The Racialized Welfare Discourse on Refugees and Asylum Seekers: The Example of “Scroungers” in Italy

The rise of anti-immigrant racism over the past two decades has taken place through multiple mechanisms and processes, including the resurgence of welfare racism, which has been re-functionalized towards refugees and asylum seekers. As a key weapon of today’s sovereignism and white supremacism, the “return” of welfare racism is intrinsic to the rise of neo-liberal racism and is an integral part of a global process of erosion of social rights, weakening of social citizenship, and dismantling of the welfare state. Welfare racism—a combination of racial discrimination in the welfare system and racialized welfare discourse—operates through discriminatory laws and measures related to social benefits and through public discourses depicting refugees, immigrants, and people of color as parasites and scroungers sponging off the welfare state. The resurgence of welfare racism in the last decade has seen the specific spread of welfare racism against refugees and asylum seekers as part of the dual war on asylum and on the welfare state. This article examines the ideological-discursive dimension of welfare racism (that is, the public discourses, rhetoric, and images), first analyzing the development, dimensions, and characteristics of racialized welfare discourse more generally, then focusing on racialized welfare discourses about refugees and asylum seekers in contemporary Italy. It explores the arguments and conceptual metaphors of the racialized welfare discourse on asylum seekers, revealing the devices and dynamics at play in the construction of the refugee as a “scrounger” and welfare abuser. Furthermore, it highlights the consequences of racialized welfare discourse on public policies (particularly on social policies and welfare controls), on migration policies (particularly on immigration controls and internal controls), and on the relationship between citizens and migrants, receiving societies, and newcomers

Stuck and Exploited. Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Italy Between Exclusion, Discrimination and Struggles

This volume analyses exclusion processes, segregation dynamics and the forms of discrimination of refugees and asylum seekers in Italy, where the reception system is marked by opaqueness and arbitrariness and is becoming increasingly similar to the model of “camps”. The numerous vibrant contributions present a fully-fledged system of inferiorization, characterised by labour exploitation, housing discomfort, meagre rights and control strategies, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to a sharp worsening of the health, work, housing and administrative conditions. A framework that has found opposition in the daily resistance and in the struggles of asylum seekers

The multiple facets of (im)mobility. A multisited ethnography on territorialisation experiences and mobility trajectories of asylum seekers and refugees outside the Italian reception system

The article analyses the forms of mobility and (im)mobility of migrants and asylum seekers who are outside the institutional reception system. Through the narration of two ethnographic cases placed in northern and southern Italy, the authors retrace the biographical and geographic trajectories of migrants, and compare them with territorial policies. By analysing two very different contexts from the economic and social point of view, we highlight the similarities between these territories, the mobility and immobility they generate and through which they are crossed, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

LOCAL YOUTH, GLOBAL FUTURES. EXPERIENCES, ASPIRATIONS AND CITIZENSHIP OF YOUNG CRICKETERS OF MIGRANT ORIGIN IN ITALY

This contribution discusses the relationship between sport and citizenship by exploring the citizenship paths described by young cricketers of Bangladeshi origin living in Venice (Italy). In particular, it focuses on the processes of misrecognition, enacted both by natives and their older countrymen, that these youths are suff ering in their everyday life and that are rooted and refl ected in their playing cricket in the neighbourhood. Starting from these premises, their aspired citizenship paths are described, revealing how the European passport, often an aspiration in itself, may become a passe-partout to react to misrecognition, allowing them to describe aspirations, refl ected also in their sports practices, that are nationally, transnationally and globally deployed and that may aim, although through an individual claim, to restore the disruptions lived by the whole Bangladeshi diaspora. In this sense, within their distinctive aspired citizenship paths, the borders between distinction/integration with their older countrymen and native people are blurred, thus revealing their willingness to enjoy the same rights as their native peers as well as to overcome the diff erential inclusion suff ered by their parents