Italian-Bangladeshi in London. A community within a community?

Based on a multi-sited ethnography in Italy and the United Kingdom, this contribution focuses on the onward migration of Italian-Bangladeshis to London, that is, Bangladeshi migrants who acquired EU citizenship in Italy and then moved to the British Capital. After the presentation of the reasons for this onward migration, the article will analyse the representation, constructed by the Italian-Bangladeshis interviewed in London, of the relationships between them (coming from different districts of Bangladesh) and the members of the “historical” British Bangladeshi community, in London since generations (originating primarily from the Bangladeshi district of Sylhet). Specifically, it will focus on the on mistrust – sometimes a fully-fledged hostility – between the two communities as it was narrated by the Italian-Bangladeshi respondents, framing it as a dichotomy between British citizens and (Southern) European citizens; as a wider dichotomy between residents of Bangladeshi origin in London, but originating from different regional contexts in Bangladesh; as an effect of the social stratification of the “Bangladeshi Diaspora” in the world

Transnational childhoods: British Bangladeshis, identities and social change

BOOK REVIEW Transnational childhoods: British Bangladeshis, identities and social chang

Transnational families and migrant masculinities: The social institution of male adulthood and family reunification in the Bangladeshi diaspora in Italy

This article is the result of a broader research project aimed at analysing the social construction of masculinity of Bangladeshi migrants to Italy. Specifically, the article focuses on the family reunification experience of Bangladeshi migrant men with their wives. Firstly, using some Bourdieusian perspectives, the article analyses the meanings of family reunification for migrants, how it constitutes a fundamental act of the institution of adult masculinity. Secondly, it investigates the meaning of this experience for the migrants’ fathers and fathers-in-law in Bangladesh and how it can shape their masculinity according to their embedded habitus and social class position

Chasing the dream: masculinity and male honour of Italian-Bangladeshi men relocating to London

This paper focuses on the gender identity transformations of Italian-Bangladeshi men who, after first migrating from Bangladesh to Italy, then undertook a further onward migration, relocating, along with their families, to London. The paper shows the ambivalences and contradictions, in terms of male honour, involved in the new migration towards the UK. Specifically, it shows how the crossing of multiple borders, as well as their arrival and stabilisation in political-territorial contexts that were socio-historically constructed by colonialism as prestigious and wealthy areas, may increase the symbolic capital and male honour of male Bangladeshi migrants. However, if this experience increases their symbolic, gendered and social credentials, it also implies trajectories of professional, biographical, and social downgrading that compromise their image and position as ‘successful’ men

A redeemed biography? Migration as an intra-family redemption device

This contribution is the result of a wider research aimed at deepening the understanding of the social construction of masculinity during the migration experience from Bangladesh to Italy, analysing how the social construction of masculinity is shaped by this experience and, at the same time, how the migration path contributes to its unravelling. Specifically, the article is based on the life story of Hassan, a Bangladeshi man interviewed in Chandpur, Bangladesh, and the younger brother of Mukul, a migrant resident in Italy. Hassan’s biography is intertwined with the profound social transformations that have emerged in Bangladesh and Italy since the 1970s and intersected by the different migratory trajectories experienced by his family. The analysis of Hassan’s biography allows us to observe, on the one hand, the pressures and expectations of the socio-cultural context, which, in a given historical moment, have impacted his family, especially its male members, as a consequence of their class position. On the other hand, it is possible to observe the way in which such norms and expectations have been translated into a discipline that Hassan’s family has imposed on him and, at the same time, shaped the biographical and migratory trajectories of other male family members

Onward migration: an introduction

In August 2016, Maslax Moxamed, a 19-year-old man from Somalia, arrived in Italy. He spent two months in Rome, first in via Cupa in the San Lorenzo district, where he met volunteers at the Baobab experience, an occupied social centre that had been turned into a reception centre for migrants in 2015 at the height of the “refugee crisis” (Dines et al., 2018). After eviction in September 2016, he followed volunteers to the various makeshift reception points around the city. His migratory project does not, however, involve spending the rest of his life in Italy. He decides to move on and one evening in October takes a bus to Milan from Piazzale Tiburtino, from where he reaches Belgium with a Sudanese friend, Azou. However, on 31 January 2017, he landed again at Rome's Fiumicino airport. The Belgian authorities sent him back to Italy as a result of the Dublin regulation, European legislation which states that asylum applications are examined by the first country of entry. ..

Bonds of Transnationalism and Freedom of Mobility: Intra-European Onward Migrants Before and After Brexit

The transnationalism and mobility approaches have both been developed in opposition to the older linear paradigm of migration theory, but with different focuses: on attachments within different countries in transnationalism, on multiple and open-ended moves in the mobility approach. Using interviews with onward migrants and migrants potentially planning an onward migration (in particular Bangladeshis who have migrated from Italy to the UK, EU27 citizens in the UK, and Britons in Belgium), in this presentation we explore the interaction between transnational bonds and open ended mobility. In a context characterised by Brexit and, as a reaction, by an increased appreciation for EU freedom of movement, most of our interviewees consider EU citizenship as allowing to plan mobility to any of the EU member states. However, the strength and the importance of transnational links can re-orient such open-ended plans, making a return migration to one of the countries of previous residence (including the country of birth for the EU citizens by birth) more attractive than a further onward migration. Conversely, onward migration in some cases has weakened transnational attachments, as the links with the first country of migration are in competition with those of the country of birth. Given these results we invite to reflect on whether transnationalism and mobility theory are simply convergent or if they describe phenomena that might actually be in partial opposition

The globalisation of Italian agriculture. Transformations of migrant labour composition in agriculture in Trentino

The cultivation of apples is one of the principal eco- nomic activities in Trentino, which is responsible for 25% of Italian apple production and 4% of European apple production. The industry is structurally based on migrant work, especially from Eastern European coun- tries in the EU. This model has come up against obstacles due to EU migrant workers redrawing their trajecto- ries: They now tend to remain in their country of origin or move towards central European countries, where they find better wages and working conditions. This is also due to the inadequacy of Italian migration poli- cies, which make it difficult for employers to recruit migrant workers. As a result, employers started to recruit refugees and asylum seekers from countries in the sub- Saharan and Indian subcontinent who had recently arrived in Trentino. This article analyses these trans- formations and the trend of ‘refugeeisation’ process of the agricultural workforce, as well as the partial replace- ment of seasonal workers in Trentino. It then focuses on the impact of the pandemic on international recruitment and on the organisation of the migrant workforce

Home between bidesh and shodesh: Domestication of Living Spaces, Identity and Gender Experiences in the Bangladeshi Diaspora

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”

Raccontare le migrazioni internazionali con vignette e baloon. Un’etnografia multisituata a fumetti sull’onward migration degli italo-bangladesi a Londra

Col presente contributo, tenterò di avanzare una riflessione sul processo di disseminazione della ricerca etnografia attraverso il linguaggio del fumetto, a partire dalla mia esperienza di (co)autore del volume La linea dell’orizzonte. Un ethnographic novel sulla migrazione tra Bangladesh, Italia e Londra. Con La linea dell’orizzonte mi ero prefissato l’obiettivo di raggiungere una platea di lettori e lettrici non specialisti e, quindi, non necessariamente composta da scienziati sociali e studiosi delle migrazioni. Anche il linguaggio del fumetto, infatti, è riconducibile entro il novero della produzione letteraria e artistica capace di analizzare e raccontare la realtà e può diventare strumento comunicativo utile (anche) alle scienze che studiano la società. L’ampliamento dell’audience e, quindi, l’allargamento delle possibilità di disseminazione scientifica costituisce, indubbiamente, un’opportunità che il linguaggio della “letteratura disegnata” – secondo la definizione elaborata da Hugo Pratt – offre agli scienziati sociali. Accanto a essa, è possibile rintracciare altre potenzialità utili per la restituzione etnografica: un’efficace comunicabilità del percorso di ricerca, una puntuale descrizione del contesto spaziale e ambientale entro il quale si svolge il fenomeno sociale indagato, un’adeguata restituzione dell’atmosfera emozionale, uno scavo approfondito dei processi riflessivi del ricercatore. Al contempo, però, bisogna essere consapevoli dei limiti che tale linguaggio impone, come la necessità di inserire la propria narrazione entro una sceneggiatura coerente ed esaustiva, di creare dialoghi il più possibile spontanei, asciutti, scorrevoli, sintetici e che rendano ogni pagina efficace, senza doversi appoggiare a lunghe porzioni di testo scritto, oltre all’impossibilità di approfondimenti teorici particolarmente densi. Il paper, quindi, affronterà tali opportunità e limiti, ma anche altri possibilità e vincoli con cui mi sono confrontato nel percorso di stesura di quello che ho definito un “ethnographic novel”