Asher Colombo

Italian immigration: the origins, nature and evolution of Italy’s migratory systems

This article reconstructs the historical development of foreign settlement in Italy. It shows how Italy is part of a number of different migratory patterns, some of which are interconnected, while others are quite strongly differentiated. This diversity means that the standard images that link Italian immigration with a high degree of social marginalization do not correspond to the more complex realities, and by focusing on short-term aspects simply conflate highly differentiated patterns of migration into one single type. The article begins by reconstructing the patterns of foreign settlement in Italy since the time of Unification and then goes on to analyze the mechanisms of contemporary migrant flows to demonstrate how these derive from very different sets of motives and expectations. The motivations also explain why different immigrant groups respond to the different forms of regulation adopted by the Italian state. The article concludes by reviewing the data presently available on the numbers of foreigners currently in Italy, which indicate that over the last twenty years those numbers have decreased.

The flows and the flood: the public discourse on immigration in Italy, 1969–2001

Since the start of the debate on immigration in Italy there has been considerable interest in analysing the ways in which the public discourse on immigration has changed over time. This article examines the changes that have taken place in the period from 1969 to 2001. It is based on systematic study of the principal weekly news magazines (1969–1981) and on the daily press (1982–2001). It demonstrates significant changes in the ways in which immigrants have been portrayed and in the situations with which they are associated. These changes do not correspond with assumptions that continue to prevail in much of the press coverage. The study indicates that the key interpretative themes in the debate were evident prior to the mid-1970s, but that the politicization of the immigrant question in the period 1989–1990 critically changed the terms of public discourse. While the press is highly selective in the way these issues are presented, this has little to do with the criminalization of the immigrants (a theme on which most of the research on immigration has focused) but is more closely linked with the lack of transparency that continues to surround the participation of foreign workers in the Italian economy.

‘They call me a housekeeper, but I do everything.’ Who are domestic workers today in Italy and what do they do?

Abstract This article explores a number of aspects of paid domestic work in contemporary Italy and recent changes in that sector. The first section presents the distinguishing characteristics of paid domestic workers, showing that the image of a non-Italian woman, originally from an underdeveloped country, actually distorts a more complex and differentiated reality. The subsequent section analyzes the way that paid domestic work is organized, and in particular it explores the differences between live-in and live-out domestic service, demonstrating that live-in domestic service is a fundamental component of the new paid domestic service, but that its extension is relatively modest. Finally, the article provides a reconstruction of the emotional content of the services demanded from paid domestic workers. Domestic service appears today as a combination of traditional duties and new duties. Among the new duties, there also emerges an immaterial aspect to the service, consisting of providing emotional involvement and interaction, caring and emotional commitment, which are all areas deserving further study.

Immigrants as authors and victims of crimes: the Italian experience

Purpose – Based upon data from the Italian Ministry of the Interior, this analysis describes trends in immigrant crime, the characteristics of offenders and victims of crime as well as their relationships, and the impact of the Italian policies for controlling illegal immigration. Methodology – Tabular analysis of government data. Findings – For many crimes in Italy, the percentage of all persons arrested who were immigrants increased substantially in the past two decades. The increases vary by nationality and probably reflect differences in demographic characteristics of the populations. Patterns of victimization are not what would be expected from the point of view of conflict theory but do strongly support the expectations of routine activities theory. Immigrants are at substantially higher risks of victimization than native Italians for several serious crimes, but their victimization is mostly likely to be done by co-nationals rather than by native Italians. Italian policies to locate and expel illegal immigrants within the country have been less efficient than expected. Value – This analysis demonstrates that immigration has had a substantial impact on crime in Italy. Although it does not address the question of whether immigrants are more inclined to commit crime than native Italians, it does show that when immigrants are victimized for certain crimes, it is usually done by co-nationals. It shows that the policies for the internal control of illegal immigration are less efficient than expected.

Hope and despair: ‘Deviant’ immigrants in Italy

Abstract This article presents the results of research conducted in Milan in 1993 and 1994, collecting life stories among Algerian immigrants involved in petty crimes such as shoplifting and pickpocketing. Against a broad picture of the presence of crime among foreigners in Italy based on official sources, the article reconstructs the social and familial contexts of the immigrants interviewed, analyzes the ways they arrived and settled, and why they chose to come to Italy. Two main patterns of immigration emerge. The first is that of young people who, using social migratory chains, arrived in Italy in the late 1980s, mainly because opportunities in their own country appeared to be blocked. The second consists of older people who emigrated from Algeria at the time of decolonization, and arrived in Italy because they were marginalized from established migratory chains or because alternative migration plans failed.

Foreigners and immigrants in Italy's penal and administrative detention systems

The aim of this article is to address the two strictest forms of immigration control in Italy: penal and administrative detention. The first core section of the article discusses key trends in the use of penal detention against foreigners and immigrants, whilst the second and longest core section of the article explores key trends in the administrative detention of irregular migrants. As concerns penal detention, it is shown that the significant growth of Italy’s prison population over time has been because of a rapid rise in the number of foreign prisoners, which has outpaced the decline observed in the number of their Italian counterparts. As regards administrative detention, which was first introduced in Italy in 1998 for irregular migrants who cannot immediately be deported, the article demonstrates that only a proportion of irregular migrants transit through a CIE (Centro di Identificazione e di Espulsione, or Identification and Deportation Centre). This is because of the high selectivity that is exhibited by Italy’s administrative detention system, itself based on a range of considerations, from the availability of beds and the likelihood of repatriation for apprehended migrants to public opinion. The findings of this article also imply that there has been an impressive degree of consistency in the immigration control policies adopted by governments of different party-political orientation.

Why Europe has never been united (not even in the afterworld): The fall and rise of cremation in cities (1876–1939)

ABSTRACT An intriguing paradox emerges in the history of disposal of the dead in Europe: the countries (Italy, Germany, England, and Scotland) where, in the last quarter of the 19th century, cremation was introduced first, were the last ones to see the diffusion of cremation as a mass phenomenon. The contrary was true where—for instance, in Switzerland and in Denmark—the start of cremation was initially delayed. Here the growth was very fast. To explain this puzzling enigma, I propose to abandon the usual nation-level approach and take cities as appropriate units of analysis. So, a database on presence or absence of crematoria and on trends in “annual cremation by death ratios” in the European cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants before 1939 was completed for an analysis of patterns of the early emergence of cremation and change of cremation rate at a local level.