Bruno Riccio

West African Transnationalisms Compared: Ghanaians and Senegalese in Italy

The paper compares two different West African communities living and working in Italy. The mostly male Senegalese migrants generally belong to the Mouride Sufi brotherhood, whose vertical and horizontal ties are reproduced in transnational networks, and these often help migrants organise their business activities as well as their temporary settlement within the receiving contexts. Ghanaians in Italy are Christians with a growing number of Pentecostals. They have a balanced gender ratio and, unlike the Senegalese who are strongly identified with the project of return, Ghanaians families tend to settle in Italy. Yet transnational connections and activities (remittances, home associations, investment in housing or entrepreneurial activities) are frequent among Ghanaians too. Despite differences, there are therefore also similarities. The paper focuses on the complex politics of interplay with the receiving contexts and explores the potentials and obstacles for the enhancement of transnational linkages.

Transnational Mouridism and the Afro‐Muslim Critique of Italy

Founded in the 1880s by Cheick Amadou Bamba, the Mouride brotherhood has its capital in Touba, Senegal, where Mourides have constructed the largest mosque in sub‐Saharan Africa. The brotherhoods vertical and horizontal ties and a culture of migration have been readily reproduced within transnational networks. Most Mouride migrants are men, who are involved in circulatory migration. They have left their families in Senegal where their transnational social networks are ‘anchored’. In addition to exploring their transnational networks in both receiving and sending contexts, I consider Mouride attitudes towards and discourses about the society of migration. Their Afro‐Muslim critique of Italy offers methodological lessons. Indeed, it demonstrates the need to combine analytic anti‐essentialism with the ethnographic exploration of prosaic essentialisms.

Senegalese street‐sellers, racism and the discourse on ‘irregular trade’ in Rimini

Summary The coast of Emilia‐Romagna is a favourite destination for the seasonal movement of Senegalese street‐sellers. It is no coincidence that Rimini hosted one of the first racist demonstrations of shopkeepers in 1989. The situation has worsened over time. In fact, the local public discourse on immigration never developed autonomously but has always been connected to the discourse expressing the main concern of the town: irregular trade. Yet discourses do not work alone and are linked also to social relations and to economic trends such as the restructuring of the local retailing economy and the tourist sector. This article therefore shows how racism in Rimini is the fluid product of, first, the overlapping of discourses about differing social phenomena which shape the dominant discourse on immigration; and, secondly, the identification with this dominant discourse that has emerged from everyday social relations and institutional practices. The latter part of the article presents elements of the counte...

Rehearsing Transnational Citizenship: Senegalese Associations, Co-development and Simultaneous Inclusion

Relying on the case of the Senegalese in Italy, the paper addresses the following research challenge: may migrant associations’ activities and involvement in co-development projects be conducive to the transnationalization of citizenship? Together with the illustration of the process of diversification of Senegalese associational trajectories, I will discuss the opportunities for co-development but also the difficulties encountered in its implementation in the place of migration and of origin. Those projects sometimes represent an opportunity to improve the social conditions back home together with the inclusion within the local receiving context. However, one witnesses ambivalences concerning this search of enhancement of migrants’ status and recognition at both ends of the migration experience. In this sense it constitutes a contingent and constant “rehearsal”, which cannot be captured by relying on a static and formal conception of citizenship.

Everyday practised citizenship and the challenges of representation: second-generation associations in Bologna

Abstract Italy is home to a population of second-generation children of first-wave migrants who are forming and becoming involved in various associations. If the first immigrant associations tended to struggle for recognition through engaging in social activities based on Italian associational structures, the second-generation associations tend to address fully the issue of citizenship and to cross local and sometimes national boundaries. This kind of strategy has proven crucial for youth that were schooled and socialized in Italian society but who encounter difficult prospects in social mobility and in seeing citizenship rights been granted. In their struggle, they contest and critique the representation that targets them as forever migrants, to enhance their access to economic resources, social participation and political representation. With this purpose in mind, they are also well connected through online networking. However, various members of these associations seem interested in realizing a practised citizenship within local everyday life more than on paper.