Nicola Mai

Love, Sexuality and Migration: Mapping the Issue(s)

Abstract In our globalised age of accelerating travel and communication, many migrations and other forms of mobility are informed by a variety of emotional, affective and sexual liaisons, attachments and expectations, which can be powerful and necessary motivations for mobility and for the risks taken in crossing boundaries. In some cases, the emotional and sexual motivations involve economic sacrifices; in others, especially for migrants from poor countries, they can also be a means to economic betterment. In yet others the economic imperative of acquiring work and income through migration implies a loss of emotional expressiveness and sexual identity. In this introductory paper to the special issue, we argue for both a ‘sexual turn’ and an ‘emotional turn’ in mobility studies, stressing also the intersectionality of these two dimensions. Some of the most productive research on sexuality in relation to mobility comes from ‘queer theory’, an intrinsically post‐structuralist heuristic paradigm which challenges established heteronormative and homonormative categories in favour of an emphasis on the polymorphous and performative dimensions of sexuality. The final part of the article provides an overview of the papers that follow and the themes they explore. Taken together, the papers investigate different globalised intersections of love, sexuality and migration, and the way they inform, and are informed by, existing narratives and practices of migration and settlement.

Migration and social cohesion in the UK

This book argues that social cohesion is achieved through people (new arrivals as well as the long-term settled) being able to resolve the conflicts and tensions within their day-to-day lives in ways that they find positive and viable. These everyday tensions and difficulties are not the result of segregated communities or introduced by problematic new arrivals but rather arise from the conditions of postindustrialism, individualism and neoliberalism. These social and economic forces shape the contours of peoples everyday lives, varying according to where they live and the histories of those places. Most important are the histories and narratives of earlier migrations in each place. This book challenges the prevailing view that social cohesion is about the assimilation of new immigrants through acceptance of shared values of Britishness. Rather social cohesion is achieved through peoples broad acceptance of a diverse Britain and by navigating the fine lines between separateness and commonalities/differences and unity in the places where they live.

Albanian migration and new transnationalisms

This brief paper introduces the special issue of JEMS on Albanian migration, which collects together revised versions of a selection of papers first presented at a conference held at the University of Sussex in September 2002. The uniqueness and complexity of Albanian migration are first spelled out. Although the main focus is on post-1990 migration, some interesting historical precedents are noted. Attention then turns to the two main contexts of reception, Italy and Greece, where host-society reaction has been characterised above all by stereotypes and the stigmatisation of Albanians. The remainder of the paper introduces each of the subsequent articles under a series of thematic headings – historicity, agency and identity.

Italophilia meets Albanophobia: paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes among Albanian immigrants in Italy

Abstract This paper discusses what we call the ‘Albanian assimilation paradox’. Since arrival in 1991, Albanians have become one of the most ‘integrated’ of all non-EU immigrant groups in Italy, based on their knowledge of Italian, geographical dispersion, balanced demography, employment progress and desire to remain in Italy. Yet they are the nationality most rejected and stigmatized by Italians – stereotyped as criminals, prostitutes and uncivilized people. Based on ninety-seven interviews with Albanians in three cities in Italy, we explore the multifaceted dimensions of their patchy assimilation. Although the hegemonic negative framing of Albanians by Italian media and public discourse plays a major role, other elements of the picture relate to Albanians’ complexly shifting identities, framed both against and within this discourse (and hence both resisting and internalizing it) and against changing concepts of Albanian national and diasporic identities derived from ambiguous perceptions of the national homeland.

The Albanian Diaspora-in-the-Making: Media, Migration and Social Exclusion

Unlike many other groups living and working in Italy, Albanians have not gathered in communities. Moreover, only a minority of them have referred to home or diasporic media in order to recreate and sustain a positive sense of ‘ethnic’ belonging while living abroad. In fact, most Albanian migrants rely solely on Italian public and private television for entertainment and information. On the other hand, but in a sense consistent with the above picture, Albanian individuals and families seem to have integrated into Italian society better than many other migrant groups. They have developed family-based private networks of friendship and solidarity, which have generally increased the success of their migratory projects. Although some of these aspects can be understood as a consequence of their recent settlement in Italy, the peculiarity of Albanians’ diaspora-in-the-making can be better explained by analysing the interaction between the two main roles Italian media have played in the mass migratory outflow that accompanied the process of Albanian post-communist transformation. Firstly, Italian media have articulated an aspect of Albanian peoples identities that Albanian culture could not provide. Secondly, they have been the main source of information about Albanians living and working in Italy for Italians and Albanians alike, thus playing an active part in enforcing Albanian migrants’ social exclusion and marginalisation.

The cultural construction of Italy in Albania and vice versa: Migration dynamics, strategies of resistance and politics of mutual self-definition across colonialism and post-colonialism

This article analyses the shifting ways in which Italy has been strategically represented in Albania during the different key passages of the latters relatively recent history as a sovereign independent state. As a parallel narrative, the article also examines the way Albania has been equally strategically represented in Italy before and during the two periods in which Italy has been militarily involved in Albania, and the way this has been consistent with an attempt to elaborate and sustain a politically strategic definition of Italian identity and culture. The history of the asymmetrical relationship between Albania and Italy is deeply embedded in the social, cultural and political environments that are on the two shores of the Adriatic Sea. The cultural construction of Albania in Italy and vice versa of Italy in Albania should be linked to seemingly independent instances of domestic reforms. The dynamics of projective identification or dis-identification stemming from these instances should be seen as...

Between Minor and Errant Mobility: The Relation Between Psychological Dynamics and Migration Patterns of Young Men Selling Sex in the EU

Abstract This paper analyses the mobility patterns and livelihood strategies of young men migrating to, and selling sex in, the EU. Most of the testimonies come from Albanians and Romanians. The analysis focuses on the experiences of ‘street’ sex workers, rather than on the whole spectrum of jobs available to young men in the sex industry. I draw on French psychological literature on the topic of errance (wandering) and on original ethnographic material gathered over a long period of multi‐sited fieldwork in different European cities. Migration is considered as a symbolic and liminal act through which young men negotiate their psychological and economic autonomy away from ‘home’. Within this wider context, the article concentrates on specific psychological and migration dynamics characterising the life experiences of young men selling sex in the street. This enables me to analyse the ways the outcome of the negotiation of their transition to adulthood and their migration patterns are influenced by their ability to express their sexual and gendered identities away from home.

‘Turks’ in the UK: Problems of Definition and the Partial Relevance of Policy

ABSTRACT This paper unpacks the problematic designation of ‘Turks’ as a migrant group within the context of migration, integration and policy-making in the UK, especially London. Three groups are identified—Turkish Cypriots, Turks from mainland Turkey, and Kurds from Turkey. Their variable experiences of arrival, settlement and socio-economic and cultural integration are documented through a small-scale qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with members of each community. Policy has often had limited relevance to these groups, except at the local level.

“The antiAtlas of Borders, A Manifesto”

Abstract The antiAtlas of Borders is an experimentation at the crossroads of research, art and practice. It was launched in 2011 at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies (Aix Marseille University), and has been co-produced by the Higher School of Art (Aix en Provence), PACTE laboratory (University of Grenoble-CNRS), Isabelle Arvers and La compagnie. Since then, it has gathered researchers (social and hard scientists), artists (web artists, tactical geographers, hackers, filmmakers, etc.) and professionals (customs, industry, military, etc.). The encounter of people coming from these different fields of knowledge and practice aims to create a radical shift of perspective in the way we apprehend both 21st century borders and the boundaries separating fields of knowledge, art and practice.

€Too Much Suffering’: Understanding the Interplay Between Migration, Bounded Exploitation and Trafficking Through Nigerian Sex Workers’ Experiences

Migrant sex workers’ experiences of exploitation depend on a dynamic re-evaluation of the working conditions and relationships that frame their entry into the global sex industry according to the subsequent unfolding of their working and wider lives. Contrary to the essentialist obliteration of consent introduced by abolitionist scholarship and policymaking, migrants can decide to endure bounded exploitative deals with people enabling their travel and work abroad in order to meet the economic and administrative (becoming documented) objectives they set for themselves. When this deal is broken as a result of the betrayal of original negotiations, migrants can decide to reframe their migration and work experience as trafficking and denounce their original enablers as traffickers, which gives them a chance to obtain the right to reside and work in the country of destination through asylum.