Italy's Many Diasporas

by Gabaccia, Donna R.

• ISBN13: 9781857285833
• ISBN10: 1857285832
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-02-01
• Publisher: Ucl Pr Ltd

Summary

Italy's residents are a migratory people. Since 1800 well over twenty-seven million left home, but over half also returned home again. As cosmopolitans, exiles, and "workers of the world" they transformed their homeland and many of the countries where they worked or settled abroad. But did they form a diaspora? Migrants maintained firm ties to native villages, cities and families. Few felt much loyalty to a larger nation of Italians. Rather than form a "nation unbound, " the transnational lives of Italy's migrants kept alive international regional cultures that challenged the hegemony of national states around the world.This ambitious and theoretically innovative overview examines the social, cultural and economic integration of Italian migrants. It explores their complex yet distinctive identity and their relationship with their homeland taking a comprehensive approach.

Table of Contents

List of tables	ix
Foreword by the Series Editor	x
Preface	xii
Introduction	1	(13)
Before Italians: making Italian culture at home and abroad	14	(21)
From Italian primacy to ``the Indies of the court of Vienna''	16	(6)
The world is my country	22	(7)
Patria e natio	29	(4)
The legacy of civilta italiana	33	(2)
Making Italians at home and abroad, 1790--1893	35	(23)
The Risorgimento and the two races of Italy	36	(6)
One diaspora or two?	42	(3)
Diaspora nationalism: Italians made abroad	45	(7)
Making Italians at home	52	(6)
Workers of the world, 1870--1914	58	(23)
Finding work in a global labor market	61	(7)
Paese, regione, and the global labor market	68	(6)
National patterns in a world economy	74	(7)
Transnationalism as a way of working-class life	81	(25)
Men without women	83	(4)
Women who wait	87	(3)
International family economies	90	(4)
``Americans'' in paese: villages of return	94	(5)
Life in the ``colonies''	99	(7)
Nationalism and internationalism in Italy's proletarian diasporas, 1870--1914	106	(23)
Proletarian internationalism; proletarian nationalism	107	(6)
The meanings of labor internationalism	113	(7)
Altre Italie: creating other Italies	120	(9)
Nation, empire, and diaspora: fascism and its opponents	129	(24)
Hostile states and the waning of the mass migrations	131	(5)
The Italian state and Italy's diasporas	136	(5)
Forging a fascist diaspora	141	(3)
Fascism, anti-fascism, and diaspora nationalism	144	(9)
Postwar Italy: from sending to receiving nation	153	(21)
Agrarian reform, the padrone state, and new migrants	155	(5)
``Il miracolo italiano'': new directions and a new diaspora	160	(6)
Guest workers, ``immigrants,'' immigrants and returners	166	(8)
Civilta italiana and the making of multi-ethnic nations	174	(18)
Nations of immigration; nations of immigrants; Italians in Europe	177	(10)
Whose civilta?	187	(5)
Notes	192	(63)
Index	255