Intimacy and Italian Migration: Gender and Domestic Lives in a Mobile World

Product Description


This provocative collection of essays adds a new dimension to our understanding of nation-building through its examination of the role of intimate cultural processes. First, by exploring the private lives of migrants from Italy through biography, oral history, and ethnography, these essays suggest why and how―across cultures―Italianness has come to be associated with a particular kind of femininity and supposedly distinctive elements of domestic life symbolized by long-held stereotypes of the Italian mother. On a larger scale, while the editors and contributors share with previous works on the Italian diaspora a keen interest in the imagining of nations across national borders, here they refocus our attention to the significance of the domestic, particularly the lives of individual men and women, their families, and the communities they loved―and left behind.


Review


A multitude of eminently accessible, albeit primarily scholarly, perspectives under the umbrella of the concept of family and the role of women.
---―Maria Enrico, Borough of Manhattan Community College

An invitation to the interpretive community of scholars of the Italian diaspora to engage, once and for all, in a discussion that is analytical to the core . . . A mosaic of impressive intellectual exercises.
---―Anthony Tamburri, Queens College


“From Mazzini the asexual republican leader to Rudolph Valentino, Latin lover incarnate, and from kitchens to bedrooms, Intimacy and Italian Migration re-questions the ways in which national identities are constructed―from abroad and from the home. This innovative collection of articles compares everything from the Italian mother in Australia, Ireland, and Germany, to the ‘translocal’ practices of Italian emigrant families. Its strength lies in addressing both stereotypes and experience in the gendered construction of Italian identity around the world.”
---―Nancy L. Green, co-editor, with François Weil of Citizenship and Those Who Leave

. . . A solid collection of articles that break new ground. In contrast to traditional studies, this volume focuses on the translocal and transnational aspects of migration and places specific emphasis on how factors such as gender, questions of identity and the policies of nation-states affect, and are affected by, the everyday thoughts, decisions and life experiences of individuals. ―
―Anthropological Forum


From Italy as nation some 26 million migrant men and womenleft since 1870 to create in gendered lives many Italies acrossthe globe. The paradigmatic essays in this volume analyze how they, with their children and grandchildren, defined translocal and transcultural intimate spheres and redefined processual belongings in highly personal and often contested family arenas. The authors offer fascinating perspectives on the lifetime trajectories of women and men in local-global-national communities. No future research on nations and societies may do less than this path-breaking synthesis edited by the top scholars in the field."
---―Dirk Hoerder, Arizona State University


Review


A multitude of eminently accessible, albeit primarily scholarly, perspectives under the umbrella of the concept of family and the role of women.
---―Maria Enrico, Borough of Manhattan Community College

An invitation to the interpretive community of scholars of the Italian diaspora to engage, once and for all, in a discussion that is analytical to the core . . . A mosaic of impressive intellectual exercises.
---―Anthony Tamburri, Queens College


“From Mazzini the asexual republican leader to Rudolph Valentino, Latin lover incarnate, and from kitchens to bedrooms, Intimacy and Italian Migration re-questions the ways in which national identities are constructed―from abroad and from the home. This innovative collection of articles compares everything from the Italian mother in Australia, Ireland, and Germany, to the ‘translocal’ practices of Italian emigrant families. Its strength lies i