IT303: Italian Women’s Writing II

Ghermandi and transnational identities

Models of Migration• Melting pot• Assimilation

Nation building

• ‘Fatta l’Italia, bisogna fare gli italiani’

• Massimo D’Azeglio

A sense of national identity:• Narrative of shared history• Creation of shared memories and cultural

heritage– monuments, anniversaries

• Symbols of nation – flags, anthems, heroes,

• Language• Appeal to shared values• ‘Othering’

Transnationalism

Not: •uprooting, rupture, transplantation•assimilation•loss of ties •Importance of nation state

Towards:•crossing geographical, cultural and political borders•plural identities•maintaining multiple connections and social relationships•Decline in importance of nation state

Transnational movements

‘non mi ero mai soffermata sul fatto che per loro ci fossero due luoghi, entrambi arrivo e partenza. Una clessidra scanidiva il loro tempo, e quando terminava la sabbia da una parte e veniva girata, il luogo dell’arrivo si transformatva in partenza’ (p. 136)

‘Transnational migration is the process by which immigrants forge and sustain simultaneous multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement (Schiller et al. 1995).

‘Transmigrants are immigrants whose daily lives depend on multiple and constant interconnections across international borders and whose public identities are configured in relationship to more than one national state’ (cited in Schiller et al. 1995).

‘By transnational spaces we mean relatively stable, lasting and dense sets of ties reaching beyond and across borders of sovereign states. Transnational spaces comprise combinations of ties and their substance, positions with networks and organisations that cut across the borders of at least two national states (Bauböck & Faist, 2010)

Question:

• To what extent can Ghermandi’s work be described as transnational?

Sources:Rainer Bauböck and Thomas Faist, eds., Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts Theories and Methods (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), available to download on oapen.org - see esp. first chapter.

Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch and Cristina Szanton Blanc, ‘From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 68, no. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 48-63.