ABSTRACT
Though this article’s goal is to present and analyse several key characteristics of the social and economic insertion process of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Italy, the fieldwork on which it is based has been carried out in Milan, and much of the data collected also refer to this specific urban context.1 Since it is in this city that Chinese migration to Italy first manifested itself, focusing on this particular territory offers a unique opportunity to gather information regarding its history. Moreover, since about 18 per cent of Italy’s Chinese population live in this city, research findings concerning the Chinese migrants’ socio-economic insertion strategies developed since the early 1990s certainly do have a bearing on this immigrant group’s situation in the whole country today. Nevertheless, though the picture one may get from this particular vantage point may be considered fairly representative of the Chinese migrant’s reality in those Italian cities (Milan, Turin, Bologna, Rome) where the Chinese entrepreneurs’ insertion in the service sector plays a significant role, in order to gain a better understanding of the Chinese ethnic business in Italy’s industrial clusters (such as the garment manufacturing clusters in the Capri-Modena-Reggio Emilia, Prato-Empoli and Naples-San Giuseppe Vesuviano areas), where Chinese entrepreneurship has evolved along slightly different lines, one may need to complement the research findings presented here with those resulting from the research work carried out in those areas by other authors.2
