ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of Italy’s shift from a country of emigration to a country of immigration, with particular attention to gender and the history of migrant self-organizing. Several factors must be examined in detail in order to understand why so many immigrants to Italy have chosen to organize in formal associations. For reasons I will explain, the Italians have had a difficult time reconciling their long history as a nation that sent (and continues to send) emigrants around the world – and even experienced large movements of people within their own country – with becoming a destination for immigrants. difficulties grappling with the past have led to misconceptions about immigrant populations in Italy, failures in policy making, and the production of “othering” discourses that impede a full and unproblematic integration of immigrants. Migrant self-organizing is connected directly to the lack of success of Italian institutions and social structures in responding to the needs of its new population. This problem is even more pronounced when the migrants are women. Immigrants have been forming autonomous associations since the 1970s and use these groups both to define themselves in relation to the host
society and to offer services to their communities. I will examine the development of migrant self-organizing below.
