ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with some general issues of the Indian migration to Italy, qualitatively explores some of its main characteristics. The first part provides a general overview, framing the distinctive features of the Indian presence in Italy: the numbers, the places of settlement, the productive sectors Indians are engaged in and their degree of economic integration. A second part draws diachronically the stages of migration from India to Italy, identifying two prevailing periods: the origins since the late 1970s and the subsequent arrivals, mainly characterised by family reunions since the late 1980s. A third section focuses on the present, analysing two opposing processes: the first process relates to the effects that the severe economic crisis affecting Italy has on citizens of Indian origin; such a crisis has generated both a migration of return of families (as a result of the economic failure of reunification) and a second-level migration to other EU or English-speaking countries. The second process, on the other hand, concerns the dynamics of progressive rooting, acquisition of visibility and religious institutionalisation on Italian territory of minorities. The chapter closes with some considerations on the possible future trends of the Indian presence in Italy.
