Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of the book. The chapter examines Italy's interlinked histories of emigration, colonialism and immigration, as well as Italian's deep attachment to place and tradition. It argues the tensions between dwelling and rootlessness, stasis and change that animate the field of mobility studies have distinguished modern Italian culture and society. After Sheller, it focus on theorizations of nomadic subjectivities than on 'the power of discourses, practices and infrastructures of mobility in creating the effects of both movement and stasis'. The case of Italy, about the structural, social and cultural consequences of living, and the importance of space and geography in determining how international mobilities and national contexts cross-pollinate the perceptions and experiences of one another. Harney's essay makes explicit the intuitive convergence between diasporic projects and neoliberal forms, and focuses on the latter's subject-making processes that facilitate and channel diasporic practices into identitarian cultural politics and expression.