ABSTRACT
The stabilization of the founding community is associated with changes in the occupational structure of the Italian migrant population of nineteenth century England: the first moments of settlement appear when Italians move out of vagrant occupations organized around small working-units. The Italian 'Community' is given as a unified 'thing', the membership of which is policed by the degree of conformity to its cultural contents. As James Clifford points out, the term 'diaspora' is a signifier not simply of transnationality, movement and forced migration, but also of settlement, dwelling and the 'struggles to define the local'. The colonizing metaphor colouring this passage conveys and enhances the relationship between economic expansion, conquest and settlement. Multiple meanings are projected by the authors, onto the 'immigrant condition'. Wrapped in languages of deterritorialization, alienation and sacrifice, this 'condition' is paradoxically a double source of empowerment and alienation.
