ABSTRACT
Italian migrant belongings, in Britain, are generated through a group of claims about the historical, political and cultural presence of Italians. Written histories, politics of identity and popular religion are three areas where Italians create a new cultural identity grounded in memory and multilocality. This chapter considers bodies as sites of mediation between social and subject, collective and individual, temporal and material. Leaders of 'ethnic organizations' are intensely aware of the task of 'creating a community', as Giuseppe Giacon stated it, which would effectively capture the imagination of its diverse segments. Re-membering is not only about reprocessing elements of the past or of culture, or shaping physical places and buildings to 'reflect' an identity. The chapter shows that gender is the central vehicle for the mobilization of family and generations in the collective re-enactment and display of cultural continuity.
