Italy's Diaspora Politics: A Continuing History

Scholars of migration often refer to Italy as an example of country of emigration confined to the past. Yet, as recent studies have shown, significant numbers of people left the country also after Italy turned into a country of immigration at the end the 20^th century. This paper addresses the Italian case as an example of “continuing history” of emigration. The Italian case offers a singular opportunity for understanding the development of its diasporic relations in the longue duree. The study examines the interaction between Italy as a sending country and its expatriates in the period between the birth of the unified state in 1861 and the present by looking at the development of Italy’s diaspora politics at institutional and policy levels.

The paper adopts a socio-historical approach to the study of the genesis and the evolution of the processes of re-territorialization and/or de-territorialization of the expatriates. It starts with the analysis of quantitative indicators and data on emigration and, where available, return rates, to verify whether and when a linkage can be established between specific waves of mobility and the implementation of specific policies or the creation of dedicated institutions. It then examines the role that emigrants have played in shaping the imagined community of the nation and the current debate on their role in the construction of an Italian collective identity.

The paper emphasizes the state technologies of inclusion and exclusion embedded in the practices of civic, political and social citizenship. These processes question fundamental assumptions about the geography, modalities and legitimacy of sovereign power and its relation to globalisation processes, yet only a few studies have systematically questioned the nature of the governmental rationalities at stake, the connections between emigrants/expatriates policies and larger conceptions of nationalistic/colonialist policies, and the challenges posed by these processes for our conceptualization of the nation-state.