Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians: Absence, Ambivalence and Revival [1st ed.] 9783030481445, 9783030481452

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xv
Introduction (Simone Marino)....Pages 1-29
Previous Literature About Italian Immigrant Groups and Ethnic Identity (Simone Marino)....Pages 31-57
Theoretical Reference Points (Simone Marino)....Pages 59-86
Methodology (Simone Marino)....Pages 87-101
Participants’ Perceptions of Their Ethnicity Across the Three Generations (Simone Marino)....Pages 103-140
The Calabrian Community and Its Cultural Practices (Simone Marino)....Pages 141-160
Networks and Comparatico Across the Three Generations (Simone Marino)....Pages 161-178
Cultural Practices and Memories of the Calabrian Grandparents (Simone Marino)....Pages 179-196
Findings and Discussion (Simone Marino)....Pages 197-260
Conclusion and Further Reflections (Simone Marino)....Pages 261-271
Correction to: Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians (Simone Marino)....Pages C1-C1
Back Matter ....Pages 273-288

Citation preview

Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians Absence, Ambivalence and Revival Simone Marino

Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians

Simone Marino

Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among  Italian-Australians Absence, Ambivalence and Revival

Simone Marino University of South Australia Magill, SA, Australia

ISBN 978-3-030-48144-5 ISBN 978-3-030-48145-2  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Ai miei genitori da cui l’emigrazione mi ha separato. Temporaneamente. To my parents from whom emigration has separated me. Temporarily.

Acknowledgements

The writing of this book was inspired by my Ph.D. journey, which was both pleasant and obnoxious. It gave me the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It sent me soaring into the stratosphere on wings of enjoyment, and released me splat into the deepest and dirtiest mud. I would like to thank Professor Elvira Stefania Tiberini for her teaching and encouragement since my first years at Sapienza University, Rome; and also Professor Antonio Vento, Dott. Enzo Movilia, Dott. Luigi Brugnano and Dott. Claudio Palazzi for brainstorming with me via email; and the Italian cartoonist Luca Vannini for his illustrations. I wish to thank Associate Professor Angela Scarino, Professor Loretta Baldassar and Dr. Giancarlo Chiro for their inspiration and patience when I was a Ph.D. student in Adelaide. I am in debt to Associate Professor Scarino who, with her constant presence, was able to offer me precious, practical and sympathetic advice. Always in tempore, Angela taught me the relevance of the filo del discorso (the line of the argument). I wish to thank also Professor Baldassar. In 2014, Loretta came to Adelaide from Perth, the city in which she used to direct the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Western Australia. We had lunch at my place. While I was pouring more water on the risotto milanese, she was brainstorming with me on the fluidity of ethnic boundaries and challenging my attempts to juxtapose such constructivist approaches with the theory of practice. Her anthropological guidance is still vital today. I also wish to thank Dr. Chiro. My meetings with him in the old days at the University of South Australia, always in front of a ristretto, stimulated vii

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

me both physically and intellectually. Giancarlo has been my ‘door into the academic world’; he saw me first as an emigrant and then as an immigrant. I thank Dr. Tim Curnow for his great editorial work. Tim’s professionalism and meticulousness made this book possible. Then there is Morialta Conservation Park in Rostrevor, South Australia—my extra-academic mentor. Our 6 a.m. ‘meetings’ were surrounded by colourful parrots, the smell of fennel and three different species of mimosas. This green space—in which, at that specific time of day, the lingua franca was usually Chinese—gave me fresh inspiration for new reflections on my thesis. I like to think that if I had chosen to reside on the university campus I would have written a different work: the park had the answers I was looking for. While the waterfall unravelled the methodology, the cave suggested to me the theoretical framework (which partly embraces philosophy, although not the notion of Plato’s cave). I never submitted anything without going first to Morialta and hearing from her. I also wish to thank Roma, la mia città; Calabria, the region of my parents; and Australia, my new home. My positionalities made me reflect critically on the collected data. I am in debt to cultural anthropology, which saved me from conforming myself ‘too much’ to others, to an impersonal self, to ‘the they’, to a life of inauthentic Sartrean no exit that conceives l’enfer as les autres. I think it is anthropology that still makes me proudly guilty of generating my contesting ‘thoughtcrimes’. I am also profoundly thankful to my participants, who made this book possible. They chose to share their life experiences, world views and generosity. I dedicate my work to donna Maria, donna Rosa and don Pasquale, who participated in the present study and passed away during my data analysis; and to Joe, who passed so young. I dedicate this book to my parents, Saverio and Maria, who came to Australia while I was working on the manuscript to celebrate my wedding with Keiko. Dulcis in fundo, thanks to Keiko, whose identity changed from Ph.D. colleague to wife (with a few other identities in the middle). Her love and support enrich my life and bring more happy chords to my songs. Keiko’s support during the last two years has been extraordinary: バンビーナ ミア、ありがとうございます. I also dedicate the book to my nonno Nino who, not surprisingly, kept the family united until he was 102 years old.

Contents

1 Introduction 1 1.1 Introducing and Situating the Study 1 1.1.1 Italians in Australia 2 1.1.2 Italian Migration to South Australia 4 1.1.3 The Italian Urban Ecology of Adelaide 8 1.1.4 An Overview of Calabria and the Aspromonte Hinterland 9 1.1.5 Calabrians in Australia: The Origin of a Community 12 1.2 The Rationale and Significance of the Study 13 1.2.1 Significance of the Study 14 1.2.2 The Theoretical Dimension 18 1.2.3 The Methodological Dimension 19 1.3 Synopsis of All Chapters 20 References 25 2

Previous Literature About Italian Immigrant Groups and Ethnic Identity 31 2.1 Literature on Ethnic Identity 31 2.2 Studies of Italian-Australians 37 2.2.1 Demography and History 38 2.2.2 Sociology of Religion and Socio-Linguistics 40

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CONTENTS

2.2.3 Sociology and Anthropology 2.2.4 Limitations of Previous Studies References 3

42 46 49

Theoretical Reference Points 59 3.1 Introducing the Theoretical Reference Points 60 3.2 The Double Absence and the Crisis of Presence 63 3.3 Cultural Hegemony 69 3.4 The Conceptual Apparatus of Capital 72 3.4.1 Social Capital 74 3.4.2 Cultural Capital, Habitus and Ethnic Boundary Markers 75 3.4.3 The Accumulation and Conversion of Capital 80 References 82

4 Methodology 87 4.1 Taking an Ethnographic Approach 88 4.2 Design of the Study 91 4.2.1 Selection of Primary Participants 93 4.2.2 Data Gathering and Analysis of the Data 94 4.3 Premise and Reflections on the Terms ‘Generation’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Tradition’ 96 References 100 5

Participants’ Perceptions of Their Ethnicity Across the Three Generations 103 5.1 The First Generation 104 5.1.1 A Sonata at Vince’s Place 104 5.1.2 First-Generation Experiences Within the Anglo-Australian World 106 5.1.3 A Widespread Sense of Betrayal 110 5.2 The Second Generation 115 5.2.1 School Experiences of the Second Generation 115 5.2.2 Being Brought Up in the Calabrian World 118 5.2.3 The Feelings of the Second Generation and the Word ‘Wog’ 121 5.3 The Third Generation 126 5.3.1 Manifesting Italian-Ness at School 126 5.3.2 ‘Being Italian Is Cool’ and the Word ‘Wog’ 128

CONTENTS  

Observing, Recording and Gathering Markers of Ethnicity During Interviews and Participant Observation 5.5 The Bianco Family: Perceptions of Ethnicity Across Three Generations 5.5.1 Perceptions of the First Generation 5.5.2 Perceptions of the Second Generation 5.5.3 Perceptions of the Third Generation 5.6 Perceptions of Ethnicity Across the Generations References

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5.4

130 132 132 134 136 138 139

6

The Calabrian Community and Its Cultural Practices 141 6.1 Locating the Community 142 6.1.1 Moving to the Field, Observations 142 6.1.2 Cultural Sites of Ethnicity Across Generation 146 6.1.3 Practices and the senso comune Within the Community 150 6.2 The Festa 153 References 160

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Networks and Comparatico Across the Three Generations 161 7.1 Thrown in at the Deep End 162 7.2 Calabrian Comparatico 165 7.2.1 Comparatico in the Calabrian Community of Adelaide 165 7.2.2 Comparatico Duties, Respect and the Role of Gossip 170 References 178

8

Cultural Practices and Memories of the Calabrian Grandparents 179 8.1 Recalling the nonni 180 8.1.1 A Lunch with the Giallo Family 180 8.1.2 The Third Generation Recall Their nonni 184 8.2 Cultural Practices at the nonni’s Place 187 8.2.1 Removing the malocchio at nonna Caterina’s Place (Rosa Family) 187 8.2.2 Making salami with Anthony (Marrone Family) 190

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CONTENTS

8.3 9

Intergenerational Practices Transmitted at the nonni’s Place and the nonni’s Objects

193

Findings and Discussion 197 9.1 Introducing the Findings 198 9.2 Institutional Positionality: The Macro Scale 199 9.2.1 The First Generation’s Ethnic Identity: Double Absence and spaesamento 199 9.2.2 The Second Generation’s Ethnic Identity: Navigating Between Scylla and Charybdis 204 9.2.3 The Third Generation’s Ethnic Identity: ‘From Pavlova to Pasta’ and Inverted Filiation 207 9.2.4 Reflecting on Institutional Positionality 209 9.3 Social Engagement: The Meso Scale 212 9.3.1 The Imagined Network 213 9.3.2 The senso comune and Its Modus Operandi 215 9.3.3 Social Capital and comparatico 217 9.3.4 The festa 219 9.3.5 Dislocation of Linguistic and Cultural Capital Between Calabria and Australia 220 9.4 The Family: The Micro Scale 223 9.4.1 A Reflection on the Relevance of the Family in Building Ethnic Identity 223 9.4.2 The nonni’s Place: Emotions in Practice 225 9.4.3 Idealisation of Culture and Memories and Their Conversion into Ethnic Identity 227 9.4.4 Idolisation of the nonni’s Transnational Objects 229 9.5 Discussion and Reflections on the Overall Findings 230 9.5.1 Considering the Findings Themselves 231 9.5.2 Locating Ethnic Identity Through the Macro, Meso and Micro Scales of Social Life: A Preliminary Reflection on ‘Being There’ 237 9.5.3 Reflecting on Institutional Positionality and Ethnic Identity: Thrown Ethnically into the Roman Forum 239 9.5.4 Institutional Positionality and Habitus 241 9.5.5 A Reflection on the Relevance of the Theory of Practice to Ethnic Identity: Is It All a Matter of Practice? 243

CONTENTS  

9.5.6 Merging Practice with Subjectivity: Reinterpreting the Relevance of Habitus to Institutional Positionality 9.5.7 A Subtle Detail: Reflection on the Ways the Australian-Born Generations Publicly Manifest Their Ethnic Identity 9.5.8 A Reflection on the nonni’s feticci spaesati 9.5.9 Self-Reflexivity and Reflexivity on Calabrian Social Capital Appendix References

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245 247 248 249 256 257

10 Conclusion and Further Reflections 261 10.1 Recapitulating the Findings 261 10.2 Transcending the Primordial—Constructivist Dichotomy 265 10.3 What This Study Does and Does Not Tell Us 268 References 270 Appendix 273 Index 283

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Fig. 7.4 Fig. 7.5 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 8.3 Fig. 8.4 Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2

Calabria 10 NVivo word frequency snapshot of first-generation participants’ key arguments or in colour for PDF version 113 Spaesato (Image Courtesty of Luca Vannini) 114 NVivo word frequency snapshot of second-generation participants’ key arguments 125 NVivo word frequency snapshot of third-generation participants’ key arguments 130 Bianco family. Note Participants are represented in grey 133 Genealogies of the extended network 167 Comparatico bonds between fourteen families 168 Business relationships among compari 169 The Rosso family 170 Comparatico ties between the Rosso family and the Verde family 171 The Giallo family 180 Genealogy of the Rosa family 188 Genealogy of the Marrone family 191 Family genealogies showing intergenerational transmission of cultural practices 194 Transitive theorem linking practice to subjectivity 228 Three scales of social life 256

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1  Introducing and Situating the Study The study reported in this book addresses ethnic identity and transmission across members of families originating from Calabria, southern Italy, and living in Adelaide, South Australia. It does so in relation to both the participants’ narratives across three generations, and their cultural practices observed ethnographically. It addresses unanswered questions on the intergenerational dynamics of ethnic identity relations among three generations, and of how they perform their ethnic ­identities through everyday practices. Firstly, I situate the study in relation to the socio-historical context, the geographical situatedness, the migration of Calabrians and their settlement in South Australia, in particular in Adelaide. Secondly, I present a rationale for and significance of the present study and its attempt to fill the methodological and ­theoretical gap of previous literature. This includes a discussion related to my own situatedness as a researcher, and the motivation that brought me to investigate the sense of attachment to a Calabrian identity claimed and enacted by individuals who were born in Australia. Lastly, the chapter concludes with a synopsis of all of the chapters in the book.

© The Author(s) 2020 S. Marino, Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2_1

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1.1.1   Italians in Australia Until the 1920s, Italian migration to Australia had remained infrequent. Of the 14 million Italians who left their mother country between the last quarter of the nineteenth century and World War I, only onetenth of one per cent found their way to Australia (Cresciani 1986). However, as this trickle of immigrants became a steady flow between the two world wars, Italians could be found working on the cane fields of North Queensland, mining in Kalgoorlie, farming in New South Wales and Victoria and fishing in Fremantle and Port Pirie. As more wives and children joined the men, a number of communities arose, each developing its own distinctive cultural life. The appearance, in the period from about 1930 to 1950, of the Italian festa was symbolic of the emerging confidence that Italians displayed in their own identity and the need to create a cultural space in the mostly hostile Australian environment. Such celebrations, usually in honour of the home-town patron saint, were re-enacted in the form of street festivals in north Queensland and Gippsland, for example, and as fishing festivals in Fremantle and Port Pirie (Pascoe 1992). From the very beginning, the Anglo-Australian dominant group revealed an ambivalent reaction towards the Italian immigrant group. On the one hand, there persisted among the aristocracy and middle classes of British background a favourable disposition towards Italy as a place of ancient ruins, museums and refinement, a place of pilgrimage (Pascoe 1987). On the other hand, the influx of mostly illiterate Italian workers and peasants did much to undermine such romantic notions. In reality, Italian workers were mostly resented by their Anglo-Australian counterparts, who viewed them as competitors in times of high unemployment and economic depression. Moreover, these early Italian settlers were generally isolated and singled out not only on the basis of their inability to speak English but also, true to the prevailing racist attitudes of the dominant majority, on the basis of their ‘olive’ complexion. As Bosworth (1988) has pointed out, many Anglo-Australians were unsure whether Italians counted as ‘white’, particularly if they came from southern Italy or Sicily. This point contributed to the development of a white fantasy supremacy which placed the Italian group at the bottom of the immigration chart (Hage 2012). On the other hand, such negative out-group categorisation probably served as a further stimulus to the development of an Italian-Australian community identity.

1 INTRODUCTION 

3

The relative achievement of Italian groups in becoming rapidly established in their numerous activities was also a contributing factor to Anglo-Australian resentment. At the time, such achievement was attributed to their acceptance of exploitative work practices (indentured labour, non-unionism) to which other Australian workers would not submit. As Alcorso (1992) has noted, the parsimony of the Italian family earned it the reputation of being able to ‘live off the smell of an oily rag’. In reality, such success as they reached was hard-fought and derived both from the aspirations and economic vulnerability of the migrants and the high levels of cooperation which existed both between groups of paesani and within the family unit (Zontini 2004; Alcorso 1992). In many ways the experiences of these early immigrants became emblematic of the struggle to succeed in a new land and set the scene for the second wave of Italians who arrived on Australian shores in the 1950s and 1960s. Like the earlier generation, the majority of post-Second World War migrants also originated from rural areas and small Italian towns. However, as Castles et al. (1992) have noted, they were drawn to the capital cities and industrial centres by the promise of employment in Australia’s expanding manufacturing sector and building construction industry. A significant number of these immigrants had to come to terms with the dislocation of rebuilding their lives in a society which was in the midst of industrial modernisation and which also presented them with the challenge of adapting to new cultural values and institutions. The Italian-born population reached its peak of nearly 290,000 persons in 1977 when it constituted 2.3% of the total Australian population (Price 1979). However, it has been estimated that the actual number of Italian migrants who settled in Australia in this period approached 365,000 persons, of whom some 90,000 (nearly a quarter) left to return to Italy (Thompson 1980). By the mid-1970s, more Italian-born persons were leaving Australia than entering, largely as a result of the improving economic fortunes of Italy and the desire of some to retire to the ‘old country’ (Hugo 1991). At the 1991 census there were approximately 254,000 Italian-born individuals living in Australia, still representing 1.77% of the Australian population. In addition to this first generation of Italians, the census identified more than 300,000 people who had been born in Australia with at least one Italian-born parent; of these, more than 190,000 or 63.11% had both parents born in Italy. Together, the first and second generations of Italian-Australians accounted for 563,000

4  S. MARINO

people or 3.67% of the total population of Australia at the time. Such records reveal the numerical strength of the Italian community. However, the distribution of Italian-born individuals—following peaks of immigration in the 1970s, 1990s and more recently in 2006 and 2016—varies across different Australian states and territories. The 1991 census represents the geographical situatedness of Italian migration to Australia, which continues today. According to the census of that time, more than 40% of people born in Italy were living in Victoria, followed in descending order by New South Wales (27.7%), South Australia (77.4%), Western Australia (l0.5%), Queensland (6.9%), the Australian Capital Territory (7.1%), Tasmania (0.5%) and the Northern Territory (0.3%). Of the state capitals in the 1990s, Melbourne had the largest Italian-born population, with 37.2% of the Australian population of people born in Italy. Sydney with 56,828 was the next highest, representing 22.47% of the Italian-born in Australia, followed by Adelaide with 10.6%. In relation to South Australia specifically, the two local government areas with the highest proportion of Italian-born persons were Payneham (72.2%) and Campbelltown (11.8%), both areas in Adelaide. According to the latest census in 2016, Italian migrants still constitute the largest group of overseas-born migrants after immigrants from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and China. The 2016 census recorded 185,402 Italian-born people in Australia, a fall of 6.9% from the figures of the 2006 census. The 2016 distribution by state and territory showed Victoria still had the largest number, with 76,909 Italian-born, followed by New South Wales (51,626), South Australia (20,708) and Western Australia (19,477). 1.1.2   Italian Migration to South Australia Italian migration to South Australia was a relatively modern phenomenon of the twentieth century, with the overwhelming majority of settlers arriving after 1945 (see Castles et al. 1992). In a study of Italian migration to and settlement in Western Australia, Gentilli (1982) identified four phases, and these can equally apply to South Australia. The ‘individualists’ phase of migration covers the earliest period up to the turn of the twentieth century. It was characterised by the arrival of adventurers, Catholic missionaries, sailors and fishermen, and others who jumped ship. During this period in South Australia, the Italian-born population increased from 141 in 1881 to 327 in 1901. This represented

1 INTRODUCTION 

5

6.7% of the tiny total Italian-born population living in Australia at the turn of the century. In 1901, the fledgling Italian community was also composed overwhelmingly of men, with nine times more men than women. The second phase of migration, covering the period up to the 1930s, was identified by Gentilli et al. (1982) as involving ‘proletarian migration’. This period was sparked by the signing of the Commercial Treaty in 1883 between the British Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, giving Italian subjects freedom of entry, travel and residence, and the right to acquire and own property and to carry on business activities (Gentilli et al. 1982). The treaty was ratified by all the Australian colonies except South Australia, which may help explain the fall in this colony’s Italian-born population relative to the overall South Australian population (from 10.3% in 1881 to 4.8% in 1891; Chiro 1998). As Hugo (1993) explained, during this period (after 1900), South Australia experienced an accelerated arrival of Italians, who began working mainly as labourers in both rural and urban areas but primarily concentrated in Adelaide. Additionally, after 1921 the introduction of tighter controls on immigration to the United States forced many intending emigrants to travel to Australia instead, and thus the number of Italians in South Australia increased even more dramatically between 1927 and 1933. According to Borrie (1954), most of the Italian immigrants during this time were underprivileged farm labourers who could enter Australia only if they paid £40 or were sponsored by friends and relatives. This latter part of the second phase of Italian migration, therefore, marks the start of chain migration to Australia—the process whereby families and neighbours from particular villages or regions move to a new country or to a city, then assist their relatives to join them (Colpi 1991). At this time, Italians were living in clustered settlements in and around Adelaide. As Borrie (1954) pointed out, there were probably economic factors involved in this pattern of settlement, since the Italians tended to follow a fairly narrow range of occupations—working in restaurants, growing and selling fruit and vegetables, fishing and, to a lesser extent, mining and timber cutting. Thus, entry into these occupations encouraged a concentration of settlement, which was already evident in Adelaide by 1921. Furthermore, and as a result of the growing trend to sponsored migration, it was much easier for newcomers to find assistance from and employment with people they already knew from Italy

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and with whom they shared the same dialect, traditions, beliefs and way of life. The need for a sponsor, both for Australian and Italian migration processes, in turn, cemented the chain migration dynamics: according to Baldassar and Pesman (2005), in the interwar years, both Australian immigration policy after 1925, which required a sponsor for migrants who could not bring a considerable sum of capital into the country, and Italian policy after 1928, which required an atto di richiamo (sponsorship form) before departure, encouraged chain migration. The snowballing effect of this system resulted in entire family groups and people from the same village (paesani) living in Australia, so that by 1939 there were more people from certain Italian villages residing in Australia than in Italy (Cresciani 1988). In Adelaide, this pattern continued to be followed by post-war immigrants, to the extent that their settlement patterns produced a distinctive regional distribution, with migrants from specific parts of Italy settling in specific suburbs (Bertelli 1987; for example, Campanians have settled in the north-eastern suburbs and Calabrians in the western suburbs). The third phase of Italian migration to Australia, covering the period between 1931 and 1945, was one of slower growth, as it included both the Great Depression and World War II. It was followed, however, by the most intensive period of Italian migration. This influx occurred at a time of planned mass migration to Australia in the immediate ­post-war years, with immigration levels reaching an unprecedented high and the encouragement for the first time of large-scale migration from non-English-speaking sources. As Hugo (1993) pointed out, this was a function of labour shortages in the rapidly developing post-war economy. The success of the Displaced Persons programme encouraged the Australian government to facilitate immigration from other northern European nations and, not without some trepidation, also from southern Europe. For its part, the Italian government, which was struggling with high unemployment, was eager to assist, so that between 1947 and 1954 the Italian community in Australia almost quadrupled. Over these same years, South Australia received more than its proportionate share of the new influx of Italians, with the community growing from 2428 to 11,833 and the state’s share increasing from 7.2 to 9.9% of the Italian-born living in Australia. Hugo (1993) posited that this intensification can be attributed to the rapid post-war industrialisation of the Australian economy, which made South Australia, and Adelaide in particular, one of its major foci.

1 INTRODUCTION 

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The economic growth through the 1950s, which created job opportunities for blue-collar workers, was matched by sustained levels of Italian immigration. The Italian population of South Australia more than doubled between the 1954 and 1961 censuses and the state’s share of the national Italian community increased from 9.9 to 11.5%. Subsequently, as industrialisation slowed in the 1960s, the population growth of South Australia also slowed and the Italian-born community reached a peak of 32,428 in 1971. Since then, there has been a marked decline in the Italian-born population, both nationally and within South Australia, even though the state has maintained intact its share of the Italian-Australian community since the 1960s. Whereas the present Italian-born population in Australia (according to the 2016 census) is highly urbanised, this was not always the case (Hugo 1993). According to Borrie’s (1954) analysis of pre-war Italian settlement, the proportion of Italians living in the capital cities was consistently below the proportion of the overall national population in cities. Although this pattern was less marked in South Australia, the proportion of rural dwellers has declined consistently since 1921, when it represented two-thirds of the Italian-born population of South Australia, to the current level of 7%. According to Hugo (1993), the patterns of settlement outside of metropolitan Adelaide once again primarily reflected the types of occupations in which Italians were involved. Italians worked mainly in horticulture, irrigated agriculture, cane-cutting, mining, fishing and forestry, rather than dry farming or pastoralism. Thus, the main concentrations of Italians in non-metropolitan South Australia in the post-war period tended to be in the Iron Triangle area, where many worked either in the smelters and steelworks of Port Pirie and Whyalla, in the power plants and railways of Port Augusta or as fishermen at Port Pirie and Port Germaine. There were also large numbers in the local government areas on the northern fringes of metropolitan Adelaide, in areas such as Salisbury, Virginia, Munno Para, Mallala and Two Wells, where many Italians were and still are involved in market gardening and intensive horticulture. Other Italian communities became established in the irrigation areas along the River Murray at Waikerie, Murray Bridge–Mobilong, Renmark and Barmera. The post-war period also generated the growth of Italian communities in the south-east of the state (Mount Gambier, Penola, Millicent, Naracoorte and Beachport), following the expansion of the forestry, fishing and grape-growing industries in the region.

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1.1.3   The Italian Urban Ecology of Adelaide The latest national census, which provides information about Adelaide and its Italian population, was conducted in 2016 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In 2016, the Italian-born population was among the top five of the largest ancestries in the following areas in and around Adelaide: • City of Burnside • City of Playford • City of Campbelltown • City of Port Adelaide Enfield • City of Charles Sturt • City of Prospect • City of Holdfast Bay • City of Salisbury • City of Seaton • City of Marion • City of Tea Tree Gully • City of Mitcham • City of Unley • City of Norwood Payneham & St. Peters • Town of Walkerville • City of Onkaparinga. In the cities of Campbelltown, Seaton, and Norwood Payneham & St. Peters, the Italian-born population was higher than any other group, except the English-born and the Australian-born groups. The 2016 census shows an increasing number of new arrivals from China and Ireland, and it is interesting to note the shift in ancestry and the new trends in migration. However, in the 2016 Census analysis of ancestry, those who self-report Italian ancestry remain one of the top five ethnic groups in the cities of Campbelltown, Seaton and Norwood Payneham & St. Peters: • Italian ancestry (12,869 people or 25.7% of the total population of these three areas) • English ancestry (12,129 people or 24.2%) • Australian ancestry (10,617 people or 21.2%)

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• Chinese ancestry (4034 people or 8.0%) • Irish ancestry (2877 people or 5.7%). The settlement of Italians in the urban and cultural ecology of Adelaide can be represented in the following way. A large number of Campanians (originating mainly from the provinces of Benevento and Avellino) have settled predominantly in the northern and eastern suburbs of Payneham, Glynde, Hectorville, Campbelltown, Newton and Tea Tree Gully. Meanwhile, a robust presence of Calabrian families (originating from the province of Reggio Calabria from such villages as Platì, Taurianova, Sinopoli, San Martino and Caulonia) is still evident in Adelaide, mainly in western suburbs such as Seaton, Woodville, Torrensville, Fulham and Lockleys, and also in northern areas such as Salisbury, Virginia, Munno Para, Mallala and Two Wells, where many Italians were and still are involved in market gardening and intensive horticulture. This geographic disposition would seem to result from the Italian diaspora of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, where Italian migrants coalesced into what has been called the ItalianAustralian community. The choice of neighbourhood was usually influenced by economic and social needs, such as the cost of housing and the networking of the ethnic group. Chain migration, market gardening and the practice of networking were the main factors that influenced the Italian-Australian urban ecology of Adelaide, which still is marked by a strong regional character. The social and economic needs of Italian immigrants have contributed, therefore, to the construction of a space and to a sense of ‘common place’, where paesani have continued to live closely with one another, drawing imagined boundaries through the maintenance of their social relations. 1.1.4   An Overview of Calabria and the Aspromonte Hinterland Deep-seated social divisions have always existed in southern Italy (Levi 1963). From before the political unification of Italy in 1861 and until the end of the nineteenth century at least, Calabria (see Fig. 1.1) was the poorest region of Italy, largely forgotten by the modern Italian state (Teti 2004). The poorest areas of Calabria are found on the slopes of the Calabrian Apennines, the Aspromonte hinterland (Marino 2019c, d; Marino and Chiro 2014). This zone, literally the ‘harsh mountain’, is a relatively isolated area at 840 metres above sea level, and is approximately sixty kilometres from Reggio Calabria, the former regional capital. The area has been devoid of any natural forest for many centuries

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Žƒ–¿ ƒ—…ƒ ƒŽ‹œœ‹—’‡”‹‘”‡

Fig. 1.1  Calabria

”‡ƒ‘ˆ‘”‹‰‹‘ˆ ’ƒ”–‹…‹’ƒ–•

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11

and is subject to devastating soil erosion, with no mineral resources or waterfalls. The Aspromonte hinterland has been considered the most economically and technologically backward region on the Italian mainland (Brøgger 1971). A number of endogenous and exogenous problems, such as isolation, pestilence, earthquakes, poverty and endemic diseases have plagued this particular area. During the 1950s, which is the period in which the participants of the present study began to emigrate to Australia, the Aspromonte economy was based mainly on rural and pastoral activities. Cultivation needed to be carried out on terraced mountain slopes that criss-crossed the countryside (Marino and Chiro 2014; Marino 2019c). It was in this environment that scepticism and resentment towards the official state institutions were often expressed by villagers who, according to literature, had been living for centuries in a land that seemed largely to have been forgotten by Christianity, by morality and by history itself. In Levi’s (1963) words, ‘they had been excluded from the full human experience’ (Levi 1963). Economically, politically and geographically distant from the wealthier regions of northern Italy, located in the ‘underdeveloped’ periphery of Europe (Pitt-Rivers 1977) and therefore far from the hegemonic official power structure of the rest of Italy, rural Calabrians might be seen as a subaltern culture (Marino 2019c). According to Gramsci (1975), rural Calabrians can be seen as emblematic representatives of the subaltern culture, who conceive and interpret their lifeworld in opposition to the official hegemonic culture expressed by the dominant class. Values of honour, respect, morality and loyalty were adopted by subaltern cultures to address the necessities of the difficult physical and cultural environment (Lombardi Satriani 1980). For example, it was common among Calabrians from Aspromonte to adopt systems of mutual support through networking, ties of patron–client relations and family alliances among members of the same village (the paesani) to respond to the crushing poverty (Moss 1981; Minicuci 1981). These cultural strategies were historically adopted by the local populations to address their socio-psychological needs or to cope with the exploitation by wealthy landowners, the baroni, and the quasi-absence of state authorities from most areas of life including social welfare (Lombardi Satriani 1980). The absence of national social welfare was (and often is) considered normal insomuch as alternative networks and the ’Ndrangheta (the Calabrian mafia) served as a surrogate of the state (Movilia 2011).

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1.1.5   Calabrians in Australia: The Origin of a Community The present section of this chapter sheds light on the dynamics of construction of the Calabrian community, understood as an ethnic group that strategically maintains ‘their world’ (created by cultural practices and a shared common sense/senso comune)1 within a space that I refer to as meso, intermediate between the micro space of the family and the macro space of the Australian society. According to Vernassa (2003), from 1876 to 1925, only 1903 Calabrians migrated to Oceania. The number is insignificant compared to the flows of Calabrian migration towards South and North America during the same period. From 1876 to 1900, only 14 Calabrians in total reached Australia. The number increased to 35 in 1901 and to 150 in 1910. The peak in these early years was reached in 1922, when 860 Calabrians arrived. However this picture changed dramatically over the course of the twentieth century. The economic upswing in the 1950s and 1970s that changed the lives of people in so much of Italy largely ignored Calabria; while central and northern Italian cities experienced unprecedented growth, rural southern villages became increasingly depopulated. Critical conditions of poverty, overpopulation, malnutrition and unemployment, together with bilateral political agreements signed by the Italian and the Australian governments during the post-war period, brought Calabrians to Australia en masse (Marino 2019c). They recognised the opportunity to work, originally in the sugar cane plantations (Harvey 1948; O’Connor 1994). Since the beginning of the twentieth century, then, approximately 70,000 Calabrians have moved to Australia (Sergi 2014).2 They were primarily employed as shepherds, miners and farmers (Baggio and Sanfilippo 2011; Castles et al. 1992). It was specifically the province of Reggio di Calabria that provided the most substantial share of regional migration to Australia (Sergi 2014). In order to overcome their underprivileged migratory condition and their feeling of nostalgia of not being ‘at home’, Calabrian migrants in Australia clustered together and relied on specific cultural strategies that were analogous to those applied in Italy to cope with the absence of the state. As well as migrating to the most populous two cities of Australia, Sydney and Melbourne, large Calabrian communities concentrated in Western Australian cities such as Midland and Perth—specifically in the

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suburbs of Balcatta, Stirling and Osborne Park—and in South Australia in certain suburbs of Adelaide, such as Salisbury, Lockleys, Kidman Park and Seaton (Chiro and Smolicz 1998; Rando 1997). The influx of Calabrian workers prompted racist attitudes in the Anglo-Australian dominant group. The open hostility arose from their inability to speak English, as a result of their skin colour, and because of their real or imagined association with poverty, low levels of education and organised crime (Marino 2019b). Like many other southern Europeans, southern Italians were treated differently from northern Europeans and northern Italians, and considered ethnically ‘not yet white’ (Marino 2019b). This ambivalence reflected the legacy left by the White Australia Policy of 1901, which intentionally favoured immigrants from certain European countries, especially Britain. Although it was dismantled in 1973, the racist policy continued to lead to racial and ethnic discrimination of southern Italians for decades (Jayasuriya 2002; Nelson and Dunn 2013). Whereas whites were considered Anglo, Italians (especially southern Italians) were not. Such a white fantasy supremacy (Hage 2012) made ‘assimilation’ of the southern Italian group problematic within a society in which the dominant population had an Anglo-Saxon physical appearance (Bottomley 1992; Marino 2019b). Thus like many non-British migrants in Australia, after having arrived in the ‘host’ country, Calabrians experienced isolation and often open hostility. Their perceived isolation and the indifference from already established Australians contributed to a life of socio-cultural segregation.

1.2  The Rationale and Significance of the Study My previous research study focused on traditional Calabrian musicians who migrated to Australia (Marino 2012). At one event, having just performed the tarantella,3 one of the musicians pointed out that he not only had not forgotten his country, but that he felt ‘more Italian than the Italians who actually live in Italy’. What was of great interest to me at that time was that a similar attitude was being expressed by members of the younger generation. In particular, I was surprised when I heard a 20-year-old youth, who had been born in Adelaide, speaking the Calabrian language and claiming to be ‘Calabrian’, even though he had never been to Italy at all let alone specifically to Calabria. In his discourse, that evening, the boy kept talking in terms of ‘we, Calabrians’ and ‘them, the Australians’. Obviously, not everyone was like that.

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However, that sense of attachment to a ‘Calabrian identity’ claimed and enacted by immigrants and their descendants appeared worthy of further investigation and deserved to be fully investigated. In view of this experience, I decided to examine in what ways and in which domains Calabrian identity is constructed and transmitted across generations of Australians of Calabrian ancestry living in Adelaide. The motivation for the present study thus emerged from the desire to revisit previous research on Italian-Australian migration and ethnic relations, by examining the trigenerational processes of mutual adaptation related to their ethnicity in Australia. However the study itself is significant for a number of reasons. 1.2.1   Significance of the Study The present study is significant in seven ways, encompassing two major dimensions, methodological and theoretical. The significance of the study is firstly in its sustained ethnography. It contains an in-depth mapping and investigation of the practice of comparatico, a socio-cultural practice that has not been considered exhaustively by previous literature on Italian migration to Australia. Meticulous and intense ethnographic fieldwork allowed me to examine the modus operandi of such a cultural practice among the allied families and their modus vivendi within the diasporic context of migration. As a result, the present study includes not only ethnographic contributions but also pieces of self-reflexive ethnography extrapolated from the fieldnotes. In such self-reflexive ethnography I reflected also on the evolution of my own ethnic identity (see Chapter 5). The self-reflexive ethnography related also to my double role as a researcher who entered the field as both an outsider and insider. In order to reduce the distances between interviewer and interviewed (as a researcher who cannot make himself disappear), I made myself more visible (Marino 2020a). Therefore, the study is significant as a piece of research in which the researcher highlights, among his multiple identities, the habitus closer to his participants. In this case, he was one of the immigrants himself, and specifically a traditional musician—u sonaturi (the musician). Secondly, the study is significant for its contribution to literature on the experiences of three generations within the Australian diasporic scenario. The quantity of North American literature about Italian immigrant groups migrating to the Americas is substantial and tends to be

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grounded within the socio-anthropological traditions that have covered four generations. Australian research, on the other hand—in particular the earlier studies (Martin 1978)—has often confined itself to analyses of census data or naturalisation papers, with a substantial reliance on already published sources. While the settlement and social incorporation of Italian migrants in Australia over an extended period, peaking in the 1980s and 1990s, has been reasonably well researched, that research referred mainly to the first generation of Italian migrants, with few studies addressing their children, the second generation (Baldassar 1992; Rubino 1989; Vasta 1992). The core of this study is research into the experiences of three generations of Italian immigrants to Australia and demonstrates, diachronically, a process of mutual adaptation related to their ethnic identity. A third reason that the study is significant is in its examination of the case of an Italian migrant group from a well-defined geographical and cultural area of Italy. While there are numerous studies on immigrant groups originating from reasonably small geographical areas in North American literature (see, for example, Boissevain (1971) on Italians in Montreal; or Augusto Ferraiuolo’s (2012) work on Avelline4 identities in Boston), most Australian studies have addressed the settlement and social incorporation of Italian migrants in Australia by considering ‘the Italians’ as a homogenous ethnic group. The Italians in Australia tend to be depicted as sharing a common language, customs and lifestyles (Smolicz and Secombe 1989), although there are notable exceptions (see, e.g. Baldassar 2001; Bettoni and Rubino 1996; Chiro 2003; Cronin 1970; Curnow et al. 2012; Marino 2012; Cosmini-Rose and O’Connor 2008; Rubino 2010; Scarino and Mercurio 2004). Such a reifying approach can lead to a number of dangers,5 characterised by a deterministic oversimplification that dispossesses the participants in the study of their key ethno-historical characteristics.6 Speaking about ‘the Italians in Australia’ immediately conjures up two entities: ‘the Italians’ (as the ethnic group) and ‘Australia’ (the nation). This groupist way of speaking seems to be very deep-rooted in a number of studies that tend to take its referential value for granted. However, one would achieve more analytical traction in understanding the vexed issues of ethnic identity construction and transmission and matters of belonging by transcending such an a priori reification. This could be conjoined with Wimmer and Glick Schiller’s paradigm of ‘methodological nationalism’ (2003), the negation of the roles of non-state agents and of transnational

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economic, social and political structures of a stance that presupposes the nation state, uncritically treating it as the natural form of social organisation and/or reifying it. In the Australian research context, there is little anthropological literature on Calabrians and even fewer examples that focus on the construction and transmission of ethnic identity. In 2008, Cosmini-Rose and O’Connor examined the historical settlement of migrants to Australia from the Calabrian town of Caulonia. Then Misiti (1994), presented a socio-linguistic study of Calabrian migration to Australia. In this, he predicted the imminent demise or dispersal of Calabrian culture. The main factors at risk, in his view, were the Calabrian language and the sense of identity of the second generation, who claimed to have an Australian identity (Misiti 1994). However, the present book involves three generations of participants, and its findings contrast with Misiti’s research and move beyond the historian’s approach. Rather, the study has investigated ethnic identity from an anthropological perspective through the participants’ everyday practices in both personal and collective domains, with respect to the key questions of the construction, maintenance and transmission of identity across three generations. I believe that the intergenerational emphasis of the research marks an important contribution to the study of Italian migrant groups in Australia, which in the main have provided snapshots of these groups and have not focused on the generational transmission of ethnic identity. The fourth way in which the present research is significant, then, lies in its contribution to literature on the experiences of third-­generation Calabrian–Australians, which is a field of study as yet unexplored. While there is substantial literature on the second generation of ItalianAustralians (e.g. Paoletti and Johnson 2007; Vasta 1992; Baldassar 1992, 1999, 2011; Rosenthal and Cichello 1986), there are few studies that concern the third-generation. Related to this, the study also contributes to the discipline through its mapping of the genealogies of the participating families and of certain family alliances, in order to gain greater reflexive insights into the dynamics of the intergenerational transmission of ethnic identity. Fifth, theoretically speaking, the study is significant because it approaches the fact of migration in ways that transcend the classic binary of nostalgia and racism (implicitly considered as the strength of migration studies and often placed as the dulcis in fundo of a number of qualitative studies). According to the present study, ethnic identities are not merely attributable

1 INTRODUCTION 

17

to matters of racism or nostalgia. The research shows that the participants have experienced complex ‘social facts’ that involve a number of emotions and feelings, often contrasting (e.g. guilt and aspiration, affection and disaffection, remorse) and scarcely reducible to one or two causes (e.g. racism, nostalgia). The combination of all these emotions have affected not only individuals’ ethnic identity and their sense of belonging, but rather their fundamental unity of subjective experience of ‘being in the world’. Despite a large number of studies of migrants’ life experiences, the different emotional dimensions and a particular reflexivity on the continuities and discontinuities emerging from individuals’ experiences and dynamics remain understudied. Notable exceptions are Boccagni and Baldassar (2015), Marinelli and Ricatti (2013), Vanni (2013) and Scarino and Mercurio (2004). The present study considers the migratory experience holistically, that is as a fait social total, a total social fact. As a consequence, particular importance has been given, rather than to quantitative or statistical data, to participants’ phenomenology and ontological emotions, such as their feelings of being out of place or of in-between-ness, or collective ideas of sharing a ‘common sense’, all of which are explored in the chapters that follow. Sixth, it is hoped that this work will not only be of value for policymakers and scholars of migration studies, but also for immigrants themselves. The present study considers migrants as both emigrants and immigrants. People, when they migrate, are not tabulae rasae or blank slates; rather, they bring with them their culture, histories and networks. This line is crucial to develop a key feature of this study, the notion of ‘institutional positionality’ (i.e. the perception of one’s ethnic position within the world), which I have coined to try to capture the temporal, subjective and spatial being based on its presence here and now. In order to examine institutional positionality, I have employed multiple theoretical tools, often in between objectivism and subjectivism, practice and agency, anthropology and philosophy. The theory of practice (Bourdieu 1977) has been employed (and critically contextualised) and then juxtaposed with Gramscian and symbolic anthropology. This extends the understanding of ethnic identity within the discipline. To offer an example: despite the fact that individuals’ ethnic identities apparently can be embodied, this phenomenological matter cannot be explained readily with the ‘Bourdieusian equipment’ of habitus alone, understood as embodied long-lasting dispositions that individuals internalise through practice (Bourdieu 1977).

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Seventh, it was necessary to involve ontology and add an existentialist lexicon to decode the individuals’ own self-reflexive perception of their ethnic esserci nel mondo or ‘being in the world’ (De Martino 1975; Heidegger 1962, a very present-oriented awareness of one’s ethnicity that involves active reassessment of one’s ethnic identities. Crossing disciplines was crucial for me, to capture the temporal, subjective and spatial, the ‘phenomenology’ of my participants, based on their ethnic presence ‘here and now’. The reason for borrowing existential terminologies and incorporating them in migration studies is not the result of the classic intellectual narcissism that brings scholars to write in an obscure manner. Rather the use of existential terminologies is required to bridge perceived theoretical gaps (constructivism vs primordialism) and is in line with the Bourdieusian rationale that ‘anthropologists who do not attempt to answer philosophical questions are not anthropologists’ (Marino 2019c; Bourdieu 1977). Following this logic, the job of the anthropologist presupposes a specific mode of perception—a set of tenets of vision and di-vision—and the preferable way to acquire this is by observing people engaged authentically in ‘practical operations’, in order to interpret ‘what is going on’ ontologically and phenomenologically within their lived experience. 1.2.2   The Theoretical Dimension Central to this work is transcending the debate between primordialist approaches, which emphasise the unchanging nature of ethnic identity, and constructivist ones, which have the proclivity to overemphasise agency (and performance). The present study attempts to find a nexus between the so-called primordialists and the constructivists. It consists, therefore, in claiming that ethnic identity can be both embodied, transmitted and, at the same time, acknowledged consciously. This is why the study takes into account both the exis(tence) together with the praxis of participants in order to develop a holistic understanding of ethnic identity. The study endorses the existence of an ethnic being that might constrain individuals, but which at the same time can give them the freedom to choose, and to reassess their ethnic identity. This point contributes to the discipline since it clearly challenges the resilience of static identities (including the habitus and its durable dispositions; see Chapter 9), and extends the field of migration studies, particularly studies on the second and subsequent generations.

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Moreover, the methodological and theoretical modi operandi extend research methods. In particular, the present study is sympathetic to a rupture épistémologique (Bachelard 1938), in terms of a reflexive epistemological break that incorporates diverse theories in seeking holism in order to break (or least reduce) distances. By ‘reducing distances’ I mean, primarily, to offer a rethinking of the distances among the different academic ‘ethnic groups’ (not to say ghettos) of social sciences (whether they are anthropology, sociology or linguistics), including the distances between their practices and theories, the observer and the observed, with the hope of reducing also the distances between the nationals and the immigrants. An epistemological break is used to guard against appealing unconditionally to ‘structural rigidity’ while not ignoring the long tradition of socio-anthropological studies. Among the obstacles to doing research, there is the interpretation of ‘the world outside’ through monistic approaches based, for example, on the excesses of structuralism and also on a disenchanting relativism.7 The present study aspires to develop a solid ‘formation de l’esprit scientifique’ (Bachelard 1938), the formation of an ethnographic spirit that is aware of the etic and emic viewpoints, the positionality of the researcher and the risks of intellectual hegemony in social science. 1.2.3   The Methodological Dimension The study is also important for its methodological awareness that neither textual analysis nor ethnographic fieldwork alone can generate a holistic understanding of potential meanings. For example, an approach that focuses uniquely on conversational analysis might lead to taking data literally or reducing the study to an exegesis of the text, that is, by ignoring the ethnographic context that originates meanings far from the text. Sometimes meaning is not inside the texts, but displayed publicly (e.g. in the feast, the gift, the visit, the kin and the rituals). On the other hand, a crude ethnographic approach would lack the cultural anthropological interpretive tools to decipher the social facts. Geertz’s (1973) influential metaphorical binomial of culture as ‘text’ and of fieldwork as ‘reading’ inspired the methodology and theory of the present study. On a related methodological issue, the present research is significant in its interpretive components of a humanistic approach that practises ‘participant observation’ rather than ‘participant objectification’, inviting the

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researcher, through reflexivity, to take two steps back and to observe himself observing the subjects. The participants are therefore considered as reciprocators (rather than respondents or informants) and the researcher is engaged in co-constructing a world with them, by listening to their voices and also to their silences (which might be even more complex than understanding and transcribing an interview in Calabrian dialect). The study was conducted over a prolonged (three-year) period of close participant observation, focused on the three-generation phenomenon, within a suburb of Adelaide inhabited mainly by Italian migrants originating from Calabria. Analysis of the data was then combined with cross-checking, specifically into a reflection that tested the theory, the text and context.8 The rationale for this choice is that an excess of closeness might be methodologically problematic. There is also my attempt to avoid what Bourdieu refers to as ‘philosophical scholasticism’ (see Sect. 4.2.2). I consider fieldwork and participation to be the first step in finding out about the three-generational process of the participants. Being a relativist, but also a realist, I believe, as claimed by Geertz (2000), that one is able to get something which is ‘out there’. Fieldwork is a fundamental way of bringing out the ‘native voice’. In conclusion, what I hope I have achieved is to write an engaged work about ‘us’. This is because I understand ethnic identity as our understandings of who we are and who other people are, and, reciprocally, other people’s understandings of themselves and of others, which includes us. If it is true that ‘L’enfer c’est les autres’ (hell is other people), as Sartre (1944) claimed, to explain (also) that we construct our identities by reflecting (mirroring) ourselves on others, it is also true that in order to understand ‘the others’, we should reflect first on ourselves. Therefore, in this book, the object of the study is also the subject—it is us.

1.3  Synopsis of All Chapters This chapter has provided a preliminary discussion that situates the present study in relation to its context, focus and methodological orientation. Chapter 2 presents an overview of ethnic identity studies and provides an outline of the previous literature about Italian immigrant groups in Australia. Chapter 3 provides a discussion of the theoretical reference points of the present study. Given the complexity of the phenomenon of the construction and transmission of ethnic identity among Italian-Australians of

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Calabrian ancestry across three generations, I draw upon different interrelated disciplines, including Italian cultural anthropology and the sociology of migration. To better interpret participants’ ‘ethnic beings’, I draw upon Sayad’s (2004) concept of ‘double absence’ and De Martino’s (1975) ‘crisi di presenza’ (crisis of presence). While Sayad (2004) enables me to reflect on the perceptions of immigrants’ (and their children’s) presence when ‘thrown into the world’ of the receiving society, De Martino (1975) permits me to contextualise the relevance of their cultural practices and the influences of the mainstream society on minority groups, particularly once they have settled. To understand how individuals and social groups cope with their condition of being a minority, the De Martinian discourse is complemented by the socio-political Gramscian theory on cultural hegemony (Gramsci 1975). However, because Sayad and De Martino focus on minorities within a ‘dominant society’ they are less pertinent in the present study for an interpretation of the younger participants’ ethnic identities. As a consequence, the second theoretical reference point draws upon the Bourdieusian notions of conceptual apparatus of capital (Bourdieu 1977, 1986) and ‘the theory of practice’ (specifically the concept of habitus), complemented partially by symbolic anthropology. Such theoretical reference points offer a variety of theoretical tools useful to transcending the traditional dichotomies primordialism versus constructionism adopted by anthropological literature. Chapter 4 presents the methodology of the study. First, I discuss the ethnographic approach taken, and reflect on the double role of the researcher in the present study as both outsider and insider—not a spectator, but an engaged participant. The second part of the methodology provides a discussion on the design of the study, the selection of participants, the data gathering and its analysis. I also discuss the problematic usage of terms such as generation, ethnic groups, community and tradition and I then suggest an interpretation through a reflexive sociology that takes distance from static ascriptions. Chapter 5 focuses on a representation of the three generations, and specifically on the participants’ perceptions of ‘being Italian’. This identity appears to be understood differently across the three generations. Specific incidents reported by the participants’ interviews and their narratives based on their memories of experience about having an Italian background suggest a construction of ethnic identities that have been shaped, across generations, by the ascriptions given by the mainstream society. The weight of such ascriptions within certain dominant

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institutions, such as workplaces and schools, have influenced the participants’ perceptions of their ethnic background. In Chapter 6, the focus moves from general perceptions of being Italian to cultural sites and practices. These are sites where participating in the life of ‘being an Italian in Australia’ are manifested. I chose the sites reported specifically by the participants, such as Calabrian community clubs, events, stores and businesses, and regional feste (festivals), where a linguistic and cultural landscape might be perceived, created and recreated as ‘ethnic’ across the three generations. A cultural and linguistic space, often understood by the participants as ‘Calabrian’, is observed together with its senso comune made by shared practices of those who claim to belong to such a group. The cultural sites of ethnicity show the practices that are retained over time and how they are interpreted—modified diachronically and creatively—in interaction with the dominant society in Australia. In Chapter 7, I extend the discussion of the sites and practices to the community network. The network, especially the weight of its expectations and world views, and the degree of participation in social, cultural, familiar and religious practices, seems to contribute to a stronger sense of ethnic identity. Emblematic is the family alliance of the comparatico among participating families. Its socio-economic modus vivendi made of assistance, obligations, social visits, gift exchange and gossip, encapsulated within sharing the same ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu 1986), keeps the families and the wider circle together and contributes to a sense of collective ethnic identity. Chapter 8 focuses on the particular role of the first generation. It emerged from the analysis that the nonni (Italian grandparents) play a major role in the preservation of the cultural practices that the participants see as Italian. This leads to a discussion not only of what being Italian means to the participants, but to a focus that also includes how they feel Italian, on the emotional and affective dimension. The chapter presents an in-depth observation within the ‘domestic places’ of the first-generation participants. Specifically, whereas the first part of the chapter considers the second- and third-generation participants recalling their memories—the moments, scents and cultural practices they experienced with their Calabrian grandparents, the second part of the chapter presents synchronic ethnographic observations of two case studies related to some cultural practices at the nonni’s place. In Chapter 9, I present the findings and discussion, namely, the institutional positionality, the engagement and the relevance of the family which,

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taken together, shed light on the complex dynamics of the participants’ ethnic identities across the three generations. Such key findings have been grouped according to three scales of social life: the macro, the meso and the micro. Although there is some overlap, such scales of social life (conceived as cultural constructions that fluctuate from the public to the private pictures of individuals’ lives) are thought to correspond respectively to the public scale (macro) of the mainstream society, the intermediate (meso) scale of the ethnic community, and the private scale (micro) of the family. The first finding is a widespread cross-generation tendency for participants to perceive the double absence, the in-between-ness and the ethnic revival of their ethnicity. Such perceptions relate to the macro scale of social life. The second finding, on the other hand, relates to the meso scale of social life. A sense of ethnic identity is shaped within the ethnic group. It is specifically the individual’s engagement with the ethnic group and ‘their world’, which is made by cultural practices and a shared common sense that creates and maintains a collective sense of ethnic identity. The third finding relates to the micro scale of social life—the family—or more precisely, the presence, role and relevance of the grandparents. Not only are the nonni, genealogically speaking, at the top of the intergenerational line of the participating families, but the participants’ ethnic identities are shaped within the domestic domain of the Calabrian grandparents (i nonni), whose personas and loci are key generators of ethnic identity. In particular, a sense of ethnic belonging is embodied and idealised (mainly by the third-generation participants) from the memories, emotions and cultural practices. In Chapter 10, I discuss the implications of the research and consider its limitations. Firstly, the overall findings will be briefly recapitulated in order to begin a reflection on the need to transcend the primordialist–constructivist approaches of understanding ethnic identity, perhaps by embracing an approach that considers the relevance of practice and emotions. Finally, I consider the limitations of the present study, which was conducted within specific fields and encapsulated within fictional scales of social life.

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Notes 1. ‘Common sense’ and ‘senso comune’ are equivalent terms, both intended to have a Gramscian meaning—see Sect. 3.3. During the present study, for the sake of clarity, I utilise the Italian term to indicate the shared world views within the ethnic group of the Italian community, whereas the English term to indicate the perceived world views within the dominant Australian society. 2. Indeed, following World War II and until 1953, Calabria became the most represented Italian region in Australia, with more than 14,000 migrants, the majority of whom were peasants originating from a small number of underprivileged rural villages contiguous to the Aspromonte hinterland, such as San Luca, Platì, Sinopoli, Taurianova, Benestare and Careri. Those villages have provided a constant flow of migrants to Australia, nurtured by chain migration. In the 1970s, once again Calabrians represented the largest percentage in Australia of any Italian regional group, with more than 47,400 migrants (Marino 2019c; Cosmini-Rose and O’Connor 2008). 3. The term ‘tarantella’ groups together a number of different Mediterranean folk dances characterised by a fast, upbeat tempo, usually accompanied by accordions, tambourines, Calabrian lyre or bagpipes (Gatto 2007). 4. Originating from Avellino, in the Campania region of southern Italy. 5. Sometimes, an intellectual hegemony can be narcissistic or uncritical. If so, scholars who study minority groups risk adopting a paternalistic or benevolent attitude towards their ‘objects’ of study, to reduce their ‘values’, deterministically, to ascribed characteristics. 6. In this regard, as claimed by Geertz (1973), culture is not a self-contained ‘super-organic’ reality with forces and purposes of its own. Consequently, Italy is not that homogenous country of ‘one language and one army’ that Alessandro Manzoni highlighted (Fabietti 2009). Every Italian region has been influenced by various cultures due to the strategic cultural position of the Italian peninsula, in the heart of the Mediterranean, one of the ‘busiest cultural areas’ of all times (Fabietti 1998). 7.  An excess of relativistic laissez-faire might lead to considering certain ‘meanings’ as never fixed, always open to interpretation and negotiation, whereas ethnography considers ‘the cultural stuff’ in the field to be characterised by a stratified ‘hierarchy of meaningful structures’ in terms of which twitches, winks, fake winks, parodies, rehearsals of parodies are produced, perceived and interpreted (Geertz 1973). 8. The researcher cross-checks information in order to build holism and build what Appadurai (1996) calls a ‘theory of reception’ that incorporates an understanding of ‘situatedness’ and ‘intertextuality’.

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References Alcorso, C. (1992). Italians in Australia during World War II. In S. Castles, C. Alcorso, G. Rando, & E. Vasta (Eds.), Australia’s Italians: Culture and community in a changing society (pp. 18–34). Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Appadurai, A. (1996). Global ethnoscapes: Notes and queries for a transnational anthropology. In A. Appadurai (Ed.), Modernity at large (pp. 48–65). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bachelard, G. (1938). La formation de l’esprit scientifique. Paris: Vrin. Baggio, F., & Sanfilippo, M. (2011). L’emigrazione italiana in Australia. Studi Emigrazione/Migration Studies, 183, 477–499. Baldassar, L. (1992). Italo-Australian youth in Perth—Space speaks and clothes communicate. In R. Bosworth & R. Ugolini (Eds.), War, internment and mass migration: The Italo-Australian experience 1940–1990 (pp. 207–224). Rome: Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale. Baldassar, L. (1999). Marias and marriage: Ethnicity, gender and sexuality among Italo-Australian youth in Perth. Journal of Sociology, 35, 1–20. Baldassar, L. (2001). Visits home: Migration experiences between Italy and Australia. Melbourne: University Press. Baldassar, L. (2011). Italian migrants in Australia and their relationship to Italy: Return visits, transnational caregiving and the second generation. Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 20(2), 1–28. Baldassar, L., & Pesman, R. (2005). From paesani to global Italians: Veneto migrants in Australia. Crawley: University of Western Australia Press. Bertelli, L. (1987). Profilio socio-culturale della collettività culturale in Australia. Il Veltro, Rivista Della Civiltà Italiana, 31(1–2), 31–53. Bettoni, C., & Rubino, A. (1996). Emigrazione e comportamento linguistico. Galatina: Congedo Editore. Boccagni, P., & Baldassar, L. (2015). Emotions on the move: Mapping the emergent field of emotion and migration. Emotion, Space and Society, 16, 73–80. Boissevain, J. (1971). The Italians of Montreal: Social adjustment in a plural society. Ottawa: Ayer. Borrie, W. D. (1954). Italians and Germans in Australia: A study of assimilation. Melbourne: Cheshire for Australian National University. Bosworth, R. (1988). Post-war Italian immigration. In J. Jupp (Ed.), The Australian people: An encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins (pp. 613–616). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bottomley, G. (1992). From another place: Migration and the politics of culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

26  S. MARINO Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research in the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press. Brøgger, J. (1971). Montevarese: A study of peasant society and culture in Southern Italy. Bergen: Universiteitsforlaget. Castles, S., Alcorso, C., Rando, G., & Vasta, E. (1992). Australia’s Italians: Culture and community in a changing society. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Chiro, G. (1998). The activation and evaluation of Italian language and culture in a group of tertiary students of Italian ancestry in Australia. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Adelaide. Chiro, G. (2003). Cultural maintenance and ethnic self identification: A model cultural types. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 3(2), 2–19. Chiro, G., & Smolicz, J. (1998). Evaluation of language and social systems by a group of tertiary students of Italian ancestry in Australia. Altreitalie, 18, 24–65. Colpi, T. (1991). Italians forward: A visual history of the Italian community in Great Britain. London: Mainstream Publishing Company. Cosmini-Rose, D., & O’Connor, D. (2008). Caulonia in the heart: The settlement in Australia from a southern Italian town. Adelaide: Lythrum Press. Cresciani, G. (1986). Italians in Australia: Past, present and future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cresciani, G. (1988). Italian Immigrants 1920–1945. In J. Jupp (Ed.), The Australian people: An encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins (p. 500). North Ryde: Angus & Robertson. Cronin, C. (1970). The sting of change: Sicilians in Sicily and Australia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Curnow, T. J., Marino, S., & Chiro, G. (2012). Language maintenance in seven Australian families of Calabrian background. In J. Henderson, M.-E. Ritz, & C. Rodriguez Louro (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society (Perth, 5–7 December 2012). https://sites. google.com/site/als2012uwa/proceedings. De Martino, E. (1975). Morte e pianto rituale: Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria. Turin: Boringhieri. Fabietti, U. (1998). Identità etnica: Storia e critica di un concetto equivoco. Rome: Carocci. Fabietti, U. (2009). The ‘discourse’ of Baluchi nationalism and its relations to the idea of a Baluchi identity. ISA International Guest Lecture, Centre for Studies in Asian Cultures and Social Anthropology, 3 June 2009. Retrieved February 13, 2018, from https://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/Institute/ISA/PDF/ events/einladung_the_discourse_of_baluchi_nationalism.pdf. Ferraiuolo, A. (2012). Religious festive practices in Boston’s North End: Ephemeral identities in an Italian American community. Albany: SUNY Press.

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Gatto, D. (2007). Suonare la tradizione: Manual di musica popolare calabrese. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. (2000). Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Gentilli, J., Stransky, C., & Iraci, C. (1982). Italian Migration to Western Australia, 1829–1946: no. 909678-24-3 (p). Department of Geography, University of Western Australia. Gramsci, A. (1975). I quaderni del carcere. Turin: Einaudi. Hage, G. (2012). White nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society. New York: Routledge. Harvey, J. (1948). Black Hand Vengeance. Sydney: Invincible Press. Heidegger, M., 1962. Being and time. Trans. from 7th German edn by John Macquarie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper. (Originally published 1927 as Sein und Zeit, Tübingen: Neomarius Verlag.) Hugo, G. (1991). Atlas of the Australian people: South Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Hugo, G. (1993). Patterns and process of Italian settlement in South Australia. In D. O’Connor & A. Comin (Eds.), Proceedings of the First Conference on the Impact of Italians in South Australia, 16–17 July 1993 (pp. 33–66). Adelaide: Flinders University. Jayasuriya, L. (2002). Understanding Australian Racism. Australian Universities’ Review, 45(1), 40–44. Levi, C. (1963). Cristo si è fermato a Eboli. Torino: Einaudi. Lombardi Satriani, L. M. (1980). Antropologia culturale e analisi della culture subalterne. Milan: Rizzoli. Marinelli, M., & Ricatti, F. (2013). Emotional geographies of the uncanny: Reinterpreting Italian transnational spaces. Cultural Studies Review, 19(2). http://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v19i2.3496. Marino, S. (2012). Calabresi ad Adelaide: L’esperienza migratoria vissuta dai suonatori tradizionali. Rome: Pioda Editore. Marino, S. (2019b). Ethnic identity and race: The “double absence” and its legacy across generations among Australians of Southern Italian origin. Operationalizing institutional positionality. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(5), 707–725. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1451649. Marino, S. (2019c). Thrown into the world: The shift between pavlova and pasta in the ethnic identity of Australians originating from Italy. Journal of Sociology, 144078331988828. Marino, S. (2019d). Existing research on Italian migrants in the USA and Australia: A critical overview. In S. Peterson, G. Stahl, & H. Soong (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of citizenship and education, version 8 (pp. 1–14). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

28  S. MARINO Marino, S. (2020a). An intergenerational conceptualisation of Italian-Australian ethnic identity through Bourdieu and Heidegger. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 26(1), 3–15. Marino, S., & Chiro, G. (2014). Family alliances and ‘comparatico’ among a group of Calabrian-Australian families living in Adelaide, South Australia. Journal of Anthropological Research, 70(1), 107–130. Martin, J. (1978). The migrant presence. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Minicuci, M. (1981). Le strategie matrimoniali in una comunità calabrese. Catanzaro: Rubbettino Editore. Misiti, N. (1994). Aspetti sociali e linguistici dell’emigrazione calabrese in Australia. Studi Emigrazione, 31(114), 242–307. Moss, L. W. (1981). The South Italian Family Revisited. Central Issues in Anthropology, 3(1), 1–16. Movilia, E. (2011). Intervento sulla Calabresità. La parola ed il silenzio, strumenti di comunicazione. Reggio Calabria: Palizzi Superiore. Nelson, J., & Dunn, K. M. (2013). Racism and anti-racism. In J. Nelson & K. M. Dunn (Eds.), ‘For those who’ve come across the seas …’: Australian multicultural theory, policy and practice (pp. 259–276). North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly. O’Connor, D. (1994). A change of image: The impact of Italy on young second-generation Italians in South Australia. Studi Emigrazione, 114, 269–283. Paoletti, I., & Johnson, G. C. (2007). Doing ‘being ordinary’ in an interview narrative with a second generation Italian-Australian woman. In M. Bamberg, A. de Fina, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), Selves and identities in narrative and discourse (pp. 89–106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pascoe, R. (1987). Buongiorno Australia: Our italian heritage. Melbourne: Greenhouse Publications and Vaccari Italian Historical Trust. Pascoe, R. (1992). Place and community: The construction of an ItaloAustralian space. In S. Castles, C. Alcorso, G. Rando, & E. Vasta (Eds.), Australia’s Italians: Culture and community in a changing society. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Pitt-Rivers, J. (1977). Mediterranean countrymen: Essays in the social anthropology of the Mediterranean. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. Price, C. A. (1979). Australian Immigration: A Bibliography and Digest, No. 4. Canberra: Department of Demography, Institute of Advanced Studies, The Australian National University. Rando, G. (1997). Migrant images in Italian Australian movies and documentaries. Altreitalie, 16, 16–22. Rosenthal, D. A., & Cichello, A. M. (1986). The meeting of two cultures: Ethnic identity and psychosocial adjustment of Italian-Australian adolescents. International Journal of Psychology, 21(1–4), 487–501.

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Rubino, A. (1989). Dall’italo-australiano all’italiano: Apprendimento linguistico fra li scolari della seconda generazione. Rassegna Italiana Della Linguistica Applicata, 21(3), 87–105. Rubino, A. (2010). Multilingualism in Australia. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 33(2), 1–21. Sartre, J.-P. (1944). Huis Clos [No exit and three other plays]. New York: Vintage International. Sayad, A. (2004). The suffering of the immigrant. Cambridge: Polity Press. Scarino, A., & Mercurio, A. (2004). We left: Narratives of the Sangiorgesi in South Australia / E partimmo: Narrazioni dei sangiorgesi del Sud Australia. Adelaide: San Giorgio la Molara Community Centre. Sergi, A. (2014). The evolution of the Australian ’ndrangheta: An historical perspective. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 48(2), 155–174. Smolicz, J. J., & Secombe, M. J. (1989). Types of language activation and evaluation in an ethnically plural society. In U. Ammon (Ed.), Status and function of languages and language varieties (pp. 478–514). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Teti, V. (2004). Il senso dei luoghi: Paesi abbandonati di Calabria. Roma: Donzelli Editore. Thompson, S. L. (1980). Australia through Italian eyes: A study of settlers returning from Australia to Italy. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Vanni, I. (2013). Oggetti spaesati, unhomely belongings: Objects, migrations and cultural apocalypses. Cultural Studies Review, 19(2), 150–174. Vasta, E. (1992). The second generation: Australia’s Italians; Culture and community in a changing society. In S. Castles, C. Allorse, G. Rando, & E. Vasta (Eds.), Australia’s Italians: Culture and communities in a changing society (pp. 155–168). Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Vernassa, M. (2003). Note su emigrazione e fascismo: La politica ‘a vista’ del regime (1922–1928). Signos Universitarios, 39, 107–134. Wimmer, A., & Schiller, N. G. (2003). Methodological nationalism, the social sciences, and the study of migration: An essay in historical epistemology1. International Migration Review, 37(3), 576–610. Zontini, E. (2004). Italian families and social capital: Rituals and the provision of care in British-Italian transnational families. London: Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group, London South Bank University.

CHAPTER 2

Previous Literature About Italian Immigrant Groups and Ethnic Identity

This chapter provides an outline of studies on ethnic identity and a brief overview of the previous literature on Italians in Australia. Section 2.1 presents an overview of relevant studies on ethnic identity, which are encapsulated in the debate between the two major paradigms—primordialism and constructivism. Section  2.2 examines literature about Italian immigrant groups; because the field is so vast, here I specifically focus on Australia, and touch on different themes, such as language, culture and ethnicity. Particularly relevant in the current study is the research on demography and history (Sect. 2.2.1), the sociology of religion and socio-linguistics (Sect. 2.2.2) and sociological and anthropological research and transnational studies (Sect. 2.2.3). Section 2.2.4 presents some limitations of previous studies of Italian immigrants and reflections on them.

2.1  Literature on Ethnic Identity There exists an enormous literature on the study of identity in its various forms. It is necessary to begin by pointing out that ­individuals have a large number of different identities of the type that previous literature has called ‘social identities’ (Barrett et al. 1999; Phinney 1990; Phinney and Ong 2007). According to Snow (2001), social identities are ‘the identities attributed or imputed to others in an attempt to situate them in social space’ (p. 36). Among possible social identities, which are © The Author(s) 2020 S. Marino, Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2_2

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typically grounded in establishing social roles, is ethnic identity (Marino 2020a; Phinney 1990). There are myriads of theories about and conflicting approaches to describing ethnic identity. Ethnic identity has been researched in the disciplines of history, development studies and historical archaeology (Galkina 2000; Green 2006; Hall 1991; Okamura 1981; Nora 1989; Ratcliffe 2004). Psychologists and educational researchers discuss its formation during early childhood and attempt to measure, compare and explore the self-identification of immigrant groups (Buckingham 2008; Di Carlo 1986; Phinney 1989, 1990, 1992; Phinney and Ong 2007; Tajfel 1978, 2010). Rather than focusing specifically on the cultural practices of minority groups, studies from the perspectives of political, postcolonial, racial and cultural studies emphasise the nationalism and profound political consequences in international relations of ethnic identity, investigating conflicts between ethnic groups (Anderson 2006; Bulmer and Solomos 1996; Chandra 2007; Crawford 2011; Fanon 1968; Hale 2004; Holland 2001; Horowitz 1985; Snow 2001). Sociologists and cultural anthropologists examine ethnic identity in the diasporic experiences of transnational migrants in order to i­dentify the ideological value orientations of minority groups and eventually draw models of cultural types (Bauman 2001, 2007; Castles 1995; Chiro 2003; Giddens 1991; Miller 2000; Sayad and Bourdieu 1991; Smith 1991; Smolicz 1983; Jacobs 2011; Vasta 1993; Vertovec 2001; Znaniecki 1968). From a linguistic perspective, studies have investigated the ­strategies for constructing ethnic identity via social interaction (Anderson, Hargreaves and Owtram 2009; Fishman 1985; Giampapa 2004; Goffman 1959; Gumperz 1982). From an anthropological perspective, studies have highlighted the tendency to elaborate a positive idea of the self in a society that conversely defines the ‘others’ as non-humans, different and diverse in prerogative terms (Marino 2020a; Fabietti 1998). Anthropologists consider ethnic identity a socially defined category based on a perceived shared social experience (Geertz 1973). Specifically, Fabietti (1998) considered ethnic identity to be a sense of belonging to a certain ethnic group, ‘the self-definition of the self and the others that is rooted in power relations of specific interests’ (p. 89). Hence, ethnic identity is meaningful in situations in which two or more ethnic groups are in contact (Fabietti 1998; Phinney 1990). Many social scientists do

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not consider ethnic identity to be universal or an essential quality inherent in human groups, but a cultural product of specific kinds of intergroup interactions (Epstein 1978; Fabietti 1998, 2009). The sense of belonging to a particular ethnic group is something pertaining to the symbolic, rather than the natural. Surveys of the literature on ethnic identity suggest two predominant and contrasting modes of analysis: primordialist and constructivist (Hale 2004). The former approach has been used in a number of ways and has its roots in an earlier generation of anthropologists (Needham 1978; Bulmer and Solomos 1996) who were concerned with the ‘primary factors’ of ethnic groups: fundamental elements such as language, religion, bloodlines and territory (Schiffman 1999). This approach sees ethnicity and ethnic identity as an a priori fact of human existence, an essential human constitution that precedes and is unchanged by any human social interaction. Primordialists consider ethnic groups as ‘natural’, not only historical. In other words, ‘our’ desire to identify with a group whose characteristics ‘we’ possess is simply reflexive (Crawford 2011). Geertz (1973, 1988), who was also counted as a primordialist, described ethnic identity as based on sentiments and memories of a shared past; people feel a sense of belonging through a perceived shared history. Primordialism, with its claim of the existence of markers of collective exclusivity, was often attacked by approaches that completely rejected so-called primordial features, as it could easily lead to xenophobia (Marino 2020a; Crawford 2011). The constructivist approach, in contrast to the primordialists, views ethnic identity as a social construct, malleable and dynamic, rather than innate and unchanging (Crawford 2011; Jacobs 2011). According to Okamura (1981), ethnic identity is invoked in some contexts but not in others. Ciliberti (2007) and Galkina (2000) state that ethnic identity is a rational resource adopted by ethnic groups or individuals as a strategy for pursuing political, social or economic goals. Constructivist social scientists see ethnic identity as a dynamic and fluid tool of interaction. Individuals, in a game played face to face during social interaction, may assume a number of ethnic identities that vary within the social context (Appadurai 1996; Bauman 2001; Hall 1992; Hobsbawm and Terence 1983; Maslak 2003; Smith 1981). Such individuals manage their identities as if they were resources metaphorically held in Chinese boxes, nesting hierarchically, or, as Signorelli (1989) claims, in concentric circles.

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According to Signorelli (1989), the interaction between alterity and identity sets up oppositional binomials between ‘us’ (members of the own group) and ‘them’ (the others), creating dynamic boundaries (Castles and Miller 2009; Maslak 2003). In the diasporic context, the frictions between alterity and identity can be understood as a system of concentric circles. In other words, the identity of ‘us’ always interacts with, and is in opposition to, ‘them’ in an intricate system of circles hierarchically enclosed one within the other (Signorelli 1989). In terms of the current study, for example, the first circle might represent the ethnic identity of ‘us’ in terms of ‘we, the people from the village of Palizzi in Reggio Calabria’. This circle is enclosed in a larger one, which would represent the identity of ‘we, Calabrians’, and this is enclosed, in turn, within the circle of ‘we, Italians’; and so on. The interaction between ‘we’ and ‘them’, the others-than-us, leads to an endless variety of concentric circles, each one representing a different degree of ethnic identity, always negotiable through social interaction (Bauman 2007; Goffman 1983; Lanternari 1983; Signorelli 2006). None of these theories provides a comprehensive explanation of ethnic identity fundamentally reducible to dichotomies: rational– irrational, conscious–unconscious and static–dynamic. Ethnic identity is both broader and more particular. The subject is extremely complex to unpack since it deals with both the collective spheres of individuals and their personal spheres; it deals with the objectivity and with the subjectivity of the individual, with practice and with emotions. In fact, ethnic identity exhibits multidimensional characteristics such as the syncretic combination of cultural and historical experiences, memories, emotions, affections, religion, kinship and physical markers and so on. Therefore, it should be analysed within a holistic approach that also takes into account the emic perspective of the actor, including his or her personal cognitive and phenomenological experiences and what he or she perceives as essential factors that groups should have. One of the limitations of the constructivist approach is that a priori it considers ethnic identity as a rational tool. Constructivists observe individuals switching identities rationally to manage situations and achieve goals. However, as Geertz (1973) claimed, ‘In every person, in every society, some attachments seem to flow more from a sense of natural – some would say spiritual – affinity than social interaction’ (p. 54). Schiffman (1999) claimed that in certain cultures there is an observable phenomenon that appears to be:

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a kind of meta-characteristic of the group: they see their language as an essential or as the very essence of their selfhood or ethnicity without which the group would, in their own estimation, cease to have meaning, or even cease to exist. (p. 1)

Furthermore, the Geertzian view of ethnic identity has been misunderstood and compared with the views of first-generation anthropologists who considered culture, and consequently ethnicities and identities, essentialist and static (Schiffman 1999). This was in part because of the ambiguous term ‘primordial’ that Geertz used; this led to a misinterpretation, since it might refer both to inborn and to ascribed attachments to ancient ‘values’ that individuals within an ethnic group might share (Dei 2009). In Geertz’s opinion (1973), ethnic identity is not itself primordial, but humans perceive it as primordial because it is e­ mbedded in their experience of the world. There is nothing intrinsic or ­essential in beliefs. For ‘primordial attachments’, Jenkins (2008) suggested that Geertz intended an attachment deriving from a sense of ‘natural’, strong sentiments of spiritual affinity perceived by the subject (not by the observer). In this sense, speaking the same language, believing in the same religion, bearing a physical resemblance, coming from the same specific territory, family or background, and perceiving the same history and similar life experiences can generate strong sentiments of empathy if seen from the emic perspective of the actor (Dei 2009). Another limitation of previous approaches is the tendency to ­measure levels of ethnic identity (Phinney 1990) and to construct typologies or categories (e.g. assimilated, separated, marginalised and integrated) of the level of integration of immigrants and their descendants in the host society. According to Sayad (2004), this is a tendency of some Western academic approaches that expect migrants to assimilate to the patterns of the hegemonic society. Such an approach, Sayad stated, deprives immigrants of all their other social identities, without considering, for example, that immigrants are also emigrants. According to McCrone and Bechhofer (2008), ethnic identity is the individual or collective definition of ‘the self’ and ‘the others’; it is ‘our understanding of who we are and who other people are, and, reciprocally, other people’s understanding of themselves and of others, which includes us’ (p. 7). Few scholars, with the exception of Barth (1970), Epstein (1978), Banks’ and Banks (1996), Jenkins (2008), Bottomley (1992) and Cromhout (2015), have gone beyond dichotomous approaches.

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These scholars considered both the role of practice and the psychological relevance of it in the construction of ethnic identity. Barth (1970) claimed that ethnic identity is perpetually negotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification, and that ethnic identity cannot be a rational tool. In rejecting any form of essentialism, Barth (1970) introduced the concept of boundaries, in which identity is maintained through social and cultural practices, the exhibition and the emphasising of shared values that contribute to marking the boundaries (Barth 1970). Epstein (1978) proposed an analysis of ethnic identity from two perspectives: the ‘public’ and the ‘intimate’. He criticised most sociological studies for only administering questionnaires rather than conducting intense participant observation, because, he claimed, an individual’s ethnic identity must be understood within a more complex ensemble that includes emotions and affections. Vermeulen and Govers’ (1994) notion of ‘culture as contestation and a zone of disagreement’ (p. 42) and Banks’ and Banks (1996) and Jenkins’ (2008) work on ethnic identity opened new windows on the interpretation of ethnic identity. Ethnic identity is formed by the delicate dialectical tensions between the private and the public self of the individual. Moreover, scholars such as Bottomley (1992), May (1999) and Cromhout (2015) employed Bourdieu’s theory of practice (Bourdieu 1977) and its notion of habitus. Following this line, considering the habitus as ‘a system of structure, structuring dispositions’ (Bourdieu 1977, p. 41), individuals might have an ethnic habitus (i.e. the product of social structures such as gender, social class and ethnicity) that shapes their ethnic identity. Despite the conflicting approaches to describing ethnic identity, researchers agree that its construction may be thought of as a process similar to ego identity formation, a sociological theory provided by Eriksen (2001). According to Eriksen, an achieved identity is the result of a period of exploration and experimentation that typically takes place during adolescence (Phinney 1990). From a psychological perspective, Di Carlo (1986) claimed that the construction of ethnic identity depends on the influences of some crucial affective ties during childhood. Past experiences and their practices in the domestic sphere have a strong impact on the construction of the ethnic sentiments of individuals (Di Carlo 1986; Maher 1978). Therefore, it would be worth adopting an anthropological and onto-phenomenological approach that, diachronically and synchronically, considers the multidimensional

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characters enclosed in individuals’ lives (historical experiences, ­memories, emotions, affections, the individual’s presence and cultural practices) combined with the Bourdieusian theory of practice and the notion of habitus (seen as the product of the inculcation of collective history, transmitted and embodied in forms of durable dispositions). Following this line, having found an alternative path between the so-called primordialists and the constructivists, the present study acknowledges that ethnic identity can be embodied, transmitted and, at the same time, consciously acknowledged (Baldassar et al. 2015).

2.2  Studies of Italian-Australians The migratory settlement and social incorporation of Italian migrants in Australia has been reasonably well researched over an extended period in a large number of studies. Research on the first generation of Italian migrants peaked in the 1980s and 1990s, with subsequent research focusing on their children as well. While North American literature about Italian immigrant groups migrating to the Americas is enormous and covers more than four generations, Australian research, particularly earlier studies, tended to be confined to analyses of census data or naturalisation papers, with a paucity of studies across even three generations (Martin 1978; Marino and Chiro 2014). Equally, Australian studies have almost never focused on specific groups, in contrast to North American studies, which have frequently looked at immigrant groups originating from reasonably small geographical areas. Australian studies normally analyse the Italians as a single group, thereby ignoring crucial ethno-historical characteristics, although there are exceptions (e.g. Cronin 1970; Baldassar 2001; Scarino and Mercurio 2004; Cosmini-Rose 2015; Giuffrè 2010). Several early Australian studies of immigrant groups reflected the approach of assimilation research in other English-speaking host countries, such as the United States and Canada (and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom). Since the 1970s, though, with the appearance of policies of multiculturalism in society and a corresponding viewpoint within Australian social research, studies have often focused on aspects of the Italian language and culture in Australia (including its history and demography) from sociological and anthropological perspectives, with in-depth analyses of socio-cultural practices, patterns of language usage and interaction with the dominant culture. Significant background

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studies are Australia’s Italians: Culture and Community in a Changing Society by Castles, Alcorso, Rando and Vasta (1992) and From Paesani to Global Italians: Veneto Migrants in Australia by Baldassar and Pesman (2005). The former examines the Italian community in Australia from historical, socio-political and economic perspectives and the second from an anthropological perspective, specifically in the matters of granting belonging, ‘doing belonging’ and matters of second-generation transnationalism. The relevance of Baldassar and Pesman (2005)’s work resides in the fact that the Italian migration process does not end with the first generation. One should consider it a continuous process rather than taking a traditional view that there is a departure followed by permanent settlement elsewhere. A migration process continues through to the second, third and potentially subsequent generations. After a stage in Australian research in which cultural groups were evaluated according to theories of characteristic and core values, Pallotta-Chiarolli (2010) adopted Anzaldúa’s (1987) borderland and mestizaje theories on ‘being in the middle’ and applied them in the field of ethnicity and identity negotiation among Italians in Australia. Similarly, under the aegis of Bauman’s (2011) theories of identifying as a foreigner (or stranger) within one’s identity, Marotta (2010) used such concepts in the study of Italian-Australians. From the perspective of linguistics and narrative analysis, the work of Scarino and Mercurio (2004), We left, (re)conceptualises the migratory identity of Italian migrants in South Australia by focusing on the narratives of the sangiorgesi in Australia. 2.2.1   Demography and History According to Chiro (1998), ‘the first Australian research on ethnic groups was generally generated by official interest in attracting suitable foreign nationals as migrants’ (p. 136). After World War II, a significant number of European migrants were admitted into the country, as a result of what Arthur Caldwell, who had recently become the first Australian Minister for Immigration, talked about as the need to ‘populate or perish’. The pioneers of Italian migrant research in Australia relied heavily on census data to trace post-immigration settlement patterns and the phenomenon of chain migration (e.g. Borrie 1954; Heiss 1966; Pyke 1946, 1948; Packer 1947; Jones 1962, 1964; Price 1963; Zubrzycki

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1960). A number of other studies, mainly unpublished dissertations, focused on defined Australian communities of Italians, relying on published sources as well as their own fieldwork (e.g. Gamba 1949, 1952; McDonald 1958; Hempel 1959; Petrolias 1959). The pioneers of Australian research also focused on how immigrants assimilated into the dominant way of life and the fact that large numbers of Australian immigrants did not come from Great Britain. The focus of the researchers was social—the assimilation of ethnic groups and the lack of parity between the social, cultural and economic backgrounds of the ethnic group and the host society. For example, in Germans and Italians in Australia (1954), Borrie suggested that because of the extent and diversity of the immigration programme, Australians would be compelled to consider their attitudes towards the non-British in their midst more carefully than they had in the past. Borrie’s research observed the assimilation of groups that had settled in Australia before 1939 and attempted to assess the factors that had historically facilitated (or prevented) that process, based on the differences between Australians and non-Australians (Chiro 1998). His work offers a significant understanding of the dominant attitudes of ‘old’ Australians towards their new, non-British neighbours, and was mainly inspired by North American literature, where the study of assimilation was a strong, long-term line of research—see, for example, the pioneering studies of Franceschini (1908), Cuneo (1940), Favero (1993) and Thomas and Znaniecki (1927/1966), or the more recent work of Boissevain (1971) on Italians in Montreal or Ferraiuolo (2012) on the Avellinesi in Boston. In Australia, another important study was conducted by Price (1963). His work focused on southern Europeans in Australia in the immediate post-war period, pointing mainly to the patronising attitude of local Australians (whom Price referred to as ‘native’), who felt empowered by patronising their ‘dago’ neighbours. Price’s work was important because he also highlighted the response of the immigrant groups. Apart from the processes of assimilation and integration, Price also explored the ethno-historical features of the immigrants’ values and traditions, and the reactions of the host country. Price introduced the concept of chain migration, which he identified as a three-step model that corresponded to the migration tendency of the time: ‘the arrival of the sole man, the calling out of wives, and the subsequent calling out of elderly parents once the family was established in Australia’ (Price 1963).

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Following the early studies of Borrie (1954) and Price (1963), others carried out historical and demographic studies. As examples of these, one can consider the recent work of Cosmini-Rose (2015) and Cosmini-Rose and O’Connor (2008). They examined the historical settlement of Calabrians in South Australia through records and interviews. The latter focused specifically on migrants from the Calabrian town of Caulonia, with the findings mainly limited to the practices of the first generation. However, these studies show the type of material covered by a historical approach and the richness of the demographic data that can be collected through records. Nonetheless, historical approaches to Italian families in Australia have tended to focus on the effect of family reunion policies, through which unmarried men could sponsor wives, fiancées, children and, ultimately, their parents, to reunite in Australia (e.g. Castles 2000; Huber 1977; Storer 1985; Vasta 1995). In these studies, there is a strong focus on the processes of chain migration, such as the role of male individuals as the strategic economic actors; and this renders secondary the role of the family and intergenerational matters. Demographic and historical approaches also sometimes assume a clear endpoint—as mentioned in Sect. 1.2.1, in his study of Calabrian migration to Australia, Misiti (1994) predicted the imminent demise or dispersal of their culture. These lines of analysis provide further motivation for the examination of current cultural practices and identity construction among Calabrian– Australian families. 2.2.2   Sociology of Religion and Socio-Linguistics A pioneer in the field of sociology of religion was Pittarello. In his study, Soup without Salt: The Australian Catholic Church and the Italian Migrant (1980), he analysed the dynamics of interaction and adaptation between the minority group and the dominant group. The author stressed the cultural strategies of the minority group, emphasising the value of religion for Italian immigrants and drawing attention to the differences between the system of religious values of the minority and that of the Anglo-Celtic cultural institutions. He claimed that whereas the Italians’ relationship with religion includes cultural practices, Anglo-Australian society’s approach towards religion appears to be more personal and individualistic. Another point Pittarello made was that the Australian church system seemed more accommodating of cultural diversity, allowing Italians to be regular churchgoers by offering a mass in

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Italian in areas of the city where there were numerous Italian migrants. Pittarello investigated the importance of the Italian migrants’ social practices, including for example the carrying of a statue of the patron saint in a procession through the local town. In the 1980s, Pittarello and similar scholars gave a particular e­ mphasis to the core values of a culture. Emerging from this, from the 1980s to the 1990s, Smolicz and various associates published numerous papers on the cultural and linguistic systems of ethnic minority groups. The key idea of this humanistic, sociological approach is the concept of core cultural values, which Smolicz (1981) and later Chiro (1998) applied to the study of minority ethnic groups in multicultural societies. Specifically, Smolicz’s theory advocated that every ethnic group has a nucleus of values that are fundamental to the cultural group’s existence and which act as distinctive values that symbolise membership of the group (Smolicz 1979, 1980, 1981). For instance, according to core values theory, certain groups are particularly language-centred, whereas others focus more on religion, social structure or family, and the cultural values that serve to identify members of one group may not necessarily serve to identify members of another group (Smolicz 1981; Smolicz and Secombe 1989; Chiro and Smolicz 1993). Of course, a focus on the core values of an ethnic group in this way tends to result in identity being viewed as a static condition. However, in his work Smolicz did raise the importance of language use among cultural groups and highlighted that the use of the mother country’s language is sometimes confined to the domestic space, describing it as the ‘kitchen language’ (Smolicz 1981). In developing his results, Smolicz, in particular with his associate Chiro, focused on Italian dialects (e.g. in Chiro 1998), finding in particular that dialect was the mother tongue for most of the second-generation Italian participants, with standard Italian being for them not the second but a third language (after English). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, inspired by Smolicz, Chiro (1998, 2003) continued to research core value theory by categorising the evaluations of immigrants and their children according to their Italian background. He proposed four cultural types (Chiro 2003): active Italophiles (participants who value Italian language and culture positively); inactive Italophiles (those who are not active in the Italian language, but evaluate Italian language and culture positively); active Italophobes (those who activate the Italian language but have a negative evaluation of or feelings towards Italian language and culture) and inactive Italophobes (those who do not activate the Italian language and

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possess a negative evaluation of it). Chiro found that 74% of his participants were Italophiles, either active or inactive. The core cultural values literature on Italians in Australia thus came to have a strong focus on language and language maintenance. Other researchers were also carrying out socio-linguistic research on Italian-Australians during this time. Three of the pioneers of this type of research were Camilla Bettoni (1981, 1986), who researched code-switching and code-mixing among Italian bilinguals in North Queensland; Arturo Tosi (1991), who initiated a socio-linguistic study of Italian in English-speaking countries; and Desmond Cahill (1985), who conducted a socio-psychological study of the family environment and the bilingual skills of Italian-Australian children. However, while these studies were highly successful and in-depth linguistic investigations, they did not provide the kind of socio-anthropological insights on ethnic identity and cultural practices among generations that form part of the focus of the present investigation. 2.2.3   Sociology and Anthropology Among the Australian pioneers of Italian studies in the field of ­sociology were Severino and De Corso (1985). Their work was inspired by the sociological studies of Young, Cox and Daly (1983) on the working-class experiences of Greek and Italian youths. The significance of the Severino and De Corso (1985) study was that it was conducted at the micro level, in the Adelaide suburbs within the council areas of Payneham and Campbelltown. It attempted to identify the needs of young ­people of Italian background in the areas of employment, welfare, health, education and recreation. Rather than investigating the settlement of the immigrants, the focus was on their children. The major results showed that, on the whole, the young Italian-Australians who were interviewed had low self-esteem and feelings of insecurity, and felt conflicted around their peers from Anglo-Saxon backgrounds. The emphasis on the second generation was mainly on the struggles they experienced when interacting with their parents (the first generation), who strongly attempted to preserve their values. This generated a torrent of research focusing on the second generation, and particularly on issues of gender. Notable research on the second generation of Italian-Australian women was conducted by Pallotta-Chiarolli (1989), Vasta (1992) and Baldassar (1998, 1999, 2011). Whereas Vasta and Baldassar focused

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mostly on the sociological aspect of the second generation and their identity struggles, Pallotta-Chiarolli dedicated more attention to what was happening within the family domain. Turning now to anthropological studies, one of the earliest significant anthropological works in Australia on Italian migrants was Cronin’s (1970) The Sting of Change: Sicilians in Sicily and Australia. The author compared the social organisation of southern Italian migrants from Sicily in both the host country and in the country of origin. Of importance was her investigation of southern Italian family life and kinship and how it played out in Sicilian families in Sydney. Cronin applied a structural anthropological approach that allowed her to analyse the family organisation in both nuclear and extended forms, where the latter refers to the alliances of comparatico (godparenthood) among Sicilian families. She found that there had been virtually no change in relations with members of the extended family, although ‘clumping together’ for a few years after migration was common. Within the nuclear family, there was evidence of some change towards egalitarianism in the husband–wife relationship and a separation of the world of adults from the world of children. Another important anthropological pioneer was Huber (1977). She investigated two groups of Italians from the northern Italian province of Treviso, who had fully settled in Australia. In her book, From Pasta to Pavlova: A Comparative Study of Italian Settlers in Sydney and Griffith, the focus was on the traditions and cultural practices of immigrants from Treviso who had emigrated to the cities of Griffith and Sydney. Their cultural assimilation and resistance to change found results similar to comparable North American sociological studies. Huber stressed the relevance of social class and socio-historical characteristics to the familial and marital relationships of her study group. She also noted the importance of patterns of education and acculturation, together with the social and interactional roles of the community (e.g. the role of shops and church). She examined extended and fictive family patterns, and the way immigrants find it easier in the receiving society if they maintain their culture and traditions within the host country. Finally, Huber discussed the fact that what she referred to as settlement patterns seem to differ between Italian diasporic groups according to the varying socio-political, class and economic structures of the different Italian regions. For example, unlike the trevisani residing in Italy, the immigrant group in Australia lived exclusively in nuclear households, with at most one or two relatives nearby. Hence, close community relationships gave way to loose

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networks of acquaintances and although people attempted to set up ties through comparatico, these seldom endured (Huber 1977). By the 1990s, transnational approaches began to review the understanding of migration processes by acknowledging that immigrants continue to have connections to their mother country (Schiller et al. 1995). For example, Goulbourne et al. (2010) investigated Italian transnational families by stressing strong family ties and connections to the family homeland, viewing them as a source of social capital. Notable is Marotta’s (2014) study of the transcultural subject, which challenges previous theories of acculturation characterised by the tendency to reify groups. By highlighting the ‘the dark side’ of transculturation, Marotta’s transcultural subjects are seen not as abstract entities but agent entities. More recent anthropological and sociological studies have paid particular attention to Italian families in migratory and transnational contexts—for example, Baldassar (2007), Baldassar and Gabaccia (2011) and Baldassar and Merla (2014). Not only did these works reconsider previous key literature, such as the concepts and theorisation of migrants who support repatriation back home (Huber 1977), but also the idea of sistemazione (where a family of Italian origin ‘set up’ by buying a property in Australia) or the dynamics of the construction of italianità among Italian-Australians. Their study was a well-timed reminder of the pivotal role that family might play in transnational contexts. Moreover, they went beyond the approaches of push-economic factors in migration and the concept of assimilation into Australian society. Specifically, adopting a constructivist approach that advances the field under the umbrella of migration and cultural anthropology, they observed the key topics of gender, lives in a mobile world, mobility and absence in family life, and the circulation of care. In response to the issue of (trans)national links, a study by Marino and Chiro (2014) investigated the relevance of intra-ethnic networks among migrants and their descendants within the diasporic society by focusing on the role played by nuclear, extended and comparatico family alliances among Calabrian families in Australia. Here the focus was the common sharing of duties and obligations within the ethnic community, which functions not only to overcome the struggles of post-World War II migrants (primarily resulting from discrimination in the period following the abolition of the White Australia policy) but also to adhere to the perceived shared expectations of the ethnic community. This ethnographic study interpreted the intra-ethnic network

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as a cultural strategy serving as a buffer with a key role in the migrant Italian-Australians’ modus vivendi. However, although ethnic identity was practiced and performed within a comparatico context, in the previous intergenerational interactional discourse, the construction and transmission of ethnic identity had rarely been at the heart of the conceptual analysis. In more recent research, an awareness of globalisation has provided new paradigms for interpreting transnational histories and the impact on immigration (Marino 2020a). Literature points out that in today’s globalised era, what is new about migration is that people are no longer ‘one-way trip’ migrants, as migration often involves a circular pattern of returning to visit home (cf. Hugo 2014). As Baldassar and Pesman (2005) point out in their study of granting belonging, ‘doing belonging’, and second-generation transnationalism, the Italian migration process does not end with the first generation; it needs to be considered as a continuous process, rather than considering it in the traditional way as consisting of a departure and a permanent settlement. Robertson (2014) has noted that migrants to Australia are becoming more professional and skilled, corresponding to the current migration agenda, where an array of new ‘temporary visas’ have taken pride of place in migration policy, replacing a focus on family migration. Global and transnational approaches have resulted in the development of a solid and innovative research programme in Australia (see Iuliano and Baldassar 2008; Ricatti 2018), where concepts such as transnationalism and diaspora have been used in interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approaches, proposing new theoretical ideas through a critical use of transcultural, decolonial, gendered and anthropological theoretical reference points. For example, Vanni’s (2013 theorisation of ‘the transcultural edge’ seems to be a new tool for understanding ‘transculturation’ and ethnic identities. Recent literature is characterised by a multidisciplinarity that goes beyond traditional approaches. A study conducted by Marinelli and Ricatti (2013) focused on the emotional and intimate sides of transnationalism (and the concept of ‘uncanny transnational spaces’); the authors suggested that their approach, focusing on an emotional reaction to migration that might be both familiar and unfamiliar, homely and unhomely, is an alternative pathway that historians or theoreticians of economics might use to advance their fields. Very recently, Ricatti (2018) presented relevant elements of the migratory experience over the past 150 years, along with socio-economic mobility, disorientation and

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reorientation, and identities, mainly from a historical approach, in which the author stresses the importance of reinterpreting key aspects of Italian migration history through a transcultural reconceptualisation that would benefit areas of Italian studies by reconsidering migration history and public memory in a more critical way. Emerging contemporary and transnational approaches to Italian migration may encourage social scientists to look beyond the local and make connections across Italian migrants in a broad range of international settings. Nevertheless, thus far there has been no in-depth investigation across three generations within the scenario of Italian migrants in Australia. 2.2.4   Limitations of Previous Studies The literature on assimilation into Australian society and on Italian migrant communities have both managed to focus at times on the role of gender (Miller 2011; Sharpe 2001), but this has eclipsed the potential relevance of the family and the intergenerational dynamics of identity transmission. Moreover, as noted, many of the studies on Italian-Australians have showed a tendency to consider the Italians as a uniform group, although the experiential gaps between the various Italian regions reveal dissimilarities in history, language, economic factors and socio-cultural characteristics. Little comparative and qualitative analysis among Italian minority groups in Australia has been conducted from a small-scale ethno-anthropological perspective including an extended period of fieldwork. Despite a growing multidisciplinary literature, disciplines have generally maintained their boundaries and distance from other interrelated fields. Ethnicity is a ‘being’ that is constantly constructed due to a number of diverse factors such as language, religion, culture, appearance, ancestry, or what Nagel (1994) referred to as regionality. The concept of ethnic identity has been investigated only partially among ItalianAustralians, and not across three generations. In terms of the evaluation of ethnic identity, Smolicz (1979, 1981) developed core values theory, which attempted to interpret the ethnic identity of cultural groups in Australia based on language usage by the different generations of participants, and claimed that certain groups are particularly language-centred, whereas others focus more on religion, social structure or family. For language-centred groups, language, as a

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symbol of ethnic identity, means more than communication (Smolicz and Secombe 1989). However, despite its acknowledgement of the presence of certain cultural group characteristics (e.g. family, language), core value theory presents some limitations for the interpretation of ethnic identity. It tends to view identity as a static condition, possibly due to a methodological approach that does not always suspend judgement or academic ethnocentrism. An emic perspective appears to be lacking. Core values theory seems to show a positivistic proclivity that follows a structural functionalism which divides, classifies and typifies cultures at the risk of objectifying people and culture as entities with distinct and unchangeable customs and behaviours. In addition, while language may be a critical feature that contributes to the development of ethnic identity (Fishman 1985; Gudykunst and Schmidt 1987; Gumperz and Cook-Gumperz 1982; Chiro 2008; Scarino and Mercurio 2004), and rather than being just a means of communication is actually a symbol of ethnic identity and a central prerequisite for the authenticity of the group membership, it is also true that a number of other markers of ethnicity define the group. The literature that has focused on Calabrian–Australians usually lacks an anthropological approach and tends to describe the ‘Calabrian culture’ through an etic or essentialist perspective. For example, Sergi’s (2014) etic definition of Calabrians as ‘between proletarians and criminals’ in her study on criminality once again risks objectifying the object of study. It depicts a partial image of a cultural group with static characteristics, without addressing the emic perspective. Similarly, Cosmini-Rose and O’Connor (2008), a study on the settlement of Calabrian migrants in South Australia, portrays the diasporic ethnic group from a reifying approach. There is a proclivity to see the Calabrian group as a static minority, a modus (non-)operandi that seems to typologise the cultural group and its traditions according to certain a priori characteristics, as metaphorical and ethnocentric essences that the researcher sees as in their hearts. Paradoxically, it was the historians who de-historicised and deprived Calabrians in Australia of crucial ethno-historical factors. In collecting Calabrian folkloric practices, perhaps through a postcolonial methodological approach based, among other things, on the unconditional and undisputed role of a homo academicus who does not live among the natives, the emic perspective was almost ignored; hence, Calabrian culture has been reified, caricaturised and painted as a static island with

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its traditions. Furthermore, in spite of the chain migration patterns of Italian immigrants to Australia, little attention has been given to the relationship between the social networks and ethnic identity and to the dynamics of transmission of ethnic identity per se. Moreover, despite the large number of qualitative studies of Italian migrants’ life experiences, what remains relatively understudied are the emotional dimensions and a particular reflexivity on the continuities and discontinuities emerging from individuals’ emotional experiences and dynamics. There are some exceptions (e.g. Boccagni and Baldassar 2015; Barbalet 2002; Boiger and Mesquita 2012; Svasek and Skrbis 2007; Skrbis 2008; Svasek 2008, 2010), which tend to consider emotions as social and intersubjective, or, broadly, as physiological and biologically driven phenomena. According to Barbalet (2002), emotion is ‘an experience of involvement’ that ‘registers in (one’s) physical and dispositional being’—it ‘is in the social relationship’ (p. 1). Furthermore, numerous studies affirm that Italian migrants and their descendants are reasonably well incorporated into Australian society; minority groups are ‘breaking up’ fairly rapidly due to the process of homologation in globalised societies (Parimal and Hamilton 2000). However, cultural transformations are not necessarily homogenous; rather, they can be characterised by discontinuities, resistances and shifts. Minority groups might show an apparent high level of integration within the public sphere of the dominant society, but reveal different results within the domestic sphere. Additionally, there is little literature about the annihilation of immigrants’ presence from an onto-anthropological perspective, which examines their cultural need to respond to the hegemonic power with specific cultural strategies. Bottomley’s (1992) work views the issue of the presence of migrants, mainly social actors of the Greek diaspora of the post-World War II period, and addresses questions of culture and power form the emic perspective of the immigrants. Therefore, a balance is needed between the etic and the emic perspectives in order to avoid an excess of positivism that might reduce the social world as an axiomatic reproduction of objective structures, or instantaneous and astatic mechanical equilibria between individuals who are treated as interchangeable particles. Within the literature on Italian-Australians, insightful associations have been made with concepts of ethnicity, gender, mobilities, transnationalism, multilingualism, emotion and affect. For example, valuable attempts to de-provincialise Italian migration studies were made by Cronin (1970),

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Baldassar (1999, 2007), Giuffrè (2010), Baldassar and Pesman (2005) and Iuliano and Baldassar (2008). Additionally, Baldassar (2015) juxtaposed the notion of campanilismo or village-mindedness, usually i­nvolving the first-generation immigrants. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to the intergenerational construction of ethnic identity and its transmission across three generations of Italian-Australians.

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52  S. MARINO Dei, F. (2009). Identità culturale nel mondo in frammenti: Convegno cultutra e memoria; Identità locali e questione nazionale. Palermo: Sellerio. Di Carlo, A. S. (1986). I luoghi dell’identità. Milan: Franco Angeli Press. Epstein, A. L. (1978). Ethos and identity: Three studies in ethnicity. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction. Eriksen, T. H. (2001). Ethnic identity, national identity, and intergroup conflict. In R. D. Ashmore, L. Jussim, & D. Wilder (Eds.), Social identity, intergroup conflict, and conflict reduction (pp. 42–68). New York: Oxford University Press. Fabietti, U. (1998). Identità etnica: Storia e critica di un concetto equivoco. Rome: Carocci. Fabietti, U. (2009). The ‘discourse’ of Baluchi nationalism and its relations to the idea of a Baluchi identity. ISA International Guest Lecture, Centre for Studies in Asian Cultures and Social Anthropology, 3 June 2009. Retrieved February 13, 2018, from https://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/Institute/ISA/PDF/ events/einladung_the_discourse_of_baluchi_nationalism.pdf. Fanon, F. (1968). Black skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press (Originally published in 1952 as Peau noire, masques blanc). Favero, L. (1993). Fonti per lo studio dell’emigrazione in Argentina. In G. Rosoli (Ed.), Identità degli italiani in Argentina: Reti sociali, famiglia, lavoro (pp. 29–77). Edizioni Studium: Roma. Ferraiuolo, A. (2012). Religious festive practices in Boston’s North End: Ephemeral identities in an Italian American community. Albany: SUNY Press. Fishman, J. A. (1985). The rise and fall of the ethnic revival. New York: Mouton. Franceschini, A. (1908). L’emigrazione italiana nell’America del Sud: Sull’espansione colonial transatlantica. Roma: Forzani. Galkina, H. (2000). Theoretical approaches to ethnic identity. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved February 13, 2018, from http://xroads.virginia. edu/~DRBR2/galkina.html. Gamba, C. (1949). The Italian immigration to Western Australia: A study in economic history and sociology. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Western Australia. Gamba, C. (1952). A report on the Italian fishermen of Fremantle: A preliminary study in sociology and economics. Crawley: University of Western Australia. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. (1988). Works and lives: The anthropologist as author. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Giampapa, F. (2004). The politics of identity, representation, and the discourses of self-identification: Negotiating the periphery and the center. In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 192–218). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Giuffrè, M. (2010). L’arcipelago migrante: Eoliani d’Australia. Roma: CISU.

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Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 1–17. Goulbourne, H., Reynolds, T., Solomos, J., & Zontini, E. (2010). Transnational families: Ethnicities, identities and social capital. Routledge. Green, E. D. (2006). Redefining ethnicity. Paper presented at the 47th Annual International Studies Association Convention, March, San Diego, CA. Retrieved May 30, 2011, from http://personal.lse.ac.uk/green/ISA.pdf. Gudykunst, W. B., & Schmidt, K. L. (1987). Language and ethnic identity: An overview and prologue. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 6(3–4), 157–170. Gumperz, J. J. (Ed.). (1982). Language and social identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gumperz, J. J., & Cook-Gumperz, J. (1982). Introduction: Language and the communication of social identity. In J. J. Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity (pp. 1–21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hale, H. E. (2004). Explaining ethnicity. Comparative Political Studies, 37(4), 458–485. Hall, S. (1991). Ethnicity: Identity and difference. Radical America, 23(4), 9–20. Hall, C. C. I. (1992). Please choose one: Ethnic identity choices for biracial individuals. In M. P. P. Root (Ed.), Racially mixed people in America (pp. 250– 264). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Heiss, J. (1966). Residential segregation and the assimilation of Italians in an Australian city. International Migration, 4(3–4), 165–171. Hempel, J. A. (1959). Italians in Queensland: Some aspects of post-war settlement of Italian immigrants. Canberra: Australian National University. Hobsbawm, E., & Terence, R. (1983). The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holland, D. (2001). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Horowitz, D. L. (1985). Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. Huber, R. (1977). From pasta to pavlova: A comparative study of Italian settlers in Sydney and Griffith. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Hugo, G. (2014). From permanent settlement to transnationalism: Contemporary population movement between Italy and Australia. Trends and Implications. International Migration, 52(4), 92–111. Iuliano, S., & Baldassar, L. (2008). Deprovincialising Italian migration studies: An overview of Australian and Canadian research. Flinders University Languages Group Online Review, 3(3), 1–16.

54  S. MARINO Jacobs, J. (2011). 2010 Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture Sacred Space and Collective Memory: Memorializing Genocide at Sites of Terror. Sociology of Religion, 72(2), 154–165. Jenkins, R. (2008). Rethinking ethnicity (2nd ed.). London: Sage. Jones, F. L. (1962). The Italian population of Carlton: A demographic and sociological survey. Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University. Retrieved from ANU Open Research Repository. https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu. au/bitstream/1885/10921/1/Jones_F_1962.pdf. Jones, F. L. (1964). The territorial composition of Italian emigration to Australia 1876 to 1962. International Migration, 2(4), 247–265. Lanternari, V. (1983). Festa, carisma, apocalisse. Palermmo: Sellerio. Maher, V. (1978). Women and social change in Morocco. In L. Beck & N. Keddie (Eds.), Women in the Muslim world (pp. 100–123). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marinelli, M., & Ricatti, F. (2013). Emotional geographies of the uncanny: Reinterpreting Italian transnational spaces. Cultural Studies Review, 19(2). http://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v19i2.3496. Marino, S. (2020a). An intergenerational conceptualisation of Italian-Australian ethnic identity through Bourdieu and Heidegger. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 26(1), 3–15. Marino, S., & Chiro, G. (2014). Family alliances and ‘comparatico’ among a group of Calabrian-Australian families living in Adelaide, South Australia. Journal of Anthropological Research, 70(1), 107–130. Marotta, V. P. (2010). The cosmopolitan stranger. In S. Van Hooft & W. Vanderkerckhove (Eds.), Questioning cosmopolitanism (pp. 105–120). Netherlands: Springer. Marotta, V. (2014). The multicultural, intercultural and the transcultural subject. In Global perspectives on the politics of multiculturalism in the 21st century (pp. 106–118). London: Routledge. Martin, J. (1978). The migrant presence. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Maslak, M. A. (2003). Daughters of the Tharu: Gender, ethnicity, religion, and the education of Nepali girls. New York: Routledge Falmer. May, S. (1999). Critical multiculturalism and cultural difference: Avoiding essentialism. In S. May (Ed.), Critical multiculturalism: Rethinking multicultural and antiracist education (pp. 11–41). London: Falmer Press. McCrone, D., & Bechhofer, F. (2008). National identity and social inclusion. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31, 1245–1266. McDonald, J. S. (1958). Migration from Italy to Australia, with special reference to selected groups. Ph.D. thesis Australian National University. Miller, D. (2000). Citizenship and national identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Miller, P. (2011). Calculating babies: Changing accounts of fertility decisions among Italians in Melbourne, Australia. In L. Baldassar & D. Gabaccia

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(Eds.), Intimacy and Italian migration: Gender and domestic lives in a mobile world (pp. 85–99). New York: Fordham University Press. Misiti, N. (1994). Aspetti sociali e linguistici dell’emigrazione calabrese in Australia. Studi Emigrazione, 31(114), 242–307. Nagel, J. (1994). Constructing ethnicity: Creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture. Social Problems, 41(1), 152–176. Needham, R. (1978). Primordial characters. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. Representations, 26, 7–24. Okamura, J. Y. (1981). Situational ethnicity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4(4), 452–465. Packer, D. R. G. (1947). Italian immigration into Australia. Masters thesis, University of Melbourne. Pallotta-Chiarolli, M. (1989). Beyond the myth of the good Italian girl. Fitzroy: Clearing House on Migration Issues. Pallotta-Chiarolli, M. (2010). Border sexualities, border families in schools. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Parimal, R., & Hamilton, I. M. (2000). Intermarriage among Italians: Some Regional Variations in Australia. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 31(1), 63–78. Petrolias, J. A. (1959). Post-war Greek and Italian migrants in Melbourne. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Melbourne. Phinney, J. S. (1989). Stages of ethnic identity development in minority group adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 9(1–2), 34–49. Phinney, J. S. (1990). Ethnic identity in adolescents and adults: Review of research. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 499–514. Phinney, J. S. (1992). The multigroup ethnic identity measure a new scale for use with diverse groups. Journal of Adolescent Research, 7(2), 156–176. Phinney, J. S., & Ong, A. D. (2007). Conceptualization and measurement of ethnic identity: Current status and future directions. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54(3), 271–281. Price, C. A. (1963). Southern Italians in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Pyke, N. O. P. (1946). Some reflections on Italian immigration into Australia. Australian Quarterly, 18(4), 35–44. Pyke, N. O. P. (1948). An outline history of Italian immigration into Australia. Australian Quarterly, 20(3), 99–109. Ratcliffe, P. (2004). Race, ethnicity and difference: Imagining the inclusive society. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International. Ricatti, F. (2018). Italians in Australia: History, memory, identity. Cham: Palgrave.

56  S. MARINO Robertson, S. (2014). Time and temporary migration: The case of temporary graduate workers and working holiday makers in Australia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(12), 1915–1933. Sayad, A. (2004). The suffering of the immigrant. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sayad, A., & Bourdieu, P. (1991). L’immigration ou les paradoxes de l’altérité. Brussels: De Boeck Université. Scarino, A., & Mercurio, A. (2004). We left: Narratives of the Sangiorgesi in South Australia / E partimmo: Narrazioni dei sangiorgesi del Sud Australia. Adelaide: San Giorgio la Molara Community Centre. Schiffman, H. (1999). Language, primordialism and sentiment. In G. Palmer & D. Occhi (Eds.), Languages of sentiments (pp. 25–38). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Schiller, N. G., Basch, L., & Blanc, C. S. (1995). From immigrant to transmigrant: Theorizing transnational migration. Anthropological Quarterly, 48–63. Sergi, A. (2014). The evolution of the Australian ’ndrangheta: An historical perspective. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 48(2), 155–174. Severino, B., & De Corso, L. (1985). Young Italo-Australians: A report on the needs of young people of Italian background in Payneham and Campbelltown. Campbelltown, SA: Campbelltown Community Youth Support Scheme. Sharpe, P. (2001). Women, gender and labour migration: Historical and global perspectives. New York: Routledge. Signorelli, A. (1989). Spazio concreto e spazio astratto: Divario culturale e squilibrio di potere tra pianificatori ed abitanti dei quartieri di edilizia popolare. La ricerca folklorica, 20, 13–21. http://doi.org/10.2307/1479398. Signorelli, A. (2006). Migrazioni e incontri etnografici. Palermo: Sellerio. Skrbis, Z. (2008). Transnational families: Theorising migration, emotions and belonging. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29(3), 231–246. Smith, A. D. (1981). The ethnic revival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, A. D. (1991). National identity. Reno: University of Nevada Press. Smolicz, J. J. (1979). Culture and education in a plural society. Canberra: Curriculum Development Centre. Smolicz, J. J. (1980). Language as a core value of culture. RELC Journal, 11(1), 1–13. Smolicz, J. J. (1981). Core values and cultural identity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4(1), 75–90. Smolicz, J. J. (1983). Modification and maintenance of culture among ItalianAustralian youth. Studi Emigrazione, 20(69), 81–104. Smolicz, J. J., & Secombe, M. J. (1989). Types of language activation and evaluation in an ethnically plural society. In U. Ammon (Ed.), Status and function of languages and language varieties (pp. 478–514). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Snow, D. (2001). Collective identity and expressive forms (CSD Working Papers). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2zn1t7bj.

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Storer, D. (1985). Ethnic family values in Australia. Sydney: Prentice-Hall. Svasek, M. (2008). Who cares? Families and Feelings in Movement. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 29(3), 213–230. Svasek, M. (2010). On the move: Emotions and human mobility. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36(6), 865–880. Svasek, M., & Skrbis, Z. (2007). Passions and powers: Emotions and globalization. Identities, 14, 367–383. Tajfel, H. (1978). Social categorization, social identity and social comparison. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 61–76). London: Academic Press. Tajfel, H. (Ed.). (2010). Social identity and intergroup relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1966). The Polish peasant in Europe and America: Monograph of an immigrant group (2nd ed.). New York: Dover Publications (Originally published in 1927 by Gorham Press). Tosi, A. (1991). L’Italiano d’Oltremare: La lingua delle comunità italiane nei paesi anglofoni. Firenze: Giunti. Vanni, I. (2013). Oggetti spaesati, unhomely belongings: Objects, migrations and cultural apocalypses. Cultural Studies Review, 19(2), 150–174. Vasta, E. (1992). The second generation: Australia’s Italians; Culture and community in a changing society. In S. Castles, C. Allorse, G. Rando, & E. Vasta (Eds.), Australia’s Italians: Culture and communities in a changing society (pp. 155–168). Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Vasta, E. (1993). Rights and racism in a new country of immigration: The Italian case. In J. Wrench & J. Solomos (Eds.), Racism and migration in Western Europe (pp. 83–98). London: Berg. Vasta, E. (1995). The Italian-Australian family: Transformations and continuities. In R. Hartley (Ed.), Families and cultural diversity in Australia (pp. 144–166). Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Available from https://aifs.gov.au/ publications/families-and-cultural-diversity-australia/7-italian-australian-family-transformations. Vermeulen, H., & Govers, C. (Eds.). (1994). The anthropology of ethnicity: Beyond ethnic groups and boundaries. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Vertovec, S. (2001). Transnationalism and identity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27(4), 573–582. Young, C., Cox, D., & Daly, A. (1983). Report of the Greek and Italian youth employment study. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Retrieved February 14, 2018, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED265227.pdf. Znaniecki, F. (1968). The method of sociology. New York: Octagon Books. Zubrzycki, J. (1960). Immigrants in Australia: A demographic survey based upon the 1954 census. Parkville: Melbourne University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Theoretical Reference Points

This chapter presents the theoretical reference points on which this study is based. Section 3.1 consists of an introduction that gives the rationale for employing specific theories. These theoretical reference points are then treated in depth in the following sections. The phenomenon explored in this book, the construction and transmission of ethnic identity among Australian individuals of Calabrian ancestry across three generations, is complex. It concerns abstract matters such as the subjective perceptions of one’s ‘ethnic being’, the intergenerational transmission of a sense of ethnic ‘collectivity’ among social actors who are migrants and non-migrants, and also self-identification and others’ ascriptions of ethnicity, and the individual or collective manifestation of ethnic identity. For this reason I draw upon key theoretical concepts which, under the aegis of cultural anthropology, encapsulate different topics (e.g. hermeneutics and phenomenology) in terms of the individual’s experience of their presence (Sect. 3.2), considerations of power (Sect. 3.3), and the accumulation of ‘forms of capital’ (Sect. 3.4). Philosophical existential terminologies are employed when discussing ontological matters (e.g. one’s ethnic presence).

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3.1  Introducing the Theoretical Reference Points Even though certain concepts derive from different theoretical ­traditions, they share certain important understandings and complement each other.1 Combining theoretical reference points permits greater reflexive insight and interpretation of collected data; it permits the researcher to decipher participants’ ‘social drama’ (Turner 1980)2 across generations by means of a holistic interpretation of the objects of the study. In taking this approach, this study seeks to transcend the eternal cycle of debate in social theory between two major paradigms in the understanding of social life: objectivism and subjectivism. Therefore, rather than applying an orthodox functionalist approach in the data analysis, this study is influenced by schools of thoughts that have remained outside the anthropological purview of migration studies, but which are fundamentally important when applied to the study of ethnic identity. The rationale for this choice is that it would be too limiting to interpret the participants’ ethnic identity by following a monistic theoretical approach that, for example, concerns only the strategic and situational aspects of ethnic identity while ignoring the socio-political dimensions or the social relevance of power in society. And vice versa: it would be too partial to follow a socio-political approach that insists on studying the exogenous forces of the so-called dominant society while neglecting the endogenous complexities that might arise from the more profound intimate dimension of individuals’ psyche and agency as a result of social and cultural dimensions. In this study, the construction and transmission of ethnic identity is approached chronologically, by starting ab ovo from the first-generation migratory experiences and by interpreting the phenomenology of the subsequent generations. The conceptual tools employed to observe the three generations will differ, mainly because the participants of this study are migrants and non-migrants and their ‘lived experiences’ cannot be interpreted by following one theoretical framework. The first theoretical reference point attempts to interpret the social actors’ ethnic perceptions of ‘being in the world’. The research literature that examines the experiences of individuals in specific moments of their historical existence is employed. Particular importance is given to a cultural anthropological approach linked to ontology, phenomenology and considerations of power within a transnational scenario related to migration and cultural diversity. This will be useful mainly for decoding the

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older generations’ ethnic identities.3 Specifically, to better interpret participants’ ‘ethnic beings’ I draw upon Sayad’s (2004) concept of ‘double absence’ and De Martino’s (1975) crisi di presenza (crisis of presence). Both concepts are often paraphrased in Heideggerian terms. In other words, rather than functionalism, De Martino’s work bears the influences of phenomenology and existentialism, in which the individuals’ presence is subject to their ‘thrownness into the world’ (Heidegger 1962) within a specific time and space. For example, the crisi di presenza is a momentary failure of the Heideggerian Dasein (being in the world),4 according to which the givens of the past (facticity) and the present should be transcended or reintegrated. However, a juxtaposition of De Marino and Heidegger is fundamental firstly because the former implies folklore as a cultural strategy, and secondly because for Heidegger one’s givens of the past (e.g. social class, ethnicity, etc.) are not necessarily considered a negative ‘being’; for Heidegger, what concerns is when and where one feels thrown into the world (Heidegger 1962; Marino 2019c). In order to understand how individuals and social groups cope with their condition of being a minority,5 but also how the ‘dominant common sense’ impacts on individuals, the De Martinian discourse is complemented by the socio-political Gramscian theory on cultural hegemony (Gramsci 1975). Whereas Sayad (2004) enables me to reflect on the perceptions of immigrants’ (and their children’s) presence when ‘thrown into the world’ of the so-called dominant society, De Martino (1975) and Gramsci (1975) permit me to contextualise the relevance of their cultural practices and the influences of mainstream society on minority groups, particularly once they have settled. However, although Sayad’s (2004) double absence and De Martino’s (1961, 1975) crisis of presence allow me to achieve an in-depth phenomenological understanding of the participants’ perceptions of being in the world, because they focus on minorities within a dominant society, they are less pertinent for an interpretation of the younger participants’ ethnic identities, as these participants are neither immigrants nor immigrants’ children, and clearly might have different ethnic experiences of being in the world. Consequently, in the second theoretical reference point, in order to achieve a holistic understanding that interprets the ways all the participants affirm or manifest their ethnic identities, I draw upon the Bourdieusian notions of the conceptual apparatus of capital (Bourdieu 1977, 1986) and the theory of practice (specifically the concept of habitus). I complement this with symbolic, interpretive anthropology, which is

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crucial to provide further reflexivity through a framework that takes into account the symbols and meanings, and the performances and interpretations of social life from an interpretative perspective that is not necessarily linked with considerations of power. A Bourdieusian view is fundamental for a number of reasons. Firstly, Bourdieu (1977, 1986) appears to have the Heideggerian ‘equipment’6 suitable for interpreting the participants’ construction and transmission of ethnic identity in both the public and private social fields. Such fields are conceived of as a semi-autonomous and increasingly specialised space of action, an analytical construct, a potential relational social reality, or a network. The field may involve a part of a society, or it may extend beyond its boundaries (Bourdieu 1986). In particular, while the conceptual apparatus of capital permits me to acknowledge the existence of different resources (the forms of capital) that individuals employ to affirm and construct ethnic identities, the notion of habitus, understood as a ‘system of long-lasting dispositions of acquired schemata’ that individuals embody through practice (Bourdieu 1977, p. 261), is instrumental in analysing the dynamics of transmission. Bourdieusian theory needs to be juxtaposed by an interpretive anthropological reference point in which individuals are seen as agents who perform their ethnic identities interactionally by relying on ‘key symbols’ (Ortner 1973) and ‘ethnic boundary markers’ (Kottak 2011). Such theoretical reference points offer a variety of theoretical tools that can be used to understand ethnic identity from a third theoretical reference point, which transcends the traditional binomial approach adopted by literature (i.e. primordialism and constructionism). In other words, this combination of theoretical tools might be a nexus among those who see ethnic identity univocally in terms of a strong feeling of emotional and unconditional attachment towards one’s ethnic background, described as an ethno-national bond ‘beyond reason’ (Connor 1993) and those who conceive it a strategic (re)presentation of the (ethnic) self, depending on the situation (Signorelli 2006). The next section relates to a theory that is particularly engaged with ontology and phenomenology and also partially with considerations of power. Participants’ ethnic experiences of being in the world are contextualised according to Sayad’s (2004) notion of double absence and De Martino’s (1975) crisis of presence. Both are viewed from a Gramscian perspective within a context of power applied to a diasporic scenario. Moreover, existentialist terms are used in order to better interpret the participants’ ethnic perceptions of being thrown into the world.

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3.2  The Double Absence and the Crisis of Presence In this study, it is possible to interpret the first-generation participants’ ethnic perceptions of being in the world through Sayad’s (2004) notion of double absence and De Martino’s (1975) crisis of presence. The double absence is a cognitive and unconscious condition (Marino 2019a). The term was used by Sayad in his study of Algerian immigrants in Paris. This particular state of being (or more exactly, non-being) concerns the problem of those immigrants who feel displaced because of the objective fact of having left their country, and the perception of experiencing conflicts within the new dominant society. This notion seems to be particularly appropriate for the older generations of this study, who, in line with previous literature, experienced numerous episodes of discrimination during their ‘assimilation processes’ (De Fina 2005). However, it is the emic perspective and the phenomenology that this study examines, rather than the historical fact. According to Sayad (2004), when conflicts arise during interaction between the life of an immigrant and the institutions of the dominant society, immigrants might perceive themselves and their presence as inopportune in the eyes of the host society. This is due to a combination of exogenous and endogenous factors, such as experiences of racism, migrants’ awareness of having a totally different ­cultural background from the dominant majority, and the consequences and legacies of political polices.7 Moreover, migrants’ nostalgia and their psychological remorse about having left (and consequently ‘betrayed’) the mother country can often cause what Floriani refers as f­rammentazione biografica (biographic fragmentation), a biographic trauma that can lead immigrants to perceive themselves as absent, displaced, with an unshakable sense of guilt of having committed the sin of betraying their compatriots. It is a tacit sense of guilt (that they should never have left), which, although partly compensated by the recreation of a new life and a new family, might lead certain migrants to a state of absence (Sayad 2004; Floriani 2004). Such absence appears to be twofold. This duality is due to the fact that individuals can be simultaneously considered foreigners (or strangers) in both their country of origin, because they no longer live there and continue to develop and change, and in the dominant society, where metaphorically they do not really ‘have a place’. In other words, what migrants can experience is the diasporic ‘reality’ of their (double) displaced (non-)existence and the paradoxes that distinguish it,

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ontologically speaking—a metaphorical twofold displacement. According to Sayad (2004), the state of double absence is an experience of being absent in situ. This state of (non-)being might lead immigrants to perceive themselves as neither one thing nor the other, that they live neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’. In Bauman’s (2007) terms, they might perceive themselves as unimaginable by the host society. Such a metaphorical analogy of a twofold absence conceives migrants, anthropologically speaking, as atopos, individuals ‘out of place’, who belong to a ‘third space’ (Bhabha 1990); they are confined to that social hybrid space between existence and non-existence (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2000). Sayad developed his theory by focusing mainly on the struggles of working-class French– Algerian migrants in Paris that resulted from having a cultural background significantly different from the dominant culture. His ‘objects’ of study have similarities with those of this study. The double absence, mutatis mutandis, can be ‘inherited’ by the immigrants’ children (the second generation), who can in turn experience a sense of heterotopia; that is, in Foucauldian words, a non-hegemonic condition of ‘in-between-ness’ (Foucault 1982). There are different theories in the research literature about the perception of ‘being in the middle’. On the one hand, being a hybrid, with a consciousness of biculturalism, can be disorienting for individuals’ ethnic identities. On the other hand, the awareness of being a hybrid can provide a positive understanding of diversity, in which individuals are seen as mediators, cultural bridges between two worlds (Bottomley 1992; Baldassar 2011). However, in a world based on nations and national belonging, with their ‘double cultural competences’, immigrants’ children might feel a certain degree of ethnic ambivalence; those who are in the middle might feel ‘absent’ or be seen to be ‘wrong’ or ‘out of place’ (Noiriel 2006). For example, having gained specific ethnic knowledge at home from their parents, and different knowledge outside of the mainstream society, the children of immigrants can occupy a position in limbo. This double cultural competence of navigating between an ‘ethnic Scylla’ and a ‘national Charybdis’ should not be considered a priori an impediment; rather, it should be contextualised by taking into account the individual’s perception of being in the world, within the political theatre of mainstream society. Sayad’s notion of double absence should be combined with De Martino’s crisis of presence, an ontological theory that is particularly influenced by an Italian school of thought called meridionalista (literally meaning ‘relating to the south’), which follows the tradition of Italian

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cultural anthropology that over the past 150 years has researched subaltern cultures.8 In this book, the disequilibrium of power among different groups is not intended in a strict Marxist way (above all, economic); rather, it extends a Bourdieusian understanding of class based on economic capital which also includes other forms of capital, such as social, cultural (including linguistic) and symbolic capital, the latter conceived as ‘prestige’ (Bourdieu 1986). A crucial work written by De Martino (1977) related to the meridionalista school of thought is Naturalismo e storicismo nell’etnologia (naturalism and historicism in ethnology). In that text, De Martino launched an innovative approach to analysis that attempts to combine anthropology, philosophy and ethnography. De Martino’s critical approach was strongly influenced by the historicist philosophies of Benedetto Croce (1941) and Antonio Gramsci (1950), both of whom underlined the importance of the practical activity (or praxis) and the ‘objective’ historical and social processes concerning the Italian southern class. In particular, Croce emphasised that the actions of social actors are determined by their historical situation and the cultural, social and economical context, rather than by their ideology. The synopsis of such historical materialism falls within the rubric of the philosophy of praxis, which rejects the speculative view of interpreting social facts without considering crucial conceptions of reality that are dictated not by ideology, but by history. In other words, Croce, Gramsci and De Martino denied that individuals’ thoughts can produce (and reproduce) other thoughts ‘abstractly’, since social actors’ thoughts follow (and are influenced) by current historical matters (Gramsci 1950, 1966). Accordingly, cultures and their structures should be approached not speculatively but historically (following, indeed, the Crocian historical materialism), considering the ensemble of social relations by which human beings operate and communicate, with their ‘objective’ social conditions. This anti-metaphysical and anti-theological approach is in line with Bourdieu’s (1986) focus on praxis. However, such a view is crucial to understanding the perceived disequilibrium and deep sense of marginalisation that subaltern cultures experience meta-historically within the dominant one, as a result of what Cirese (2005) referred to as dislivelli di cultura (differences in culture)—the socio-historical cultural dislocations that contrast the subaltern culture’s common sense with that of the hegemonic culture of the dominant society. Gramsci (1966, 1975, 1999) referred to this as the senso comune or, literally, the ‘common sense’ (see Sect. 3.3). It is the

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disequilibrium of power among groups that generates a subversive counterpart, the subalterns, with their own common sense, which is often critical of the mainstream one (Gramsci 1975). Moreover, the common sense of the dominant society, when is perceived as official, might also be an exogenous force that subalterns embody via their own consent. For this study, a Gramscian interpretation is appropriate to understand how Calabrian migrants might respond to their condition (or perceptions) of being a minority group. De Martino’s (1977) grounded (and Gramscian) anthropology focused on southern Italian peasants in Italy and their ‘world’, characterised specifically by alternative (sometimes subversive and revolutionary, at other times alienated) world views and cultural practices during the post-World War II period. With an anthropological and philosophical approach, he highlighted the practical activity (or praxis) of the group as a response to their ‘thrownness into the world’ based on being a specific social class within a specific historical period. The example par excellence of De Martino’s study is the possession cult (and its related dance) practised by southern Italian peasants who believed they were possessed by the taranta, or tarantula spider. In his study, the synopsis was that a number of the subaltern’s cultural practices were linked to the emic perceptions of being ‘lower class’, living on the periphery of the Mediterranean; even Jesus Christ was said to have stopped short before reaching Eboli (Levi 1963).9 Therefore, the cafoni (uncultured persons), as they were called by the rest of the peninsula, were a subaltern class that responded to their underprivileged condition by relying on their own world views and practices, which were different from the hegemonic ones practised in the centre or the north of Italy. According to De Martino (1975), the subalterns, in response to their conditions of being emarginati tra gli emarginati (marginalised among the marginalised), practised specific folkloric systems of cultural strategies in order to resist, contest and, above all, affirm their presence, in contraposition to the hegemonic culture. There are similarities in this study between the subaltern class observed by De Martino and Calabrian migrants who found it difficult to assimilate to the hegemonic culture on migrating to Australia (Chiro 2003). According to De Martino (1977), when crucial ‘domestic’ references are threatened, individuals might experience a crisi di presenza. The ‘presence’ is the individuals’ ability to preserve the memories and the practical experiences in their consciousness. It is an essential ‘ontological being’

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able to respond adequately to a determined historical situation, which can be migration, a sense of misplacement, social seclusion or marginalisation. Individuals who lose their presence are no longer in history; in De Martino’s (1975) words, they lose their ‘esserci nella storia’ (literally, they lose their ‘being in history’). More specifically, according to De Martino, since everything is historical, losing presence (being cut off from the synthesising process of historical becoming) might correspond to losing history and, consequently, losing society. When individuals lose their essential referents, whether they are cultural or physical (e.g. their habits, places), they lose or threaten their ‘historical being’, their right of ‘being in history’ within the society. As a result, losing one’s presence might lead to individuals losing their history and society, which in turn contributes to them becoming ‘strangers to themselves’ (De Martino 1975). To explain the concept of ‘losing presence’, De Martino (1975) offered the clear example of the Italian farmer who one day lost his sense of orientation and felt displaced because he could not see the bell tower of his village. Clearly, in that specific episode about the campanile di Marcellinara (the bell tower of Marcellinara), De Martino encapsulated, metaphorically, all the complexities of the sense of displacement that rural southern Italians (mainly labourers and farmers) were experiencing during the 1950s, when they were forced by economic need to leave their paese and migrate to northern Italy, to the Americas or to Australia. Apart from the fear of the trip, of the ocean, of dying in a foreign land (which can be also a nearby city), and the frustration and the anxiety, those individuals manifested a crisis of presence as a result of having left their crucial home references such as their campanile (bell tower), their piazza and their paese, often seen as the ‘centre of the world’ (De Martino 1977, 2012). This usually also leads the immigrants to idealise their paese, crystallising their memories of people and places. Moreover, individuals might lose their presence not only as a result of having physically lost certain essential references of their country of origin, but also because of a dominant society that does not allow their (ethnic) presence to be manifested. According to De Martino (1975), the crisis of presence is a threat that needs to be resisted and contested. The main investment that individuals have is their folklore, understood as ‘accumulated history’, and hence their tradition. From this perspective, folklore includes the interest in ‘traditional’ practices (i.e. every cultural practice orally transmitted).10 Meridionalista literature has exhaustively stressed the role of southern

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peasants’ folklore (including features of magic, popular religion, festivals and rituals) as a ‘culture of contestation’ that was relied on by individuals (Lombardi Satriani 1980). The existential anguish of losing presence, of ‘being removed from history’ and consequently from society, is managed by practising a number of collective rituals and cultural practices. Following this line, folklore is a ‘strategy of survival’ used to affirm the subaltern’s identity. This concept has often been juxtaposed to the view of Gramsci (1975), according to whom, via folklore, subaltern cultures conceive and interpret their world and life in opposition to the official hegemonic culture expressed by the dominant class. More specifically, according to De Martino (1961), dynamism is the sine qua non of folklore and the affirmation of individuals’ presence. ‘Being as presence’, the esserci (‘to be there’) is projected in this world where it acts as an objectifying force (De Martino 1961). Folklore plays both an ontological and functional role (i.e. by, respectively, affirming the individuals’ presence and by gathering them together). Specifically, it temporarily liberates the subalterns from their perceptions of ‘losing history’ by throwing them into its own ‘webs of significance’ (Geertz 1973), made secure by ‘accumulated history’. This leads to a reintegration that ‘restores at that time the metaphorical annihilation of the group by altering and suspending the dominant norms’ (De Martino 1975). Therefore, in such a ‘timeless meta-history’ framework of meanings, subalterns affirm their presence in the world, and confirm their ‘being there’. This concept is analogous to Heideggerian Dasein, understood as ‘being in the world’, an ontological essential for the existence of individuals. De Martino (1961) refers to the overcoming of the crisis of presence as the ‘ethos of transcendence’, a cultural solution enacted to avoid the metaphorical annihilation generated by historical events, and his ontological and anthropological approach seems particularly relevant for an in-depth phenomenological emic interpretation of the ethnic identity of the participants of this study. In other words, De Martino’s theory enables me to reflect on the perception of the presence of immigrants (and their children); when they feel ‘thrown into the world’ within society (to use the Heideggerian lexicon). De Martino talks about spaesamento (‘being out of one’s town’, usually with a negative connotation), and to overcome spaesamento, migrants might apply a cultural strategy of clustering together post-settlement, thus recreating an alternative space, relying on networks which Bourdieu would refer to as ‘social capital’. This could explain the way in which first-generation Italian migrants built their community in Australia.

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I have therefore combined De Martino’s spaesamento with the Heideggerian theory of Dasein. However it is important to remember that, as stated above, for Heidegger being ‘thrown into the world’ is not necessarily an ‘adverse event’. For him, what matters is when and where a person is ‘thrown into the world’, and how society perceives his or her ‘facticity’, which for Heidegger represents the ‘givens of the past’ (e.g. cultural background, ethnicity, class or what in sociology is sometimes called ‘social structure’).

3.3  Cultural Hegemony According to Barth (1970), ethnic identity is a product of external categorisations. Therefore, for minority groups living in a diasporic context, the external categorisation par excellence might be the dominant public opinion (towards a certain ethnicity) produced by the mainstream society. Although such a ‘common dominant sense’ cannot be generalised, there are widespread tendencies, biases and commonplaces that, having been produced by the dominant group, are more likely to be taken for granted, heard, shared and understood as the ‘official national expectations’ (Gramsci 1975). For example, in a multicultural nation like Australia, previous studies have already shown that Italian migrants experienced numerous episodes of discrimination, especially between the 1950s and the late 1970s, based on their appearance and their association with poverty, low education and organised crime (De Fina 2005). This antipathy (extended to all ‘southern Mediterranean working-class’ immigrants) was a legacy of the White Australia Policy, which generated and cemented, in turn, a shared idea among the nationals of ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ types of migrants to be ‘hosted’ in a country which was in need of industrial development (O’Connor 1994). The role and relevance that power relations play in society among different cultural groups is not imaginary. As a result, an analysis within the context of power (in particular the theory of cultural hegemony) is particularly appropriate in order to understand the interactions between majority and minority groups, and how this might affect migrants and their descendants’ ethnic identities. The theory of cultural hegemony describes how societies use cultural institutions to maintain power and homologate thoughts. According to Gramsci (1975), the successful exercise of power requires legitimation. Hegemony can be understood as the internalisation of a dominant ideology, and is one way in which elites curb resistance and maintain power.

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It concerns the inculcation of the hegemonic world view via dynamics in which individuals unknowingly reproduce their domination and subordination. Specifically, subordinates comply with domination by internalising their rulers’ values (Bourdieu [1986] would say ‘by embodying their habitus’) and accepting the hegemonic world view as ‘natural’; that is, ‘this is the way things are meant to be’. Consequently, cultural hegemony is reached when collective consciousness is ‘conquered’ through a common world view that Gramsci (1975) refers to as senso comune, the hegemonic ‘common sense of the ruling bloc’, which is usually pervasive. Common sense is taken to mean the following of a hegemonic cultural ideology, or a societal force, based on coercion rather than violence, which propagates its own values and norms so that they become the ‘common sense’ values of all and thus maintain the status quo (Gramsci 1975). Hegemonic power is therefore used to maintain consensus. Such cultural hegemony is produced and reproduced by the dominant class through the institutions that form the superstructure. Clearly, social power is not a simple matter of domination on the one hand and subordination (or resistance) on the other. According to Gramsci (1975), power is not imposed merely from above; rather, the operations of power and its success depend on consent from below. The consent is key, and within democratic societies, rather than imposing their will, the dominant group governs with a good degree of consent from the people they ‘rule’, and the maintenance of such consent is dependent upon an incessant repositioning of the relationship between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’.11 The hegemonic society, through its institutionalised power spread by cultural institutions (through ‘forces’ that can be stronger and more persuasive than violence), seeks to achieve what Gramsci (1975) refers to as conformismo sociale (social conformism), that is, the hegemonic culture shapes the masses, who adjust their thoughts to the dominant culture. Moreover, individuals are not always aware of being subjected to the dominant common sense. This depends also on the combination of practice and consciousness, which can be conflicting or concurrent. Gramsci (1975), following Hegel, refers to this state of unawareness as the ‘unhappy consciousness’ (Butler 2004). The role of practice is fundamental. This study will emphasise how day-to-day action, practice or resistance can make and remake culture (Gupta and Ferguson 1997). Agency refers to the actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in constructing, transmitting or transforming their ethnic identities. The approaches to culture known as theory of practice (Bourdieu

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1977) and practice theory (Ortner 1984) recognise that individuals within a society or culture(s) have diverse motives and intentions and different degrees of power and influence. Such contrasts can be associated with gender, age, ethnicity, social class and other social variables. Practice theory focuses on how such varied individuals—through their ordinary and extraordinary actions and practices—manage to influence, create and transform the world in which they live. Practice theory appropriately recognises a reciprocal relation between culture, its consent and the individual. It is the consent of ‘the system’ that shapes the way individuals experience and respond to external events. However, individuals also play an active role in the way society functions and changes. Practice theory recognises both constraints on individuals and the fluidity, flexibility and changeability of cultures and social systems. Gramsci’s notion of cultural hegemony was employed by Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks (1968) and transposed specifically to the socio-political context of his postcolonial research in order to understand the identity struggles of French–Algerians. The French philosopher and psychiatrist explored the psychological and social legacy of colonialism, indicating that ‘for the black man, there is only one destiny and it is white’. The complex dynamics of colonialism can lead to black men wishing to be just like white men: ‘The black men aspire to a white existence by rejecting their négritude [blackness], as a result of the symbolic violence to which they have been subjected through colonialism’ (p. 267). This phenomenon suggests an identification with the oppressor (Barbre 2014), who dominates by the imposition of ‘categories of thought’ and perception upon dominated social agents, who then take the social order ‘to be just’. Pervasively and unconsciously, certain dominant structures tend to be perpetuated until the dominated take the hegemonic world views to be ‘right’. Such a Gramscian view is also shared by both Foucault (1982) and Bourdieu (1977), who asserted that cultural hegemony is present in capitalistic societies in several ‘practices of persuasion’, coercing, and managing (monitoring and recording) the beliefs, behaviour, movements and contacts of the masses. Pasolini (1960) had a similar view on the perilous role of cultural hegemony, seen also as an omologatore (conformer) of the masses. He agreed with Gramsci (1975), claiming that there is a ‘natural’ tendency among individuals, due to the pervasive pressures of cultural hegemony, to conform their thoughts and ‘naturally’ incorporate them into the uomo collettivo (collective human being). Such

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‘educative’ pressures might lead to a ‘common consensus’, that is collectively agreed and usually thought of as libertà (freedom), but it is not actually so. Once the thought of the masses is shaped, instead of thinking with ‘absolute freedom’, individuals believe and act according to what is (thought to be) collectively approved by the dominant society. Individuals therefore act according to what Sartre (2012) referred to as mauvaise foi (bad faith); that is, the practice where human beings, under the pressure of societal forces, adopt ‘false values’ and ‘disown their freedom, by acting inauthentically’, in terms of a deception of one’s self (Sartre 2012, p. 484). Therefore, cultural hegemony (seen as a persuasive tool which, through the public and private institutions of the mainstream society, might influence individuals to be homologated to the world view of the dominant culture) is one of the theoretical reference points that should be transposed to the context of migration, analysing the participants’ perceptions of their ‘ethnic beings’. However, by following Cirese (2005), I suggest that the aforementioned theoretical reference points should be complemented by the Bourdieusian notions of the conceptual apparatus of capital, habitus and interpretive anthropology, since cultural transformations are not necessarily continuous, rather they are often characterised by discontinuities, resistances and shifts. Further, the level of group negotiation can be fairly variable and subjective and might involve different aspects of human behaviour. The use of the ideas of Bourdieu aims achieving a holistic understanding of the modi operandi of all the participants of this study.

3.4  The Conceptual Apparatus of Capital The following section employs the Bourdieusian conceptual apparatus of capital, complemented by an interpretive anthropology reference point that highlights a more agentive perspective within the dimension of ethnicity, which is not directly linked by practice with considerations of power or social-class reproduction. Bourdieusian notions of capital appear particularly useful not in order to define the participants’ social classes, but rather to acknowledge the existence of distinct forms of capital (social, cultural, objectified), which can be distributed and employed differently among social agents in specific contexts and spaces. Bourdieu offers conceptual tools which, combined with interpretive anthropology, are able to capture the spirit of the three generations of participants

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of this study holistically. Specifically, the notion of habitus and forms of capital, juxtaposed with the key symbols of interpretive anthropology, are fundamental in interpreting how individuals form and perform their ethnic identities, both unintentionally and deliberately. For example, the notion of habitus is instrumental for analysing the synergy between practice, habits and world views, and the eventual formation and incorporation (usually unintentional, although not uniquely) of knowledge. On the other hand, by giving importance to agency, symbolic anthropology considers individuals in their social lives to be interpreted as ‘agents’ who might perform their ethnic identities intentionally and interactionally by relying on ‘key symbols’ and ‘ethnic boundary markers’ (Ortner 1973; Kottak 2011). Moreover, since the conceptual apparatus of c­ apital could result in an analysis which is too abstract, as it offers conceptual tools that do not refer specifically to either ethnicity nor migration, interpretive anthropology is instrumental, with individuals affirming their ethnic identity through practical examples of ethnic boundary markers. Therefore, this combination complements and strengthens the Bourdieusian notion of the accumulation and conversion of capital (in its material and immaterial forms) in terms of the agents’ ‘quest of distinction-making’ (Bourdieu 1986), a view that can be employed to understand processes of self-identification and other ascriptions that might be the more ‘dynamic’ side of ethnic identity. Folklore is not the only cultural strategy that individuals employ to affirm or manifest their presence. According to Bourdieu (1986) a number of ‘forms of capital’, material or immaterial, can be accumulated by individuals and then employed when needed in order to reach their goals and improve their positions in ‘the field’. It is a struggle to possess and accumulate ‘capital’, defined as ‘accumulated labour’, which, when possessed by agents (or groups), is then converted to what Bourdieu referred to as ‘social energy in the form of actually usable resource and power’ (Bourdieu 1986, p. 15). In extending Marx’s work on economic capital, Bourdieu (1986) offered a ‘more nuanced’ version of class12 that includes other forms of capital encapsulated in the conceptual apparatus of capital. Apart from economic capital, there are three other forms of capital, namely, social, cultural and symbolic. The last is often considered to be the product of the conversion of the other forms of capital in the form of the prestige and renown attached to individuals. Social, cultural and symbolic capital are in general non-financial social assets that promote ‘social mobility’ beyond economic means and define people’s

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life chances (Bourdieu 1986). In the field of migration, the dynamics of individuals’ struggles to accumulate forms of capital might have repercussions on the ways in which they construct and transmit their ethnic identities. 3.4.1   Social Capital In talking about the ‘incredible solidarity’ that ties together people from southern Italy who, in order to survive in jail and to contest the authority of the prison system, needed to create a reliable system of allies formed by duties and obligations among trustworthy people, Gramsci (1999), in Prison notebooks, noted the indissoluble bonds and connections that characterised his southern ‘colleagues’ in the jail cells of Turi (Puglia) and Palermo (Sicily). The Sardinian intellectual was prudent enough to avoid the easy trap of cultural essentialism. Rather, his reflections constituted thick descriptions and observations of folklore practised among southern Italians within the specific autonomous field of the correctional system. The modalities certain individuals might relay to each other, and the exchange of favours, are the result of a functional network encapsulated in the Bourdieusian concept of social capital. By social capital Bourdieu (1986) refers to a resource based on group members, relationships and networks of influence and support. The possessor of social capital is able to transform all his or her acquaintances and circumstantial relationships into lasting useful and highly productive connections. Specifically, social capital is that corpus of rules and practices that facilitates cooperation between groups and individuals. It can be seen as the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to individuals by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual recognition (Bourdieu 1986; Coleman 1990; Reynolds 2010). Such a social resource can be generated through three types of networks: bonding capital, which refers to informal networks of families and friends; bridging capital, which refers to relations between heterogeneous group (usually in terms of economic status); and linking capital, which refers to relationships between people across formal or institutionalised power in society (Szreter 2002). Bonding capital is generally considered a means ‘to get by’, while bridging and linking capital have been seen as ways to ‘get ahead’ (Gittell and Vidal 1998; Poortinga 2006). Social capital is essentially a cultural strategy of membership in a group that provides each of its members with the backing of

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the ‘collectivity’. It is owned capital, a ‘credential’ that entitles individuals to credit, in the various senses of the word (Bourdieu 1986). Moreover, social capital is a resource that is continuously nurtured by practice. Its maintenance presumes a continuous effort of sociability, an incessant series of exchanges in which recognition is constantly affirmed and reaffirmed. This work involves expenditure of ‘practice, time and energy’ within a field in which the agents who possess social capital might share the same ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu 1986).13 Applying the Bourdieusian notion of social capital within the diasporic context of this study is particularly relevant, not really to claim matters of social reproduction (of class or ethnicity) per se, but to acknowledge the existence of a modus vivendi within systems of ethnic networking (whether it is a chain migration, or a ‘little Italy’) in which individuals, intentionally or less intentionally, share the same framework of meanings, and perform and behave as ‘fish in water’ (Bourdieu 1986). 3.4.2   Cultural Capital, Habitus and Ethnic Boundary Markers Apart from relying on their social resources in their struggle to possess and accumulate ‘capital’, individuals also rely on their cultural capital. According to Bourdieu (1986), cultural capital is the sum of valued knowledge, styles and practical behavioural dispositions within a given field. It can exist in its embodied (incorporated) form, or in its materialised (objectified) form. Whereas the embodied state (which strongly depends on the practice and socialisation processes) consists in long-lasting incorporated dispositions of the mind and body, the objectified state is represented by any form of cultural goods (pictures, books, instruments, machines, etc.) that individuals can possess and rely on in their struggle for ‘distinction-making’ (Bourdieu 1986). The interest is to ‘maximise’ those resources in order to improve agents’ positions within ‘the field’. In its immaterial form (i.e. knowledge, skills, experience), cultural capital can be incorporated both consciously and unconsciously within the body or mind of those who ‘know how to do’ certain valued things (Bourdieu 1977). Whereas the former process concerns the ways agents compete and struggle ‘freely’14 (mainly intentionally) to accumulate knowledge of or within a specific field, the latter concerns the internalisation of culture (usually unintentional) through socialisation. Focusing on the different modi operandi by which individuals accumulate capital is

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fundamental for a holistic understanding of the ethnic identity formation of the participants of this study, since enculturation plays a pivotal role in constructing a person’s cultural, social and linguistic identity, mainly through the intra-cultural dimension of one’s learning and communication (Liddicoat et al. 2003). The socialisation process is understandable through the etymology of the German term Bildung, which refers to culture as a ‘cultivation’, a practice that includes ‘the practice’ and dynamics of incorporation and inculcation. The etymology of the word implies that individuals embody certain cultural dispositions that might enter into their rooted identities of selfhood, gender and humanness, since their primary socialisation is ‘being in the social world’ (Jenkins 2008). A number of dispositions tend to remain marked by their earliest conditions of acquisition which, through the more or less visible marks they leave (e.g. features of pronunciation characteristic of a region, a class or an ethnicity), help to determine their distinctive value. In this sense, identification with the group in which one has been socialised and a sense of ‘one’s place’ are aspects almost primary (not primordial), and are interrelated with the emotional, psychological and cognitive constitution of the individuality (Jenkins 2008). Bourdieu (1977) justified this concept of ‘cultivation’ by introducing the notion of habitus, an embodied and durable disposition, which is a part of the individual’s very physical being that cannot be separated from the person who holds it. According to Bourdieu (1986), individuals can embody cultural capital by internalising the habitus, understood as the incorporation of the ‘objective structure’ or ‘historical system of social relations’ that individuals internalise from their early childhood (Bourdieu 1986). Regardless of whether cultural capital is consciously or unconsciously accumulated, the sine qua non of its knowledge, or skills, or the practice and experience (within a given field) is embodied into the individual’s habitus. The concept of habitus is not new. Durkheim (1915) envisaged a scenario of transmission of ‘crystallising and crystallised habits’ within a certain society, which was then described by Bourdieu and Passeron (1984) as ‘cultural heredity’, as Bourdieu was unable to envisage a world without inertia, acquired properties or, indeed, heredity. Over an extended period of time, Bourdieu also referred to this concept as a ‘system of dispositions’ or a ‘cognitive and motivating structure’ (Bourdieu 1977, 1986, 2002). Specifically, for Bourdieu, the habitus is ‘a structuring structure which, due to the practice, organises practices

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and the perception of practices’ (Bourdieu 1984, p. 170). Hence practice plays an essential role. According to Bourdieu (1986), habitus is a mental or cognitive system of long-lasting dispositions that individuals acquire; it is the embodiment of external social structures (i.e. gender, ethnicity, social class) and their behavioural dispositions, which are absorbed over the course of the individuals’ lives. Conceived as ‘accumulated history’ (Bourdieu 1986), it is the product of the inculcation of collective history of a specific social field, which is then converted into durable dispositions. Moreover, according to Bourdieu (1986), habitus is a vis insita, that is a force hidden in the ‘objectivity of things’ of the social world, which influences the individuals’ ‘schemes of perceptions, appreciation and actions’, their ‘practical beliefs’, until it becomes what Bourdieu (1986) refers as a lex insita in terms of the principle embodied. Following the ‘logic of practice’ of habitus, one can also better understand the Gramscian theory of cultural hegemony and the dynamics through which, as a dominant force, it can homologate the masses, embodying the mainstream common sense, so that the mainstream conforms ‘naturally’ to the world view of the habitus, which is taken to be correct. Similar to De Martino, Bourdieu explains habitus by using peasants as an example. In Le paysan et son corps, Bourdieu (2002) described the habitus of contemporary French peasants referring to the exemplary ‘slowness’ and ‘weightiness’ of their way of walking, which differs dramatically from that of people from the city, since ‘the corporal hexis is a social signum’ (Bourdieu 2002). According to Bourdieu (1986), habitus also reflects social-class differences, and when the habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it finds itself ‘as a fish in water’; it does not feel the weight of the water and takes the world about itself for granted. Clearly, corporeal habitus is only one aspect encapsulated within a much more complex scenario of cognitive inculcation and socialisation of practice and world views. In this study, the notion of habitus, while particularly useful for understanding how habits, ‘schemes of perceptions’ and world views might be (re)produced, internalised and become a shared ‘feel for the game’, needs to be balanced by an interpretive perspective that also highlights the role of agency—the point of view of the individual making a choice within the field of ethnicity. In fact, individuals might also choose intentionally to rely on the specific ‘equipment’ of cultural ­capital (resources burdened by symbolic meanings). They might be ‘thrown into the world’, which might give them the ‘freedom to choose’, and

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instead of being particles of ‘objective structures’, individuals might be ‘engaged agents’ who construct their world and culture(s) situationally and creatively. According to Geertz (1973), agents are not passive human beings who are destined to follow their customs and traditions like programmed robots. People use their culture actively and creatively, rather than following its dictates blindly. ‘Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning’ (p. 5). Hence, it might be their day-to-day actions and agency that make and remake their ethnic identities. Consequently, the individual’s struggle for ‘distinctionmaking’ by relying on specific cultural capital might be characterised by a shared and performed framework of meanings and symbols, rather than an internalised knowledge. Therefore, the Bourdieusian accumulation of cultural capital (in both its material and immaterial forms) is better understood if interpreted through interpretive anthropology, which refers to it with the notions of ‘ethnic boundary markers’ or ‘key symbols’. These are specifically concomitant with the field of ethnicity as resources that individuals and groups use intentionally as ways of determining or expressing their ethnic membership. In this agentic and situational dimension, those markers (or symbols) are important not only for identifying members of the same group, but also to acknowledge how and why individuals display their distinctiveness from non-members through a number of cumulative elements that draw boundaries dynamically. Among different groups, cultural differences formulate meanings and might serve as ethnic boundary markers. For example, a specific language, dialect or speech style might be an important symbol of group distinction-making. However, in some circumstances, one ethnic boundary marker might not be enough to determine ethnic membership. Therefore, ethnic boundary markers can be accumulated so that individuals can employ and invest them strategically in the struggles that take place in the field. To determine ethnicity, groups usually consider religion, language and physical characteristics (phenotypes), but also a wide variety of cultural traits, such as clothing, home styles, personal adornment, food, technology, economic activities, non-verbal behaviour and general lifestyle. Every ethnic boundary marker is charged with symbolic meanings that are contextually dependent according to the historical period, the

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situation, the group and the individual, who gives it a specific significance (cultural elaboration). According to Fabietti (1998), symbolic anthropology comes into play when ‘objects talk with the voices of the social actors who build into them meanings, values, styles and sentiments’ (p. 101). Ortner (1973) referred to such markers as ‘key symbols’, symbolic units that formulate meaning and are discovered by virtue of a number of reliable indicators that point to the cultural focus of interest. Most key symbols are signalled by more than one of the following indicators: 1. The participants believe that X is culturally important. 2.  The participants seem positively or negatively aroused about X, rather than indifferent. 3.  X appears in many different contexts. These contexts may be behavioural or systemic: X emerges in many different kinds of acting situations or conversations, or X comes up in many different symbolic domains (myth, ritual, art, formal rhetoric). 4. There is greater cultural elaboration surrounding X, e.g., elaboration of vocabulary or of details of X’s nature, compared with similar phenomena in the culture. 5.  There are greater cultural restrictions surrounding X, either in sheer number of rules, or severity of sanctions regarding its misuse. (Ortner 1973) Clearly one should not assume a deterministic stance by allocating uniquely certain key symbols to specific cultures. Cultures, as claimed by Barth (1970), are a product of the interplay of many basic orientations, and although cultural traits are the means by which an ethnic group asserts and defines itself, this process is very dynamic and also contradictory. That means that, if something was thought to be a key (ethnic) peculiarity yesterday, that will not necessarily be the case today. Consequently, it is the boundaries, and not the cultural content, that define ethnic groups. Moreover, self-identification and other ascription processes are complex, situational and often contradictory. On the one hand, there are features and characteristics that groups use and regard as significant and emblems of their identity. Some of these traits are given primacy or are emphasised. On the other hand, there are features and characters that are understated, denied or replaced (Barth 1970). In any case, when an ethnic boundary marker is used as a resource of one’s ethnic identity, that could be considered ‘cultural capital’.

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3.4.3   The Accumulation and Conversion of Capital The ethnic boundary markers (or key symbols), as cultural capital used by individuals, validate the theory of Bourdieu in the field of ethnicity. In the Bourdieusian competitive vision of society, all forms of capital (material and immaterial) can be accumulated. Individuals accumulate capital in their ‘quest of distinction-making’ (Bourdieu 1986). The intention is to improve their position within a certain field. In this study, in order to offer a clearer example of markers of ‘distinction-making’ in the field of ethnicity, the notions of ethnic boundary markers and key symbols from symbolic anthropology are employed within the conceptual apparatus of capital. Once accumulated (whether intentionally or unconsciously), capital can be converted into other forms of capital. According to Bourdieu (1986), the conversion of capital ensures a process of transubstantiation, whereby the most material types of capital can present themselves in the immaterial form of cultural or social capital and vice versa. For example, as economic capital is immediately and directly convertible into money, it might also be institutionalised and symbolically converted in the form of property rights or symbolic capital (e.g. prestige). Similarly, cultural capital can be converted into economic capital, and such cultural capital may be institutionalised in the form of educational qualifications. Moreover, social capital, in terms of social connections, networks and obligations, might also be convertible—in some cases—into economic capital. The convertibility of the different types of capital is the basis for the strategies designed in the struggle in the ‘symbolic field of power’. It ensures that capital is reproduced and that the social actors attain, through competition, a certain position in the social space (Bourdieu 1986). This theoretical reference point seems particularly apt for this study, in order to understand how individuals accumulate their capital, draw boundaries according to the degree of capital accumulated, and then convert the capital into ethnic identity.

Notes

1. For example, what has been referred to by the Italian anthropologist De Martino (1975) as presenza (presence) is very similar to the philosophical Heidegger (1962) concept of Dasein. They are both understood in terms of ‘being in the world’, and concern the struggle of individuals to locate and affirm their presence in the world. In this study, that is their ethnic identity.

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2. I use Turner’s (1980) term ‘social drama’ to mean a ‘spontaneous unit of social process and a fact of everyone’s experience in every human society’ (p. 141). 3. Although the three generations should not be considered as three distinct ‘beings’, it is also true that those categories share a number of common traits, experiences and sometimes also world views, which should be attended to accordingly. 4. It is important to reiterate that although for De Martino the crisi di presenza is seen as ‘a failure’, for Heidegger such a ‘being thrown into the world’ is not necessarily a negative event. 5. The literature on Italians in Australia defines Italians migrants as a minority group (Chiro 1998). 6. For Heidegger (1962), the world is knowing how, not knowing what. So, too, the social facts or even the appearance of ‘things’ becomes a phenomenon to be explained, not an obvious philosophical starting point. 7. I am referring here specifically to the White Australia Policy, which intentionally favoured immigration to Australia from certain primarily northern European countries, especially Britain. 8.  Southern Italian rural classes and their practices (folklore) have been investigated by Pitrè (1971), De Martino (1961), Gramsci (1975), Lombardi Satriani (1980), Corso (1981), Signorini (1981), Di Nola (1983), Minicuci (1981, 1989), Lombardi Satriani and Meligrana (1982, 1987), Palumbo (1991, 1997), Ricci (1996), Cirese (1971, 2005, 2010), D’Onofrio (1987), Clemente and Mugnaini (2001), Teti (2004) and Dei (2009, 2010). These are considered the classic and key authors within demo-ethno-anthropological Italian studies. 9. This is Levi’s (1963) summation of his interpretation of the way in which southern Italian people feel that they have been bypassed by Christianity, by morality, by history itself. 10. It is important to realise that tradition and folklore are not static objects. The fact that they relate to a cultural system with a shared framework of meanings does not mean that the cultural capital (and its key symbols) that it encloses is fixed. Rather, tradition and folklore should be conceived symbolically, as contextual processes rather than as defined objects to collect, classify and analyse. 11. These terms should be understood symbolically. Hegemony and subalternity need to be interpreted symbolically, in a deeper sense than the static contraposition of two cultures, the official and the subordinate. The symbolical contraposition of the terms rarely concerns political and economic domination exclusively, but often symbolic domination related to the consciousness (Lombardi Satriani 1980).



82  S. MARINO 12. Bourdieu (1986) wondered to what extent one ‘class’ can exist in reality. Like Marx and Engels, he suggested that capital is ‘accumulated labour’, and he looked to capital as a way of interpreting how inequality is produced (and reproduced) in society. However, unlike Marx and Engels, Bourdieu argues for an examination of capital that goes beyond its economic concern. Therefore, his understanding of class structure is not conceived merely in economic terms, as it was in the Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels 1906); it includes cultural and symbolic relations within certain ‘fields’ (Bourdieu 1986). Bourdieu followed the line of Weber (1968), for whom class depended on the combination of three dimensions—richness, prestige and power—and for whom inequalities are based on unequal access to productive resources, such as lands or tools (education). Bourdieu’s class view is strongly dependent on the distribution of different species of capital. Consequently, he claimed that, rather than social class, what really matters is the field, the social space, in terms of a space of differences. As a result of the accelerated dynamics of social mobility (Kottak 2011), it could be reductive to follow a dichotomous approach that considers only the economic disequilibrium between the superordinate (the higher or elite) and the subordinate (lower or underprivileged) strata. Therefore, classes do not have clear boundaries. 13.  Adopting a game metaphor, practices are conceived of as clustering around social games played in different social fields, in which agents pursue interests with a ‘feel for the game’, a ‘sense of placement’. 14. Although it is thought that an agent is an individual who acts freely in a manner not dictated by his or her social structure, it is also true that the agent is socialised in a ‘field’.

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84  S. MARINO De Martino, E. (1975). Morte e pianto rituale: Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria. Turin: Boringhieri. De Martino, E. (1977). La fine del mondo: Contributo all’analisi delle apocalissi culturali. Turin: Einaudi. De Martino, E. (2012). Crisis of presence and religious reintegration. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2(2), 431–450. Dei, F. (2009). Identità culturale nel mondo in frammenti: Convegno cultutra e memoria; Identità locali e questione nazionale. Palermo: Sellerio. Dei, F. (2010). Dove si nasconde la cultura subalterna? Folk e popular nel dibattito antropologico italiano. Retrieved September 17, 2013, from https://arpi. unipi.it/handle/11568/150071#.Wot8WmbL0Wo. Di Nola, A. (1983). L’arco di rovo: Impotenza e aggressività in due rituali del Sud Italia. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri. Durkheim, E. (1915). ‘Germany above all’: German mentality and war. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. Retrieved February 13, 2018, from https://archive. org/stream/germanyaboveallg00durk/germanyaboveallg00durk_djvu.txt. Fabietti, U. (1998). Identità etnica: Storia e critica di un concetto equivoco. Rome: Carocci. Floriani, S. (2004). Identità di frontiera: Migrazione, biografie, vita quotidiana. Lecce: Rubbettino. Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Gittell, R., & Vidal, A. (1998). Community organizing: Building social capital as a development strategy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gramsci, A. (1950). Osservazioni sul folklore. A. Gramsci, Letteratura e vita nazionale. Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, A. (1966). Il materialismo storico e la filosofia di Benedetto Croce. Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, A. (1975). I quaderni del carcere. Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, A. (1999). Prison notebooks: Further selections from the prison notebooks. London: Electric Book Company. Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (Eds.). (1997). Anthropological locations: Boundaries and grounds of a field science. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Trans. from 7th German edn by John Macquarie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper. (Originally published 1927 as Sein und Zeit, Tübingen: Neomarius Verlag.) Jenkins, R. (2008). Rethinking ethnicity (2nd ed.). London: Sage. Kottak, C. P. (2011). Cultural anthropology: Appreciating cultural diversity. New York: McGraw-Hill. Levi, C. (1963). Cristo si è fermato a Eboli. Torino: Einaudi.

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Liddicoat, A. J., Papademetre, L., Scarino, A., & Kohler, M. (2003). Report on intercultural language learning. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Lombardi Satriani, L. M. (1980). Antropologia culturale e analisi della culture subalterne. Milan: Rizzoli. Lombardi Satriani, L., & Meligrana, M. (1982). Il ponte di San Giacomo: L’ideologia della morte nella società Contadina del Sud. Milan: Rizzoli. Lombardi Satriani, L., & Meligrana, M. (Eds.). (1987). Un villaggio nella memoria: L’emigrazione, il folklore, il turismo, la mafia, la religione e la donna in Calabria. Rome: Gangemi. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1906). Manifesto of the communist party. Chicago: CH Kerr. Minicuci, M. (1981). Le strategie matrimoniali in una comunità calabrese. Catanzaro: Rubbettino Editore. Minicuci, M. (1989). Qui e altrove, famiglie di Calabria e di Argentina. Milan: Franco Angeli. Marino, S. (2019a). The “double absence” of the immigrant and its legacy across generations among Australians of Italian origin. Journal of Anthropological Research, 75(1), 21–47. Marino, S. (2019c). Thrown into the world: The shift between pavlova and pasta in the ethnic identity of Australians originating from Italy. Journal of Sociology, 144078331988828. Noiriel, G. (2006). Introduction à la socio-histoire. Paris: La Découverte. O’Connor, D. (1994). A change of image: The impact of Italy on young second-generation Italians in South Australia. Studi Emigrazione, 114, 269–283. Ortner, S. B. (1973). On key symbols. American Anthropologist, 75(5), 1338–1346. Ortner, S. B. (1984). Theory in anthropology since the sixties. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26(1), 126–166. Palumbo, B. (1991). Madre Madrina: Rituale parentela e identità in un paese dell Sannio. Milan: Franco Angeli. Palumbo, B. (1997). Identità nel tempo: Saggi di antropologia della parentela. Lecce: Argo. Pasolini, P. P. (1960). Passione e ideologia. Milan: Franco Angeli. Pitrè, G., 1971. Sicilian folk medicine. Coronado Press. Poortinga, W. (2006). Social relations or social capital? Individual and community health effects of bonding social capital. Social Science and Medicine, 63(1), 255–270. Reynolds, T. (2010). Transnational family relationships, social networks and return migration among British-Caribbean young people. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(5), 797–815. Ricci, A. (1996). Ascoltare il mondo: Antropologia dei suoni in un paese del Sud Italia. Rome: Il Trovatore.

86  S. MARINO Sartre, J.-P. (2012). Being and nothingness. New York: Open Road Media. Sayad, A. (2004). The suffering of the immigrant. Cambridge: Polity Press. Signorelli, A. (2006). Migrazioni e incontri etnografici. Palermo: Sellerio. Signorini, I. (1981). Padrini e compadri: Un’analisi antropologica della parentela spirituale. Turin: Loescher Editor. Szreter, S. (2002). The state of social capital: Bringing back in power, politics, and history. Theory and Society, 31(5), 573–621. Teti, V. (2004). Il senso dei luoghi: Paesi abbandonati di Calabria. Roma: Donzelli Editore. Turner, V. (1980). Social dramas and stories about them. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 141–168. Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society: An outline of interpretative sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

CHAPTER 4

Methodology

The present chapter presents the methodology of the present study. Section 4.1 introduces the approach, describing the methodological need for holism and advocating a departure from established approaches. This preamble is necessary and goes hand in hand with the modus operandi of the present study, which attempts to reduce the distances between different academic disciplines by developing an ethnographic spirit that is aware of both the etic and emic viewpoints and the positionality of the researcher. Such an approach is sympathetic to what Bourdieu (1989) referred to as ‘constructivist structuralism’ or ‘structuralist constructivism’, in which both text and context must be taken into consideration. It is also concomitant with ‘being ethnographic’ (Madden 2010), an approach which ‘represents a representation (Geertz 2000) by practising the key moments in the ethnographic endeavour’ (i.e. entering the field, gaining access to the participants, and reflecting on data). Next, Sect. 4.2 addresses and describes the design of the study, including the selection of participants and the data gathering and analysis. Section 4.3 reflects on specific terms (‘generation’, ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’) that might be problematic, especially when they are viewed as static essences.

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4.1  Taking an Ethnographic Approach When it comes to the study of culture and its methodology, there are a number of ways to obscure it. One is to imagine that culture is a self-contained ‘super-organic’ reality with forces and purposes of its own; that is, to reify it. Another is to claim that it consists in the brute pattern of behavioural events we observe in fact to occur in some identifiable community or other; that is, to reduce it. (Geertz 2000, p. 591)

The modus operandi of the present methodology is sympathetic to Geertz’s views and sensitive to a reflexive approach that ­ incorporates diverse theories in order to obtain holism and reduce distances among the different academic social sciences (e.g. anthropology, ­ sociology or linguistics) and their practices, theories and limitations. Such an approach guards against both a structural rigidity and an excess of relativism. The interpretation of the social world through monistic approaches (e.g. objectivism, subjectivism, structuralism or relativism) is an obstacle to doing research. The present study pursues a solid formation de l’esprit scientifique (Bachelard 1938), the development of an ethnographic spirit that is aware of both the etic and emic viewpoints and the positionality of the researcher. The rationale for these specific choices is the methodological need to merge empirical ethnographic data with reflexivity, considering both participants’ voices and narratives together with the ethnographic fieldwork. Hence, by adopting a Bourdieusian approach, the present study stays away from the objective limits of objectivism. As claimed by Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992, p. 227), in ‘the humanistic field it is forbidden to forbid’, which means that one should also watch out for methodological watchdogs. However, the present study is sensitive to what Madden (2010) refers to as ‘being ethnographic’. The study practises the key moments of the ethnographic endeavour, from the research proposal, entering the field, access to participants, the ethical dimensions of ethnographic research, participant observation, interviewing and note-taking, analysis and interpretation and finally, a reflexive ethnography vis à vis the logic of the arguments that provides the anthropologist with the ‘storied reality’ (Marino 2019c; Madden 2010). The present study attempts to transcend the a priori approach of structuralism, and therefore takes more into account the actions of individuals. It goes beyond what generations of sociologists have theorised

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about the relationship between the system, on the one hand, and the individual, on the other. While the system can refer to numerous concepts, including culture, society, social relations and social structure, individual human beings continually make up, or constitute, the system. However, living within that system, individuals might also be constrained by its expectations and by the actions of other persons. Cultural rules provide directions about what to do and how to do it; nevertheless, people do not necessarily follow the expectations of such rules. Individuals might use their culture actively and creatively, rather than blindly following its prescriptions. People are not ‘passive beings’ who are destined to follow their cultural traditions like programmed robots. Instead, individuals may learn, interpret and manipulate the same rules in different ways—or emphasise different rules that better suit their interests. Culture might be also contested, a contestation or a zone of disagreement (Marino 2019c; Govers and Vermeulen 1997). Various groups in society can struggle with one another over whose ideas, values, goals and beliefs will prevail. Furthermore, even common symbols may have fundamentally dissimilar meanings for diverse individuals and groups in the same culture. Moreover, both text and context must be taken into consideration, and they should be understood to be intrinsically interwoven. The present study operates from an anthropological stance, which is also comparative, epistemologically relativist and methodologically holistic, focusing on meaning, stressing local perceptions and knowledge and documenting the routines of everyday life. Geertz’s (1973) influential metaphorical binomial of ‘culture as text’ and of fieldwork as ‘reading’ inspired the methodology and theory of the present study. In studying ethnic identity this study attempts to find an alternative to two apparently irreconcilable points of view— primordialism and constructivism—which are often based on two contrasting perspectives—objectivism and subjectivism. On the one hand, the anthropological Lévi-Straussian faits sociaux (social facts) cannot be treated ‘as things’; on the other hand, if the participants’ social world is not to be reduced only to the representations that agents have of it, the task of social science consists in producing an ‘account of the accounts’ produced by social subjects. Consequently, the present study is influenced by what Bourdieu (1989) refers to as ‘constructivist structuralism’ or ‘structuralist constructivism’. Structuralism is not intended here in the sense of Saussure

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(1968) or Lévi-Strauss (2009). Rather, it is an anthropological theory which, together with its symbolic systems (language, myths, etc.) and its ‘objective independent structures’ (Bourdieu 1989), takes into account the social world itself, the interaction and consciousness of the agents, who are capable of guiding and constraining their practices and representations. Constructivism, as used here, is the agents’ responsiveness to their ‘presence in the world’; their deliberate performances juxtaposed to their schemes of perceptions, thoughts and actions, which might be manifested consciously and unconsciously within different fields of social life. Theoretically and methodologically, the present study can be seen as epistemologically relativist and methodologically holistic. It focuses on practices and meanings, stresses local perceptions and knowledge, and documents the routines of everyday life. Participant observation, participation and practice are essential. This is the anthropological modus operandi of doing research. For example, without participant observation, interpretation of emic world views, any particular empathy or experience, or familiarity with the ‘objects’ of the study, an approach would be hegemonic and limited. ‘Armchair scholars’ have, through a series of dominant shared constructs, pre-selected and preinterpreted the social actor’s world; these constructs are thought objects constructed by the social scientist. In this way, the constructs of the social sciences are constructs of the second degree, that is, constructs of the constructs (Geertz 2000). In the present study, the anthropologist is immersed, in practice, in the practice of his participants, in conducting a research that is both evidential and theoretical. However, empirical ethnographic research should be connected to theoretical ideas. If the concept of anthropology as a segment of sociology is accurate, its continuing vitality will not be nurtured simply by observation or an excess of relativistic epistemological laissez-faire of postmodern ethnomethodologists who put sufficient water between sociology and a­ nthropology to allow the latter a distinct intellectual identity (Jenkins 2008). As claimed by Jenkins (2008), the basic epistemological premise of social anthropology is that to understand others they must be encountered. In the ‘academic field’, if the condicio sine qua non of history is ‘engagement with primary sources’, the equivalent for anthropology is fieldwork (Marino 2019c). This practical ethnographic stress on ‘­seeking quietly the local terms of life’ during a ‘patient engagement’ with the participants’ everyday lives has brought the present study towards a focus on the details of face-to-face life. Since ‘big pictures’ can be

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elusive (Jenkins 2008), a comparative, essentially relativist perspective on socio-cultural diversity is also central to the present study. However, a holistic emphasis on understanding local meanings (culture) using ethnography in everyday life which are gathered via participant observation characterises the methodological point of view of the present study. Fieldwork among the Calabrian–Australians of Adelaide immersed me within the local and ethnic meanings in everyday life. It was my professional rite de passage, a process of initiation that has brought out the ‘native voice’ in the book. Through fieldwork, apart from listening to the participants’ voices, in lieu of being a spectator, I participated as an engaged participant who constructs and shares a ‘web of significance’ (Geertz 2000) with other participants. The logic of the present work must be traced to the heart of its conceptual methodology. The ethnography that is collected reveals a constellation of relationships and meanings among the participants, facilitating an understanding of the social creativity of a culture, or, in Willis’s (1977) terms, the ‘social creativity of a space’. As Bauman (2001) claims, this always involves a recognition of, and action upon, the particularity of its place (and spaces) within a determinate social structure. In order to achieve this, I spent a substantial amount of time becoming familiar with and getting inside the participants’ social spaces. I developed meaningful, trusting and reciprocal relationships with the participants and their families over the course of the present study.

4.2  Design of the Study The present research includes a three-year period of fieldwork (2012– 2015) among individuals of the Calabrian community of Adelaide. In the initial months, I contacted the presidents and committee members of the various Calabrian clubs of Adelaide, which typically organise several community and religious feste. I introduced myself and explained the relevance of the project. I also asked permission to attend meetings and events and to be involved as a volunteer in the clubs, as a folkloric musician, given my knowledge of traditional Calabrian musical repertoire and musical instruments. I gave each club a flyer describing the project and my contact details. The flyer, in both English and Italian, was circulated for several months during community events. No participant was directly asked to participate in the present study, rather the participants contacted me voluntarily and,

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after expressing their willingness to participate and giving their informed consent, they were included in the study. In order to establish familiarity, and an approachable and ­empathetic relationship with participants, I relied on my Calabrian origin and my knowledge of the Calabrian regional language. As Clemente and Mugnaini (2001) note, the researcher should reduce the distance by highlighting, among his compound identities, the persona closer to his participants. I entered into the ‘field’ by emphasising my identity as a traditional musician (u sonaturi) and as a paesano, in order to share the emic world view and to lessen the participant–researcher distance (Marino 2019c). Once an empathetic relationship with participants was established, I was able to join specific spheres of their social lives, and received invitations for Christmas, Easter and other social occurrences (e.g. birthdays, engagement parties, weddings and funerals) in order to witness and share (intimate) details of participants’ family lives (e.g. food preparation, conversations, gossiping, arguments and jokes). I regularly attended formal and informal meetings and community social events, such as Calabrian feste, religious feasts, recreational activities and community fundraising activities. Appendix gives a map of the data, with information about the interviews and fieldnotes, and the main topics that were discussed in each interview or fieldnote (based on the thematic nodes that were detected and analysed with the assistance of NVivo). The present study is characterised by a reflexive ethnography related to my double role as a researcher who entered the field as both outsider and insider. Cultural anthropology pursued from an ethnographic approach is the qualitative social sciences practice that seeks to understand human groups (institutions, societies, cultures) by having the anthropologist in the same social space as the participants of the study. Therefore, in order to reduce the distance between interviewer and interviewed (as a researcher who cannot make himself disappear), I made myself more visible. I systematically observed and anticipated (to a greater or lesser degree) in the lives of the participants of the present study. As a cultural anthropologist who values the idea of ‘walking a mile in the shoes’ of others, I attempted to gain insight by being a participant myself, and a subject of the research (Madden 2010). I highlighted (among my multiple identities) the habitus closer to my participants, which happened to be that of an immigrant. I was the traditional musician—u sonaturi. Therefore, during the research, rather than being a spectator, I was an engaged participant who occupied a specific

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role within the community. Sharing a web of significance with the participants provided further reflexivity for interpreting the emic perspective and its ‘thick description’, which was then interpreted through anthropological theory. The primary participants of the present study were thirty adult individuals from three generations, with different educational backgrounds and employment. Some were born in Calabria, others in Australia. All the first-generation participants were born in Calabria, originating from several different villages (including from the village of the researcher’s parents), and migrated to Australia during the 1950s and 1960s. This group comprised ten individuals, aged from 65 to 84, all of whom were pensioners. They had generally attended a few years of primary school in Italy. After migrating to Australia, the male participants’ were manual labourers, working mainly in factories. The female participants were principally housewives. Communication with the first-generation participants was conducted in Calabrian. The second-generation participants included ten sons and daughters of the first-generation immigrants. Their ages ranged from 37 to 44 years. This group was represented mainly by business owners (of Italian restaurants or of companies in the construction industry), office workers and receptionists. Three were housewives. Eight second-generation participants had completed high school, and another had attended university. The third generation was represented by ten young participants who were university students or young office workers (mainly in private businesses, including travel agencies and real estate agencies). These thirty individuals were the primary participants, who agreed to share their experiences, thoughts and world views through direct interviews, narratives and the researcher’s participant observation. Of course, through participant observation in both the domestic and the community social fields, I observed a variety of situations that, predictably, included other individuals. These people (participants’ relatives, friends and acquaintances) were not directly involved in any of my research activities. However, when willing to participate and after having given their informed consent, they were included in the study as peripheral participants. 4.2.1   Selection of Primary Participants Primary participants were selected based on certain criteria. They were:

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• of Calabrian origin, either Italian- or Australian-born, across three generations • at least 18 years old • willing to participate in the project and able to give informed consent. Individuals who indicated they do not wish to be involved were excluded, as were children, although they remained within the field of participant observation. All participants’ names have been replaced by pseudonyms throughout the study. This research, then, adopts an ethnographic qualitative and interpretive approach, which includes participant observation and the collection of documentation and genealogies, combined with an in-depth analysis of the personal narratives of participants, in order to grasp a holistic picture of the dynamics in which ethnic identity is constructed and transmitted. Thus it was necessary to closely observe daily practices of transmission and to carefully analyse participants’ narratives and life histories as the experiences of immigrants. 4.2.2   Data Gathering and Analysis of the Data The following steps were taken to gather the data: • participant observation • cross-checking • collection of demographic data • open-ended interviews • fieldnotes, reflections, case studies and self-reflexive ethnographies • mapping the genealogies of primary and peripheral participants • collection of pictures and videos • collection of personal oral histories. Participant observation was the principal approach used in the present anthropological research. Specifically, the study was based on my observations and an intense and practical engagement in participants’ everyday life (e.g. shopping, social visiting), observing participants interacting with each other or with their family members and acquaintances. Participant observation was the most appropriate means of gathering data for two reasons. Firstly, the participants might feel embarrassed

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to talk about their personal lives with ‘a stranger’, thereby I sought to build (and maintain) a friendly relationship and a sense of mutual trust with them to increase their comfort in talking about themes and concepts relating to their own lives and experience. Secondly, the long-term fieldwork which characterises ethnographic research required building a collaborative rapport with informants based upon understanding. Participant observation was necessary to collect the necessary data, which were not based merely on what people declare in interviews, but on how they act in everyday life and how they engage with their communities. Cross-checking was also practised in order to contextualise ‘overperformance’. This approach is in line with what Appadurai (1996) calls a ‘theory of reception’ that incorporates an understanding of ‘situatedness’ and ‘intertextuality’. Participant observation was used to cross-check participants’ responses and comments about situations, particularly in cases where their claims and narratives appeared to be performatively in line with ‘what the anthropologist wants to hear’ (Cirese 2010).1 The praxis of ‘cross-checking’ is also intended to avoid what Bourdieu refers to as ‘philosophical scholasticism’, the very sin par excellence in research (Bourdieu 1997, p. 28)—‘confusing the things of logic with the logic of things’, thinking that the world is made for anthropologists who beautifully inject into their objects of study their a priori theories (without even ‘being there’ or ‘talking to the natives’). Demographic data about the participants were collected: for example, their ages, background and marital status; when they came to Australia, how, why and with whom; the village where they were born; where they resided; and their involvement in ethnic cultural practices (e.g. social participation, attendance at Calabrian community or religious events). The genealogies of primary and peripheral participants were documented and mapped to detect links among them where possible and to identify potential family alliances within the ethnic community, but also with a particular focus on the three-generation phenomenon. Open-ended interviews were conducted in participants’ own homes, thus combining interview with observation. Conversations with first-generation participants were conducted mainly in the Calabrian dialect, others mainly in English. The data from these interviews contributed to developing the life narratives of the primary participants. Fieldnotes, reflections, representative case studies and, in some cases, self-reflexive ethnographies were taken and transcribed after each visit, and successively elaborated during the process of data analysis.

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Each transcription is identified by a code that included a subset of the following information (depending on each particular transcription): • type of note: interview (I), fieldnote (FN), participant observation or reflection (OR), reflection (R) or genealogy (G) • a unique number • generation of participant: first (IG), second (IIG) or third (IIIG) • gender of participant: male (M) or female (F) • date of the note. The analysis of personal oral histories was particularly instrumental in understanding participants’ past life experiences, which were contextualised through different theoretical tools, in turn allowing me to interpret the immigrants’ and their descendants’ ethnic identities. The analysis of data was assisted by the use of the NVivo, software for qualitative data analysis. Specifically, NVivo classified the data which had been collected under different genres (i.e. interviews, oral histories, fieldnotes, observations, reflections, genealogies, pictures and videos). The software merged both text and context, and arranged, contextualised and conceptualised common patterns and key themes across the three generations. This was fundamental to creating the key concepts (which are referred to as nodes and sub-nodes in the software), in order to finally interpret actual causes of the participants’ construction and transmission ethnic identities.

4.3  Premise and Reflections on the Terms ‘Generation’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Tradition’ This section reflects on specific terms that are problematic by definition, especially when they are seen as static essences. For this reason, a discussion of the terms ‘generation’, ‘culture’ (and its associates, such as ‘ethnic groups’) and ‘tradition’ is presented. This research investigates ethnic identity across three generations. When possible, the data gathering and analysis follow a generational order. Moreover, the results of the present research are also presented according to a generational logic. It is important to realise that the concept of generation should not be seen as deterministic, that is, classifying individuals and groups in typologies, with their own ‘values’ and characteristics per se (Del Torto 2008). Such an essentialist view emphasises fixed traits among group members. It objectifies beings (whether they

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are abstract or dynamics notions, cultures or individuals). The objectification might take place when it is assumed that, for any specific group, there is a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function. Such reification neglects the subjectivity of the objects of the study, their phenomenological experiences and hermeneutics and all the interactions with any exogenous element that they might have. This also means that the agency of social actors is underestimated. However, individuals in a social space can share a set of basic schemes of perceptions, conceptions and actions based on experiences that they might have internalised, which concern certain structures such as their generation and social class (Hobsbawm 2000). For this reason, acknowledging that individuals in a particular generation share certain characteristics can be a useful point from which to interpret how certain groups (ordered by generations) have experienced their ethnic identities. Hence, generation is a useful category when contextualising crucial life experiences of participants who have shared (together with the cultural background of their parents) the same historical period. They might also share certain perceptions of their ethnicities as a result of a ‘disequilibrium of power’ that their ethnicity might have had within their historical period. From a socio-anthropological perspective, the generation dimension of the participants in this study should be understood as the f­ollowing: the first generation represents those individuals who were born in Italy and relocated to another country. Migration studies refer to them as migrants (Baldassar 2001). There is some debate about what constitutes the second generation, which then has flow-on effects on the definition of subsequent generations. Strictly speaking, the second generation are those individuals born in Australia with at least one immigrant parent; that is, those born to the first-generation migrants in the host country. However, from a sociological perspective, it also includes those who migrated as young children (Baldassar 2001), and for this group, as important as discrepancies based on socio-economic, educational and regional background is the factor of age of migration. According to Clyne (1982), overseas-born immigrants who arrived as infants could be referred to as the 1.5 generation. Adolescents from this 1.5 generation, who arrived in the host society as infants, are socialised in the host country, and thus should be considered as a sub-category of second-generation individuals (category 2a, for example). They should be distinguished from a second sub-category (2b), who were born and

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mainly socialised in the home country and migrated to the host c­ ountry as adolescents. Moreover, there is a third, subjective sub-category of the second generation, which depends on what generation the actors consider themselves to be. According to Clyne (1982), the importance of this third definition, which focuses on the notion of belonging, is that it can accommodate the possibility of multiple identities. In the present study, primarily for the sake of representation of the genealogies, second-generation participants belonging to such sub-categories will be considered as part of the second generation. Participants of the third generation are the children of the second generation. In the present study, they consist of Australian-born people both of whose parents were born in Australia or migrated there at a very young age, and whose grandparents were born in Calabria. If ‘generations’ are not to be treated as fixed entities, the ideas of ‘culture’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘community’, ‘cultural group’, ‘tradition’ and so on should also be approached in the same way. No culture is ‘pure’. Culture, as well as its content, is always dynamic or fluid (Barth 1970). As Wolf and colleagues have pointed out, as we know, ‘race’, ‘culture’ and ‘people’ are ‘perilous ideas’ (Wolf et al. 1994; Jenkins 2008). One of the widespread essentialist attitudes is to typecast cultures, groups and their traditions according to certain a priori essential characteristics (sometimes metaphorically, and ethnocentrically, thought to be in ‘their heart’) that they are presumed to possess. This approach leads to cultural determinism, not far from the Rousseauian myth of le bon sauvage (the noble savage, in which indigenes were characterised by their congenital predispositions of not having been ‘corrupted’ by civilisation and who thus symbolise humanity’s innate goodness). That approach idealised and caricaturised people and culture, but culture is a being that cannot be reified. It is a changing, mutable and contingent property of interpersonal transactions, rather than a reified entity, somehow above the fray of daily life, which produces the behaviour of individuals. The constant need to struggle against the tendency to reify ethnicity is a common problem in social science. Neither ethnicity nor culture is ‘something that people have’, or, indeed, to which they ‘belong’ (Jenkins 2008). They are, rather, complex repertoires that people experience, use, learn and ‘do’ in their daily lives, within which they construct an ongoing sense of themselves and an understanding of their fellows. Ethnicity, in particular, is best thought of as an ongoing process of ethnic identification.

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In the present context, a critique of the word ‘ethnic’ is in order. Ethnicity is not a peculiar attribute of minorities, nor is it restricted to ‘exotic others’. Everyone is ethnic. The word ‘ethnic’ appears to be still in the collective imaginary typically used for non-white people (Jenkins 2008), whereas every individual participates in an ethnicity, perhaps more than one. In order to avoid cultural essentialism, it is important to realise the dynamism of culture and any cultural group. In his seminal work Ethnic groups and boundaries, Barth (1970) defined an ethnic group according to its boundaries, not as a result of its ‘cultural content’ (i.e. its values that are essential for the reproduction and continuity of the group across generations). Within the group, there is the general belief that if it shares what Geertz (1973) referred to as its ‘cultural stuff’ (based on specific traits, such as language, religion, customs, tradition and genealogy), the ethnic group will always be dynamic and not a closed entity per se. Therefore, the group’s social organisation is maintained by a fluid intergroup boundary mechanism, based not on possession of a cultural inventory, but on manipulation of identities and their situational character. This conceptualisation enables anthropologists to focus on the situational and contextual character of ethnicity (Okamura 1981; Verdery 1991), to see its political dimensions more clearly, such as the ability to structure intergroup relations and to serve as a basis for political mobilisation and social stratification. Furthermore, in diasporic realities, cultural groups might ­ differ significantly from their archetypical one in the mother country as a result of the presence, contact and relevance of the receiving society. Additionally, it is important to realise that tradition and folklore are not static essences. The fact that they relate to cultural systems with a shared framework of meanings does not mean that the cultural content (together with its vast constellation of symbols) is fixed. Rather, tradition and folklore should be conceived as contextual processes, far from being defined objects to collect, classify and analyse. Moreover, and most importantly, as a result of being a ‘contextual process’, the practices of folklore might assume different meanings for different individuals (and generations). For example, the participation in an Italian festa or the act of dancing a ‘traditional dance’ such as a tarantella is perceived subjectively by individuals, and the symbolic meanings might vary according to a number of subjective socio-cultural factors (e.g. personal experiences, generations, the individual level of engagement with that culture). Therefore, whether folklore is practised by following the

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so-called orthodox tradition or in a creative way across generations, it is important not to evaluate its results or performances according to the level of authenticity with which they are performed, because the ethnic tradition can be reinterpreted and its symbolic features repeatedly negotiated. They may in any case continue to represent strong markers of ethnic identity.

Notes 1. ‘Participants lie’, claimed Cirese (2010) in an anthropology lecture at the University of Rome. This can happen for a number of reasons. Apart from the wish to be rewarded, it may happen for narcissistic reasons, because they appreciate the researcher’s attention, or because of the ‘unusual status’ they obtain in dealing with the anthropologist (or participating in academic research). The history of anthropology is not unfamiliar with such cases. For example, Ogotemmeli, who was Marcel Griaule’s informant among the African Dogon tribe, eventually lied to the anthropologist for reasons of personal egocentrism, and Malinowski’s informants (particularly the ones in Oburaku, the lagoon village in the Trobriand Islands) lied because they had become dependent on the researcher’s store goods and cigarettes, which were exchanged for information and detailed descriptions. In other words, the so-called ‘informants’ in anthropology might just say what the researcher wants to hear and, consequently, their evidence might be unreliable.

References Appadurai, A. (1996). Global ethnoscapes: Notes and queries for a transnational anthropology. In A. Appadurai (Ed.), Modernity at large (pp. 48–65). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bachelard, G. (1938). La formation de l’esprit scientifique. Paris: Vrin. Baldassar, L. (2001). Visits home: Migration experiences between Italy and Australia. Melbourne: University Press. Barth, F. (1970). Ethnic groups and boundaries. Berfen: Universitets Forlaget. Bauman, Z. (2001). Identity in the globalizing world. Social Anthropology, 9(2), 121–129. Bourdieu, P. (1997). Le sens pratique. Paris: Minuit (English translation, R. Nice, The logic of practice, 1980). Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological Theory, 7(1), 14–25.

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Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Cirese, A. M. (2010). Altri sé: Per un’atropologia delle invarianze. Palermo: Sellerio. Clemente, P., & Mugnaini, F. (2001). Oltre il folklore, tradizioni popolari e antropologia nella società contemporanea. Rome: Carocci Editore. Clyne, M. (1982). Multilingual Australia: Resources, needs, policies. Melbourne: River Seine Publications. De Saussure, F. (1968). Corso di linguistica generale. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Del Torto, L. M. (2008). Ci arrangiamo: Negotiating linguistic shift-maintenance in an Italian-Canadian community. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan. Retrieved September 20, 2015, from https://deepblue.lib.umich. edu/handle/2027.42/61600. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. (2000). Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Hobsbawm, E. (2000). Mass-producing traditions: Europe, 1870–1914. In E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger (Eds.), The invention of tradition (pp. 263–307). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jenkins, R. (2008). Rethinking ethnicity (2nd ed.). London: Sage. Lévi-Strauss, C. (2009). Antropologia strutturale (Vol. 68). Milano: Il saggiatore. Madden, R. (2010). Being ethnographic: A guide to the theory and practice of ethnography. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Marino, S. (2019c). Thrown into the world: The shift between pavlova and pasta in the ethnic identity of Australians originating from Italy. Journal of Sociology, 144078331988828. Okamura, J. Y. (1981). Situational ethnicity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4(4), 452–465. Verdery, K. (1991). National ideology under socialism: Identity and cultural politics in Ceausescu’s Romania. Berkeley: University of California Press. Vermeulen, H., & Govers, C. (Eds.). (1994). The anthropology of ethnicity: Beyond ethnic groups and boundaries. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Vermeulen, H., & Govers, C. (1997). From political mobilization to the politics of consciousness. In The politics of ethnic consciousness (pp. 1–30). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Willis, P. E. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York: Columbia University Press. Wolf, E. R., Kahn, J. S., Roseberry, W., & Wallerstein, I. (1994). Perilous ideas: Race, culture, people. Current Anthropology, 35(1), 1–12.

CHAPTER 5

Participants’ Perceptions of Their Ethnicity Across the Three Generations

This chapter—part of the data and analysis of which have been taken from Marino (2019a, b)—discusses participants’ perceptions of their ethnicity across the three generations. Among all the data sources, the fieldnotes and reflections and the open-ended interviews play a key role here. With the assistance of the data analysis software NVivo, I have identified certain representative themes and thoughts across the three generations, based on repeated patterns shared by the participants (Tuckett 2004).1 For each generation, an NVivo word frequency frame shows ‘the voices’ of the participants. Section 5.1 relates to the first generation, presenting p ­articipants’ experiences of the ‘old times’, of ‘how difficult it was’ living in Australia, and of specific unresolved issues with the mother country. Section 5.2 is about the second generation, and illustrates common feelings highlighted by those participants. In particular, what emerges are the perceived contrasting pressures exerted on the one hand by Anglo-Australian society, principally by their peers at school, and on the other hand by their Calabrian family (or the broader Italian community). Section 5.3 gives the third-generation’s perceptions of their ethnic background. Like their parents, the third generation deliberately mentioned their school experiences when talking on their ethnic identity. However, the data reveal that their perceptions differ significantly

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from those of their parents and suggest that school was a very different place for them. Section 5.4 notes some observations about markers of ethnicity across the generations. Finally, in Sect. 5.5 an intergenerational case study extrapolated from the interviews and participant observations with one participating family (Bianco family) illustrates the connections across the three generations and the different participants’ perceptions of their ethnicity.

5.1  The First Generation 5.1.1  A Sonata at Vince’s Place The following is an extract of my fieldnotes. Some of the data and analysis here have already been presented in Marino (2019a, b). Cometa,2 14 November 2013. Vince invited me for ’na sonata (a jam session with traditional Calabrian musical instruments). I had the chance to meet him when I gave a ride to him to the doctor. In front of his house there is his 1990s brown Holden Commodore. I notice a gobbo (hunchback) hung on the rear-view mirror and two stickers at the back of the car: one representing the Virgin Mary, specifically the Madonna of Polsi, and the other a little Italian flag. Before knocking at his door, I recalled the last words he had said to me after one day at the clinic: Maestru, vi fermati ’nte mia, mangiamu nu piatt’i pasta, na ffetta i capicollu, ndi mbivinu u vinu chi faci u me cumpari e ndi facimu na sonata. [Maestro, you come over my place, we’ll have a plate of pasta, a slice of capocollo,3 we drink my godparents’ wine and we’ll have a jam session.] Vince is a widower. He is the youngest of eight children who originate from a large family from Monello,4 a small hamlet of Giallo,5 Reggio Calabria. He migrated to Australia in the 1960s. In Monello, Vince used to share the bed with three of his brothers. Remembering the time in Calabria, he recalls that on some nights, because of his hunger, he would dream of a big beef steak, and bite his brother Luigi’s arm in his sleep: ’Nto me paisi, a Monello, non c’eranu cessi, non avevamu bricicletti, jocavamu cu ’u sceccu, mangiavamu tutti ’nte nu stessu piattu. A carni na vitti mai, ma staciuvumu sempi tutti assiemi, chi cuggini … eravamu felici … Cà simu ’bbandunati … Tanti voti mi insonnava chi magiava grossi ffetti i canri … e tno sonnu muzzicava u vrazzu i me frati Luigi. [In my village, Monello, there were no toilets; we did not have bicycles; we used to play with our donkey; we all ate from the same plate. As for meat, I never saw any, but all of us were always together, with our cousins; we were happy.

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Here, we have been abandoned. Many times I used to dream I was eating big slices of meat … and during the dream I used to bite the arm of my brother Luigi.] While Vince was preparing the coffee with the caffettiera, he said: Non mi trovu, really, non mi trovu, ancora sugnu spaesatu. Ancora non mi trovu, e passaru cinquant’anni! Non staiu bbonu cca, cu’i cancaruni, e mancu dda, all’Italia, quandu tornu ogni annu. [I am not settled, really, I am not settled, I’m still stateless. I am not settled and more than fifty years have passed! I am nether comfortable (at home) here with the skippies,6 nor there, in Italy, when I return every year.] Vince’s first occupation was in Broken Hill, as a miner. After a year, he moved to Adelaide and met Rosa, Calabrian as well, from Giallo. Subsequently, after an uneasy correspondence with the families in Italy, and having gained parental permission from Calabria, the couple ultimately married in the Mater Christi Church in December 1970. After years of sacrifici (sacrifices), Vince and Rosa opened a relatively successful travel agency that helped numerous paesani (people from the same village) residing in Adelaide who could not speak English. Nevertheless, despite their ­relative financial prosperity, Vince confessed he misses something when, every night, he plays the organetto (concertina) that he brought from Monello. Indeed, he is a musician. He brought his organetto from Italy on the ship Roma, one of the ships that transported immigrants to Australia. While the Italian radio played ‘Ciao ciao bambina’ by the Italian singer Domenico Modugno, I notice Vince expressing himself animatedly, gesticulating with his shiny golden ring with a tiny ruby on his pinkie that he bought, as he repeatedly says, when he ha fatto moneta (he had made money): Quandu unu decide di partire, è già cambiatu. Ora, né carni né pisci, sugnu. [When one decides to leave, one has already changed. Now, (I am) neither meat nor fish]. Then he grabbed his organetto and said: Ogni sira sonu, pe cacciari a tristezza … vabbò, facimundi sta sonata e non ci penzamu! [I play every night to drive the sadness away … anyway, let’s just have this jam and let’s not think about that!] FN1IGM

Using a metaphor, Vince describes himself as ‘neither meat nor fish’. He confesses that after fifty years in Australia he still does not feel ‘at home’. He cannot ‘find himself’, he still feels lost, displaced. Moreover, he plays traditional Calabrian music to overcome his condition. When describing his feelings, Vince uses the Italian expression spaesato (literally, ‘being out of one’s own town’). Such a feeling of displacement seems

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not merely to relate to Vince’s practical but limited knowledge of the English language (or of the Australian bureaucracy, which in fact he knows very well), but something deeper, a sentiment of a perceived ‘non-presence’ that he currently experiences. 5.1.2   First-Generation Experiences Within the Anglo-Australian World All of the first-generation participants, when talking about la loro storia (their story) in Australia, mentioned the dramatic cultural differences they encountered between themselves and Australian society when they were first ‘thrown into that world’. They also specifically reported a number of episodes that appear to have racism as a common denominator. In particular, numerous episodes of discrimination were experienced, mainly at work or within certain Australian institutions (e.g. hospitals) which did not appear ready to manage the massive number of culturally diverse migrants who were arriving at the time. Directly or less directly stated, it seemed that migrants were expected to conform to local patterns, and it was usually the case that the immigrants’ blatant diversity (often perceived as undesirable) led to traumatic experiences that enhanced an opposition of ‘us vs them’ between the participants and the Anglo-Australian majority. This in turn may have contributed to the creation of resentment or marginalisation. Rocco, a first-generation male participant, reported: È stato difficile, tanto difficile perché loro ti odiavano, ti odiavano sempre … i padroni ci chiamavano black, nero nero, ma allora non capivo. Un giorno l’ho preso dal collo, avevo la forza di un leone … mi fici incazzari, loro ingiuriavano: dago, wog, maccheroni. [It was hard, so hard because they used to hate us … the bosses at work used to call us black. I did not understand their words. One day I grabbed one by his neck. I used to have the strength of a lion … I was really angry, they used to call us names: dago, wog, maccheroni.] I1IGM

Similarly, another male participant reported: Piangevo sempre, ogni giorno quando ero giovane e volevo tornare a casa. [I used to cry all the time, every day when I was younger, because I wanted to go back home.] I48IGM

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Apart from the discrimination that participants experienced as a result of being different, it seems that when participants did try to adapt to the norms of the host society world into which they had been thrown, a glaring paradox emerged. Two participants reported that, during the 1950s, adapting to the ‘Australian way’ was arduous. Doppu dudici uri chi lavuravamu nta Holden, non potivumu trasiri nte nu ppub ca finiva subbitu a sciarra. Non potivumu nchianari supa all’autobussu chi cu nu carciu ndi jettavanu fora. Ndi chiamavanu, bloody dago, wog. Quandu l’australiani iarmavanu, i polisi eranu sempi ppe iddi e cuntra a nui. Na vota nu polisi mi chiamavanu dago. [After 12 hours of work at (the car company) Holden, we couldn’t go to the pub because it would end in a fight. We couldn’t catch the bus because someone would kick us off. They called us bloody dago, wog. When Australians provoked us, the police were on their side and against us, every time. One time a policeman called me a dago.] I4IGM Non potivi nesciri sulu, pe ‘na birra u venerdi ssira, ca venivanu e ti pigghiavanu. [You didn’t dare go out on Friday night by yourself to have a beer, they would get you.] I43IGM

Another first-generation male participant reported: A lavuru, inta a fattoria i machini, u bossu ’ndi chiamava Tony o Black, ma nui staciumu zzitti. Nto lunch break, nui iocavamu e ogni nvota u bossu nci piggiava i carti e nci iettava nto rrabbish e l’australiani, i Poms, si rridivanu, ndi sfuttivanu. [At work, in the car factory, the supervisor used to call us Tony and Blackie but we just ignored that. During the lunch break, we used to play cards and every time the boss took our cards and threw them in the rubbish bin and the Australians, the Poms,7 would laugh and make fun of us.] I3IGM

The participants who tried to conform to what they believed were the practices of the locals were not accepted and experienced racism. Moreover, those who worked in factories reported that supervisors and colleagues often treated them as infants who needed to learn how to ‘be good’ and behave (technically and morally). Many of the participants who worked at the factory were given the same nickname: ‘Tony’ or

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‘Blackie’. To avoid xenophobia (or a sense of mortification) they started to isolate themselves from the Anglo-Australians. Gina, a female participant who migrated from Rosso,8 reported how a time which was supposed to be joyful became instead a marker of how she was different in Australia: Mi ricordu chi na vota era bruttu, non sapevamu parrari. Quando spettava a Teresa, ieu era sula all’ospetali pecchi me maritu lavurava, e a mia mi doliva u stomacu e l’infermiera non capisciva. Na vota l’infermiera era cunn’attra nurse e si misiru a rridiri. Oh, Jesus, era come chi moriva intra, mi mmazzaru cu ddi rrisa, ma non c’a detti a soddisfazioni pemmu ciangiu. Quandu s’indiiru, ieu piansi tutta a notti. Poi quandu partoria a Teresa, decisi chi ndavia pemmu umparu l’Inglesi, no more laughs. Ancora non parru sula chi medici, non sacciu, sa vidi mefigghia. [I remember that, years ago, it was horrible, we couldn’t speak English. When I was pregnant with Teresa, I was at the hospital, alone, since my husband was working. I felt a pain in my stomach and the nurse didn’t understand me, she was with another nurse and they both started to laugh. Oh Jesus, I felt I was dying inside, they were killing me with their laughter, I did not give them the satisfaction of seeing me hurting, but I cried when they left, I cried the whole night. When I gave birth to Teresa I decided I must learn English, no more ridicule. Now I still don’t talk to doctors alone, my daughter looks after that.] I7IGF

Gina considers her experience at the hospital was terrible. It was supposed to be a joyful period, when she was expecting her first daughter. However she felt humiliated, due to her supposed deficiency in the English language, and this lasted years and contributed to her resentment towards ‘the Australians’ and her motivation to learn English. Another participant who migrated from Giallo9 in the 1950s, Frank, shared in the interview the humiliations he experienced while working on sugar plantations: Quandu lavorava nto nord du Queensland ogni nvota u bossu mi diciva chi ieu nsurtava i fimmini da città, ma non era veru. Ogni matina, u bossu mi faciva sempre, Tony, banger, Tony, banger, iddu u sapia chi mi chiavama Frank ma sin di futtiva, sfuttiva, u bossu australianu, ma chi era bruttu … eravamu quattru operai, dui australiani, nu slavu e ieu. U bossu non mi putiva vidiri, pevvia da guerra. Ogni giornu a carretta ndavia ma porta uno differenti, mentre u bossu volia ma portu sempi ieu. Na vota nci dissi, pe inglesi, tu non mi paghi extra pe tutti i voti chi portu a carretta! Iddu mi

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guardava mali! Na vota u bossu mi dissi, Frank, veni cca, pigghia a ­carretta, ieu pigghiai a carretta e nci trovai na … you know, nu pezzu i merda intra a carretta e l’attri chi si rridivanu. Iddu mi chiamau quandu era nta barracca e cuminciau, you dirty dago, iddu volia mu faci a pugni cummia e iue nci dissi, no ora, stasira. Iddu volia ieu mi fazzu a pugni, cosi ieu perdiva u lavuru e allura nci dissi, stasira, all’hotel. A sira all’hotel, ieu u vitti e iddu mi passau vicinu e mi dissi all’orecchio, you bloody wog, e nci tirai nu pugnu chi u stendia! U patruni dell’hotel ndi cacciau fora e ndi salammu i corpa, iddu era cchiu grossu, ma ieu era troppu ncazzatu, ill’avia a pagari tutti! A poi vinniru i polisi, e mi levaranu a caserma, sulu a mmia, a iddu no toccaru, bloody bastards. [When I used to work in northern Queensland, many times the boss accused me of molesting women. It was false. Every morning, the boss used to say to me ‘Tony wheelbarrow, Tony barrow’, he knew that my name was Frank but he didn’t give a damn, he teased me, the Australian boss. How ugly he was. There were four workers, two Australians, one Yugoslav and me. The boss couldn’t stand me because of the war. Every day the wheelbarrow was supposed to be pushed by a different worker, whereas the boss wanted me to do it every time. One day I told him in English: ‘You don’t pay me extra for the times I carry the banger.’ He used to give me evil looks. Another day the boss told me: ‘Tony, come here and grab the banger.’ I grabbed the banger and I found … you know … a piece of shit in it, and all the others were laughing. He called me from the shed and said, ‘You are a dirty dago, aren’t you?’ He wanted me to fight, and I replied, ‘Not now, tonight, at the hotel.’ He wanted to provoke me while I was at work so I’d lose the job. That night, at the hotel, I saw him, he came up to me and whispered in my ear, ‘you bloody wog’, I punched him and I knocked him out. The owner of the hotel kicked us out. We had a fight, he was bigger but I was infuriated. He needed to pay for everything! Then the police came and took me away, they didn’t touch him, bloody bastards.] I10IGM

Frank’s excerpt, together with those of other first-generation participants, needs to be contextualised within the specific historical period in which they migrated. During the 1950s and 1960s, at the high point of the migration scheme known as ‘Bring out a Briton’, Australian society expected its immigrants to be assimilated, culturally and practically, included and absorbed in the dominant, ‘official’, culture (Wilton and Bosworth 1984). Migrants to Australia were categorised unofficially through the dichotomy ‘desirable’ versus ‘undesirable’ (O’Connor 1996). Those ascriptions might have contributed to shaping their ethnic identities.

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5.1.3   A Widespread Sense of Betrayal Another shared feeling reported by the participants of the first generation, in addition to all the struggles of perceiving themselves ­culturally different in Australia, seems to be an unresolved tension relating to Italy, their country of origin. The participants appear to share a common feeling of being at fault. This perception, rather than concerning their role as immigrants relates to their role as emigrants. The first generation report and manifest, to different degrees, persistent feelings of remorse—of having betrayed and left their country and their people— or, conversely, a resentment towards their mother country, which forced them to emigrate. The following excerpts depict these feelings. A participant in his mid-70s, who had emigrated to Australia fifty years earlier, reported: Cca (in Australia) sulu me casa staiu bonu, o quandu vaiu nte festi cull’attri paisani. Sognu sempre chi staiu i natta vanda, non mi sentu bbonu ca, ma a cosa strana esti chi succediu puru all’Italia, vinti anni fa quandu tornai pecchi me patri era malatu … mi trattavanu da stranieru … puru all’Italia! Mi sentu, in viaggiu, sempri. Doppu 50 anni penzu ancora all’Italia, a me testa esti ddocu, alle cose che ho lasciato. Mi capita tante volte di pensare o sognare un posto diverso da quello in cui vivo. E sempre maledico u me paisi quando sugnu nto paisi e sogno il paese quando sugnu all’ Australia. [Here (in Australia) I feel fine only at home or when I attend religious festivals with other paesani. I often dream of being elsewhere, I don’t feel this is my place, but the strange thing is that the same thing happened in Italy, twenty years ago, when I returned. I went back because my father was sick and they treated me as a stranger, even in Italy! I feel that I am forever in transit. After fifty years my thoughts are still in Italy, with the things I left behind. I often think and dream of a place that is different from the one where I currently live. Every time I curse my village when I am there but I dream about it when I am in Australia.] I9IGM

The participant talks about attending religious festivals to o ­ vercome his struggle. His feelings might appear to be related to nostalgia, however, it seems to be a more complex sentiment. He has ambivalent attitudes towards his country of origin, which he has been visiting annually. He reports that he often curses his mother country when he is there, and dreams of ‘his Calabria’ when he is in Australia. This type of emotional response was widespread among the participants.

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The feeling of being at fault and the sense of being denied in one’s country of origin are encapsulated in the following extract from the life story of Francesco, a participant originally from Bianco.10 Francesco, after one ‘life’ spent in Australia as an immigrant, returned for the first time to his paese (village). In August 2014, Francesco, who is a widower originating from my father’s village, welcomed me into his house with remarkable affection. I gave him, as a small gift, a pack of Italian coffee and he said: Grazie, ma non era megghiu ’na stampa i capicoddu e na buttigghia i vinu du nostru Bianco? [Thanks, but wouldn’t have been better a bit of capocollo and a bottle of wine from our Bianco?] Before starting the interview, Francesco proudly showed me his house, which displayed a large number of pictures of Italy and of members of his family. There were many pictures of his paese, Bianco, of the Madonna del Carmine church, and a number of iconographic images such as San Rocco (who is thought to be the protector of immigrants). There was an old tambourine on display too. He confessed to me that he left his heart in our paese even though he no longer has anyone there, since his parents died and the rest of the family is spread all over the world. Then he suddenly recalls: Doppu quindici anni tornai a Calabria, a Bianco, voliva vediri si potiva tornari … ndavia risparmiatu brava moneta … ia nta chiazza, ndavia l’occhi chini a lacrimi pa a felicità, era troppu content. Peppe, nu paesano chi era u megghiu amicu meu, mi dissi: Ah! Viditi! Vinni l’Australianu! E cchi portasti pe nnui? Portasti soldi? E chi venisti a fari? Min ci mmustri u to bell’orologgiu d’oru? Parri ancora Italianu, signor Francesco? Mi dissiru. Signor Francesco mi dissiru, no Don Cicciu, come mi chiamavanu e come chiamavanu a me nonnu! Perdia u rrispettu! Capiscisti, mi trattarunu da foresteru! A nvidia! Iddi si penzanu chi ieu facia a bella vita, u pasha, ma ieu, pemmi mu cattu stu neddu, lavurai e zzappai comu nu nigru all’Australia! E Iddi sa ciangiunu, complainanu e poi sputtunu chilli ca partunu, ma ieu non sugnu nu Giuda, nu traditori! Ma chi fici i mali ieu!? [After fifteen years I went back to Calabria, to Bianco, I wanted to see whether I could return … I saved some money. I went to the square, my eyes filled with tears of joy, I was so happy. Peppe, who used to be my best friend, said: ‘Ah, people, look, here is the Australian! What did you bring for us? Did you bring money? What did you come for? To show us your nice gold watch? Do you still speak Italian, Mr Francesco?’ They called me Mr Francesco, not Don Ciccio, as they used to call me before and as my father was called. I’d lost the respect they owed me. They treated me like a stranger! It is because of envy! They think I had an easy life in Australia,

112  S. MARINO the life of a lord, but to get this ring I used to work and dig like a slave in Australia! They cry, they complain and make fun of the ones who leave, but I am not a Judas, a traitor! What did I do wrong to deserve that?] I12IGM

His resentment and his feeling of having committed a sin seem to loom large in Francesco’s conscience. Francesco confidently states he had lost the ‘respect’ of his paesani.11 Unable to see how he could be at fault, he interprets his unresolved conflicts with the paesani in Italy as being their fault, that they were envious. Similar feelings of remorse and resentment are reported by Silvia, a female participant who visited ‘home’ only once after her marriage: Cu sapi chi si spettanu! Quandu ia all’Italia fu a prima e l’ultima vota! Mai più! I figghioli eranu picciuli, sindivolivanu tornari! Mi trattaru comu na straniera! E ieu nci cattava a megghiu rrobba (ai parenti in Italia). [I wonder what they expect! When I went to Italy it was the first and the last time! Never again! The kids were little and wanted to go home (to Australia). They (relatives in Italy) treated me as a stranger! And I always gave them the best food and stuff!] I3IGF

In addition, it seems that participants who returned to Calabria after a number of years were disenchanted, as a result of having maintained, for years, a certain idea of their village which was then revealed to be no longer true. A number of them, while in Australia, remembered people and places in a vivid way, leaving them with a static image of the country they left, and this turns to frustration when they are perceived as strangers. Such a feeling is described in the following fieldnote about Francesco: Francesco is asking me about ‘his’ paese, about the paesani, and it seems he does not fully realise the extreme amount of time that has passed since his departure. He asks me for news about specific characters of Bianco, the ones who were called by a njuria (nickname), such as Ceciu l’orbu (Vincenzo the blind), u Corpu i Giuda (Giuda’s body), a Monaca (the nun), u Nigru (the black guy), a Buttana (the slut), all of whom were elderly at the time of Francesco’s departure, so have probably been deceased for decades. I have the impression that Francesco’s memory, despite the fact that he was living by himself with remarkable lucidity, wants to maintain people and places unchanged, crystallised, frozen in time. Francesco asked me about ‘his’ piazza (square), the only one in the

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centre of Bianco – which in his mind was big and spacious, whereas in reality it’s only a few square metres. He is now asking me about ‘his’ church, the Chiesa di Sant’Anna, asking if during the patronal feast, a festa, Bianco was crowded with paesani and strangers from everywhere. Now he says: A piazza e u campanili furu l’urtima cosa chi vitti quando, partendu, mi votai pe salutari u paisi. [The square and the bell-tower were the last things I saw when, as I was leaving, I turned around to say goodbye to my village.] FN2IGM

In the above extract, already recorded in part in Marino (2019a, b), Francesco admits that despite a life spent in Australia, he still misses his village; it is very present in his mind, including the image of the church, just before he left. This image coexists with the frustration of being perceived as a stranger by his paesani. Francesco’s narrative encapsulates the complexities hidden in the immigrants’ identity, the continuities and discontinuities of being both immigrant and emigrant. Figure 5.1 reveals the key themes emerging from the discourses of the first generation, as captured by the NVivo word frequency snapshot. These speak to feeling undesirable or unqualified within the receiving country and its institutions,

Fig. 5.1  NVivo word frequency snapshot of first-generation participants’ key arguments or in colour for PDF version

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Fig. 5.2  Spaesato (Image Courtesty of Luca Vannini)

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and the unresolved conflicts with those who stayed behind in the mother country—expressed, for instance, in the words Giuda (Judas) or tradituri (betrayer) highlighted by NVivo (Marino 2019a, b). The vignettes in Fig. 5.2 are an interpretation of some of the participants’ narratives: what was going on in Australia in the 1950s and, later, in Italy, when the migrants met once again the Italians who did not migrate.

5.2  The Second Generation Among the second-generation participants there is a widespread feeling of having ‘two lives’, that is, living in both a Calabrian family (perceived as traditional and often ‘tied too much’ to the Italian community) and within Australian society. The participants commonly perceived those two worlds as contrasting. The following sections explore extracts from participant interviews and field notes relating to such things as their experiences at school, their perceptions of their ethnic background, and what happened when they visited Italy and first met their Italian family. 5.2.1   School Experiences of the Second Generation The second-generation participants generally reported that their first experiences of being different (from the dominant group) arose at school, and the majority of them began in interviews by talking about their school experiences. Being called a ‘wog’ or a ‘dago’ was common. When talking about the discrimination they were subjected to by their peers at school, the participants blamed specific markers of being Italian: having Italian surnames, broken English, different lunches or different styles of dress. According to them, these markers of diversity were the cause of their discrimination and contributed to widespread discomfort. This created a certain bitterness towards their Anglo-Australian schoolmates, but also long-lasting resentment towards their own ethnic background. For some participants, the effect of the Italian markers on their peers seems to have shaped or even changed the ideas they themselves had about their ethnicity. Tina, a 45-year-old woman, reported: I used to get chased out of school by a boy who was a little bit older than me, and I remember so vividly, he went behind me calling me with racist

116  S. MARINO words (such as ‘bloody wog’), he was one or two years older than me, he used to walk behind me and used to call me names from behind all the way down, all the streets, ‘dagoes’, ‘dirty wog’, ‘fucking wog’ … I saw him many years later in a pub in North Adelaide when I was in my twenties and he recognised me, I recognised him but did not want to talk. He came up to me and said ‘Do you remember me? You turned out all right’. And ieu si rispundia … ‘Ma tu no [I answered him: ‘But you didn’t], you’ve always been a racist, a pig, with bad skin and you are still an arse hole, so fuck off!’ Oh, what a relief, I had been waiting for years to tell him that! E chistu cca rrestau, stu stortu [And that bloke was speechless, the idiot], where did all this rage come from? I had lived all my time at school as a nightmare because I am Italian and I always hung out with people like me, children of Italians. I13IIGF

The racism experienced at school dramatically influenced Tina’s choice of friends. She preferred to spend time with other Italian schoolmates. Anna and Rob, a married couple whose stories will be discussed further in the following sections and also in Sect. 5.5, seem to share the experience of having developed an Italophobic attitude towards their ethnicity during the years of school: My first years at school I could not speak English. For one year I did not speak at all. No one understood me, I did not understand them, it was like I was invisible. Then I became like them, I got blonde, I dressed like them and I gave up with all the Italian peasant stuff. Anna, I14IIGF When I first attended school, I could not speak English, but only Italian. I felt excluded. […] I got teased because of the sandwiches my mum used to prepare […] and because of my stupid shoes I wore the first day. I was uncomfortable when my mum picked me up from school. Rob, I11IIGM

Similar terms and experiences were used by three second-generation women reporting on their time at school.

other

I had never realised that people could really classify me as different, only because I did not have blonde hair and blue eyes. I got taught very soon that the salami in class, instead of the meat pie or the vegemite, could make the difference. ‘What’s this disgusting smell?’ I got asked every day.

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So I tried to be like them … but it was not enough. I asked myself lots of times: ‘Who am I?’ I18IIGF At school, I was bullied, many times for … I guess the lunchbox mamma used to make, with salami, and bread … Now, everything has changed. My nephews sell their Italian lunchbox, for five or ten bucks to their Aussie mates. I29IIGF When Rocky and me went to school, with u pani cull’ogghiu [bread with oil] and salami it was embarrassing. They always made fun of us. ‘That’s disgusting,’ they used to say. I35IIGF

Sometimes, in order to exorcise criticisms or to avoid being scorned (see also Marino 2019a, b), the second generation reported that they conformed to the (believed) expectations and biases of their classmates: My Italian-ness was evident in me as if I had a sign. I started believing the things my classmates knew of Calabria: I am dodgy, noisy, my mother always wears black; we stink of garlic; we have pasta every day; we are fruit sellers and maffiusi [linked to the mafia]. When someone made a joke, I laughed with the rest of the class. I62IIMG At school I tried to be more Australian than Italian, I felt ashamed of being Italian, of having Italian origin and Italian parents, ’cause they were thought of as peasants or crooks. When I first saw my classmates’ parents, I could realise how different they were from mine: they were polite, whereas mine were … louder, gente semplice [simple people], not educated. I had these things in mind for years, this rage of being different, of having parents with an Italian accent, lasted more than thirty years. I24IIGF

The second-generation participants, as seen in the above extracts, embraced their schoolmates’ views of their ethnicity. Some of them accepted the inferior status that was given to them (and their parents) by their schoolmates (or, in some cases, teachers) mainly because of their level of English or their accent. It seems the pressures to which they were subjected led to them constructed a particular view of themselves and their parents, who were often seen as ‘simple people’. In order to escape humiliation in the classroom, these participants accepted that stigma and laughed at themselves along with the dominant group (Marino 2019a, b).

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Such a dynamic seems to reflect the historical period immediately after the end of the White Australian Policy, when the local educational system was caught off guard and had to cope with classes containing an unexpected number of ‘immigrant children’ (Marino 2019a). For these children, who had been brought up within their immigrant Calabrian families, being ‘thrown’ into schools with predominantly AngloAustralian schoolmates seems to have shaped their identities and ­created internal struggles. It appears that their markers of ethnicity, such as having an Italian surname, speaking very little English during the first years of school and carrying an ‘ethnic’ panino [sandwich] in their lunchbox, became stigmas that may have caused marginalisation and conflicts among the second-generation participants. 5.2.2   Being Brought Up in the Calabrian World Another widespread issue raised by second-generation participants was their relationship with the ‘Calabrian world’. A fundamental feature was their apparently constant existential struggle, when they were younger, to understand what they were ethnically. This seems to have often been complicated by the endogenous pressures exerted on them, usually by their parents who, sometimes jokingly, made them feel inadequate, not authentic enough, not ‘as Italian as them’. This section, which commences with Maria’s case study, looks at these perceived pressures that the second-generation participants experienced from their Calabrian family and community. At Maria’s place, the 47-year-old woman recalls her story. She was born in Adelaide, the youngest of four sisters; the others had been born in Italy. Her parents, mamma Giovanna and papà Antonio, are both Calabrians from Rosa,12 a small village not far from the Aspromonte hinterland. Since Antonio was hospitalised for a long period in his forties, it was principally Giovanna who raised the four sisters. The language at home was always Calabrian. With Antonio at the hospital, mamma Giovanna and her four daughters relied on the support and assistance of relatives, but also of compari (godparents) and paesani originating from Rosa and from other Calabrian villages. Maria tells me that they were all raised with the exact same values, morals and cultural practices as the ones her mamma practised in Calabria, which were also those of the people around them, the Calabrian friends within ‘the (Calabrian) community’ of Adelaide. Fundamental values were family honour, respect,

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parental authority and a particular concern about one’s reputation and gossip. Therefore, Maria and her sisters were raised mainly in their parents’ culture. The following is an extract from Maria’s narrative: ‘Too much freedom for Aussie kids’, mamma and papà used to say. I remember all of my friends used to go out on Friday and come home very late. Many of them could stay overnight. For me that was impossible. I could not even dare to ask u papà to stay overnight. For my dad, my classmates were buttani [sluts], ’cause they wore miniskirts and slept overnight, and their parents just irresponsible ’cause they do not control their c­ hildren. For me it was impossible wearing hot pants, or going to pubs like my friends. I had my first bra when I was 18. Sometimes I was living two lives. FN12IIGF

In this narrative, Maria also reports that she cannot swim—she never learned how. Her father was an ‘old school Calabrian’ and never allowed her to take swimming lessons or wear a swimsuit at the swimming pool. She reports having suffered from the restrictions and rules within her family domain. Since she was the youngest of the sisters, she looked ‘too Aussie’ for her parents. However, she also reports being ‘more Italian than the Italians in Italy’ as a result of the traditional Calabrian education she was given. Her family domain was often a place of restrictive tradition and opposition to the ‘outside’. At every dinner, her parents commented on the inappropriate pattern of behaviour of her Australian friends; they associated pubs with ‘Australian leisure’ and considered them deplorable and un-Italian. As she also had Australian friends, she reports she used to live two different lives. A male participant similarly reports having experienced the same sorts of restrictiveness at home: I was never able to sleep with my fiancé at my place. I had to wait until we got married. I59IIGM

The pressures that were coming from the family did not originate solely from the parents’ traditional ways of thinking (especially their concern about the family’s reputation within the community), but they also emerged from a cultural distance or disequilibrium between two different world views: the immigrant parental view and the view of the Italian-Australian children (who inevitably also formed an identity

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outside the home). A number of participants reported living their adolescence as if they were trapped in two worlds, and having the feeling of belonging neither to the one where they were born (Australia) nor to the parental one. The clashes, resistances and struggle seem to have been exacerbated when the values, morals and expectations of one ‘world’ did not match with those of the other (see also Marino 2019a, b). Paul, a 44-year-old male second-generation participant reports: I am far from the shit. I don’t deal with the community. I still ­remember many years ago, when Santa and me, we first going out, there was this very influential man from Calabria, in the community, everybody respected him, he was … nu maffiusu [a man linked to the mafia] … Well, he falls out of the blue, hears that my parents come from the same town as well and I was an organettu player, and he says, ‘Ah, you know, I am doing a christening, I would like you to play the organettu …’ But … you know, I used to play the organettu all the time with my family, play and have a drink, … but this guy was not family. He was too direct, quite rude, he kept insisting … This is typical Italian, I am sorry to say that, mate, but typical Italian … I am Italian as well, but, you know, I do not get this shit, mate, it’s rude, too intrusive, chisti ennu crapari [they are shepherds]. Anyway, I said that I am busy, but he insisted … you know, it really pissed me off because it’s like … it is expected from you, as a duty! They expect you to do that! That’s rude, for me. For my parents it’s fine, but not for me. People don’t get it, they think that you owe that to them, only because you are calabbrisi [Calabrian]. Anyway, I did not play for that man and my parents got upset, especially Dad. I understand u rrispettu [respect] and things like that, but, yeah, sometimes it’s a pain in the arse. I3IIGM

The disequilibrium faced by the second generation between the cultural expectations of the parents and Anglo-Australian ones seems to generate personal conflicts for the participants, who are unable or reluctant to assume the ethnic role suitable for that field or situation. This particular participant reported avoiding the community. When he was in his twenties, he felt oppressed by the ‘typical Italian intrusive’ way of doing things. He refused to conform to a perceived insistent expectation coming from his parents and the ‘Calabrian world’. While stressing the difference between the way Italians do things and the way Australians do things, the participant first identifies himself as Italian, then he keeps a distance from his ethnicity, blaming an excess of intrusiveness, vituperating ‘them’ (the Italians) as being philistines. In doing so, he twice

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deliberately uses the term ‘mate’ to mark his distance from the Italians and emphasise his empathy towards Australians. In a similar fashion, Rob, who was introduced in the previous section, recalls a singular episode in which he mortally disappointed his father. The father–son relationship changed after a bitter argument during which his father blamed him for having ‘acted’ as a real cancaruni (kangaroo13) and told him ‘he is not, and he will never be, Calabrian enough’. Those words still ring in Rob’s ears. When he was in his late twenties, Rob was asked by his father to carry a package from Australia to Calabria, to Bianco. The parcel belonged to a family acquaintance in the Italian community of Adelaide. Unable to check the contents of the package, as it was already wrapped, Rob refused to carry the paesano’s parcel with him. Rob’s father, Enzo, insisted, but the son did not change his mind. The fact became public within ‘the community’ and the gossip lasted for several months, during which Enzo became furious at home, accusing his son of being a cancaruni. Rob recalls his story: Once I got married, we planned to go to Italy for the honeymoon. The thing got public once one of Dad’s friends asked me to bring a small sealed package to his relatives in Calabria. I refused, I did not know what was inside. He said there were bomboniere but I did not trust him because he did not want to unseal the pack. Don’t you read the newspapers? Many people from Calabria deal with drugs and, if there is drugs in the pack? I would be in trouble. My dad got really pissed off with me, he called me cancaruni [kangaroo] because I do not trust people, I acted as an Australian and I do not make favours to paesani. Bloody hell, he could have posted that pack, stingy paesano [country fellow]. I60IIGM

5.2.3   The Feelings of the Second Generation and the Word ‘Wog’ In the following excerpts, two female participants in their forties describe how having been raised by Calabrians in an Australian world often generated embarrassment. When I was younger and I went for a walk, in my suburb or shopping, I always tried to escape from relatives or acquaintances to avoid being stopped, kissed and hugged. I knew they were too loud for my friends and the way they gesticulated made me mad. I52IIGF

122  S. MARINO I was always embarrassed about being Italian. I did not want to speak Italian nor to greet family friends in public places … I still don’t do that. I knew that they would raise the volume of their voice, use clumsy words. I did not want my classmates to see me talking in Italian. I53IIGF

The above excerpts suggest the individuals’ distress from being cursed with their ethnic origin. As a result, for the purposes of being accepted by their Australian peers, the participants described their frequent attempts to purposefully evade public situations where they would have to behave ethnically as Italians. The perception of being neither ethnically (completely) one thing nor the other seem to be widespread among the participants. The disequilibrium between the two familiar worlds in which they were raised apparently generated ambivalent feelings about their ethnic identity. As Rob reports: I cannot say I am Italian, nor am I completely Australian, I am in the middle, or neither one nor another. My surname is (name omitted), it is Italian, my blood is Italian, face is Calabrian. I23IIGM

Similarly, Mary, 42, claims: I reckon I have lots of unresolved issues about myself, because I feel I have never fit in here, in Australia … but I have never tried to show off my Italian-ness … I36IIGF

‘Being in the middle’ or ‘feeling different’ were shared feelings among the second-generation participants. The perceptions of two other participants are along the same lines: When I was a child, in Australia, I was aware that I did not belong neither to Italy nor to Australia, and it was pointless pretending. My schoolmates always found the way to tease me in class. Hence I tried to quit to cover up my Italian-ness. But after school there was the other life at home, a little Italian house. Some of us, the ones who were good at school, are able to adapt to having double lives. I20IIGF

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Ah … neither one nor the other, I am kinda in between, eheh, because I am just never gonna be an Italian, I did not grown up there, I grew up in the Australian culture, but I do not feel Australian, at all, because they do not see me as the same as them. I42IIGM

As well as a widespread awareness of being in between two worlds, second-generation participants who visited Italy reported being disillusioned when visiting Italy. Both their identification with a specific ­ethnic identity and the expectation of finding a similar culture in Italy were disproved when they noticed a deep difference between the cultural practices and behavioural patterns among the Calabrians in Australia (among whom they had been raised) and those who had remained in Calabria. The following extracts illustrate this: Here in Australia I feel very Italian and Calabrian, and I am very proud of that. But in Italy, I feel Australian. … When I went to Italy, my relatives called me l’australianu [the Australian], I was so upset, fucu meu [bloody hell], I have always thought I’m Italian. I39IIGM When I was in Calabria, my zzia [aunt] looked at my ring and said ‘These Australians are very rich!’ I was upset because I was called Australian and usually my family says I am Italian! Then, when I was making salami in Caulonia, zzia laughed at me, because, according to her, I did things at usu anticu [old school]. I do not know how to consider myself. In Australia I used to say I am Australian because I was born here. But my friends consider me Italian because of my parents, I guess. When I am in Italy, even if I think I am Italian, they call me ‘Australian’. So where is my place? Anna, I54IIGF

Whereas some participants report identifying themselves as ‘Australians’ when in Australia and as ‘Italian’ when in Italy, others, conversely, identify themselves as ‘Italians’ when in Australia and ‘Australians’ when in Italy. However as identity is self- and other-ascribed, it seems that in both cases, when the self-ascriptions do not correspond with those given by others, an identity struggle (or ambivalence) can arise. In fact, the participants’ identity is perceived differently by others, both in Australia and in Italy. In the last excerpt, we see Anna struggling to find her place, since she believes she is Australian (because she was born in Adelaide) but her family and Australian friends label her Italian.

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The following excerpt relates to Pat’s linguistic issues, which might have shaped his perceptions of ethnic identity. Pat’s experience appears to be common among descendants of immigrants who visit the country of their family’s origin and face difficulties in communicating: That night, at dinner I was totally overwhelmed that notwithstanding I have always been able to communicate with my nonna, the relatives and the Italians in Adelaide and Melbourne, I had very little understanding of anything that was being said at the table. I thought we were all Italians! In Rome, I was incapable to express myself and communicate in the manners and language with which they were speaking. The language I spoke (Calabrian) was considered by my Italian relatives as a bastardised Italian, and that embarrassed me. Most of the time they couldn’t understand what I was trying to say, and they made fun of me. I156IIGM

Consciously or less consciously, Pat used the merged Calabrian– English language spoken in his parents’ community to communicate with his relatives from Rome. He felt ridiculed when they laughed at his ‘broken language’, which they said also included outdated Calabrian terms. He reshaped his idea of having a common identity with ‘the Italians’ and decided to talk English with his relatives. The following section, a brief extract from my fieldnotes (see also Marino 2019a, b, 2020a) about an informal chat with two second-generation participants, Anna and Rob, introduced earlier, provides a reflection on the derogatory word ‘wog’. In March 2014, I was invited for lunch by Anna and Rob, second-generation participants. The table was sumptuously provided with Italian food. While eating the tiramisù prepared by Anna, she said, ‘Did I tell you this before? We consider ourselves here the lost generation! Yeah, we are lost! I am not Italian like my mum but, for Poms, I am very Italian. Here, for them, you are Italian, no matter if you were born here (in Australia), like me or my sister, and talk and do things like Australians! Our face, our blood are Italian. Even if you do look like them, or act like them, here, you will never be considered a pure Aussie! From the Poms! Because they have this thinking that we are Italians!’ Vey much proud of herself, Anna, showed me what she cooked and said, ‘Please, bello [sweetie] help yourself, there are pruppetti [meat balls], ravioli, and over there, there is mortadella …’ Researcher: Thank you, Anna, I would say that here, there’s plenty of wog food on this table!’ (Embarrassing silence).

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Anna: Actually, you know one thing, the word ‘wog’, here is kinda forbidden. Now people are proud of that. Researcher: Sorry guys, I did not mean to offend anyone. Rob: No worries, mate, but I hate that word too, I was called a wog, at school … and I hate that. FN3IIG

For Anna and Rob, it seems that having been stigmatised as wogs generated their revulsion towards the offensive term, which is still taboo at their house. They identified themselves as lost, feeling ­neither Australian nor Italian. According to Anna, even if someone was born in Australia, acted, resembled and talked like a ‘pure Australian’, they would never be considered purely Australian because of their face and their Italian ‘blood’. This resembles the diversity markers (e.g. their name or physical appearance) that made them so different from the Anglo-Australians when they were at school. Indeed, in Fig. 5.3, an NVivo word frequency snapshot of the second-generation participant interviews, it is revealing that ‘pure’ and particularly ‘blood’ are frequently used terms—as are ‘schoolmates’, ‘teacher’ and ‘lunchbox’.

Fig. 5.3  NVivo word frequency snapshot of second-generation participants’ key arguments

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5.3  The Third Generation 5.3.1   Manifesting Italian-Ness at School I think of my nieces and nephews. They show off their Italian-ness in the attitude towards their parents, they are more in tune with their parents and their grandparents, especially, than we are, grazie a Diu [thank God]. They are more likely to spend longer time with their nonni, learn from them, and above all they are not embarrassed, whereas when we were younger there was always that strong peer pressure and influence, we loved our parents but we felt embarrassed because they looked so different from our mates, some friends of mine almost used to hate their parents. We did not want to speak another language when we were out because people, would … you know, say things. I041IIG

The excerpt above is a second-generation participant’s reflection on the enthusiasm her nieces and nephews (the third generation) have for their Italian-ness. The following section illustrates the perceptions that thirdgeneration participants have of their ethnic background. Like their p ­ arents, the participants of the third generation mentioned their school when talking about their ethnic identity. However, their experiences and perceptions appear remarkably different from those of the second generation. This section commences with extracts concerning the participants’ school years, and illustrates, through some fieldnotes, the apparent intergenerational change: a feeling of ‘national empowerment’ that took place at school. Participants of the third generation brought their Italian-ness to school. A number of them reported having used specific markers of Italian-ness since they were children. For example, at primary school and high school, John and his classmates of Italian origin used to display their ‘nomination bracelets’, characterised by small sentences and the Italian flag. Rocco brought the Italian flag to school and displayed it when Italy won the World Cup in 2006. During that period, he and his Italian-Australian schoolmates all wore scarves and Italian soccer T-shirts and they even sang in Italian when the match was won. Rocco said he could not speak Italian, but they manifested their ‘Italianness’ by emphasising other markers, such as (what they thought were) ‘typical Italian mannerisms’ like using hand gestures and funny exclamations. Moreover, the young male participants (Rocco, Anthony and John), reported that at school, a number of the ‘Italian kids’ shared a

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language composed of invented words, ‘learned from the nonni but then personalised’. In particular, they told me they invented and shared their own slang and neologisms, creating words such as ‘scheeve’ (sh-kee-ve), from schifo (disgusting), or ‘briaghe’ (bree-a-ghe) from ubriaco (drunk). The phenomenology of the school experiences of the third ­generation seems significantly different from those of their parents. The ­following excerpt is from my fieldnotes about Peter. It appears to reveal some significant changes in practices that happened at school. May 2014. I have an appointment at Morialta Conservation Park for a running session with Peter.14 Peter (26 years old, male) is a chef who lives in Tisone. His mum, Caterina, was born in Sydney (from parents originated from a Calabrian village called Taurianova) and came to Adelaide during her adolescence. Peter’s father, Frank, was born in San Martino di Taurianova (a hamlet of Taurianova) and immigrated to Australia when he was a child. Peter attended Brenda High School in Tisone, South Australia. At the park, he arrives in a black BMW 735i. The music inside the car is very loud, he is listening to Calabro 9.15 While he is making the manoeuvre to park his car, I also notice that the sound of the engine of his car is particularly noisy, it must be modified. […] He greets me: Ehi, ciau, comu ta passi? [Hi, how are you doing?] On that occasion, I notice his remarkable competence in using Calabrian greetings. While running, Peter says to me he misses school, that period and his friends. I then ask him to tell me about his schooling period. Since, in a dinner with his family his parents told me that both of them had been bullied at school (his father punched a classmate, after years of provocations, and was expelled), Peter seems to predict my curiosity and says: ‘What do you mean, if someone teased me ’cause I’m a wog? Never happened. I got along with everyone, we (Italians) used always to be all together, playing soccer at lunch time […] actually, we used to make fun of Asians, ’cause they are nerds!’ Peter, FN6IIIGM

Like many other Italian-Australians of his generation, Peter never experienced any discrimination at school resulting from his Italian background. He never felt ashamed when he was picked up from school by his nonni. Moreover, he admits to have teased a number of Asian students, with the complicity of his Aussie mates, because of their nerdy appearance. Physically different from the mainstream class and with a different culture, the Asian classmates became the new subalterns.16

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Mark and Francesca reported analogous answers to whether they had personally experienced racism at school. No, not really against us Italians, but I found discrimination against Asians, Africans …Not at all. Although there were fights between the Australians against the Middle Easterners. Mark, I55IIIGM Never, but there were problems with other schoolmates, like the Asians, for them it was harder than us. Francesca, I57IIIGF

The third-generation participants’ excerpts about their school experiences provide a reflection on the way cultural diversity within certain public institutions (in this case, school) is perceived across generations, and the dynamics through which one feels ‘nationally empowered’ to join the mainstream. The fact that participants of the third generation during the early 2000s were rarely discriminated against at school appears to be associated with the policies of multiculturalism and integration of the particular socio-political period. Similar to their parents, many participants of the third generation brought certain markers of ethnicity to school. However, unlike their parents, they did not seem to be thrown into a world that they perceived as hostile and to which they were expected to conform, because they were also part of that mainstream world. 5.3.2   ‘Being Italian Is Cool’ and the Word ‘Wog’ Being Italian is ‘cool’.

Rocco, I59IIIGM

Of the comments that were shared by many young participants, this statement of Rocco’s was the most frequent. Generally, when talking about their Italian origin, third-generation participants manifested a positive attitude (Marino 2019a, b). Rocco, John and other participants reported: Being Italian makes me feel very proud and cool. ’Cause we are such a great country! Rocco I60IIIGM To me, being Italian is such a cool thing, if I have to pick something, being Italian is cool, the way we eat together, the way we stay together and support each other. Italian food is the number one, I can distinguish a

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shitty pasta from a real one. And the fashion … I wear Versace, so cool … Italian soccer teams, cars, everything is cool, you know what I mean? I054IIIGM I am proud of being Italian, it’s cool! I can cook, I got style, I got an Alfa Romeo, you know? I think like Italians […] I go grocery shopping every Saturday morning with nonna. It’s such a cool thing shopping with her, greeting her friends in Italian: Eh compà!, buying wog food, talking with the hands! Before we get home we have a cappuccino. I am proud of being Italian. John, I58IIIGM

In these contributions, participants often used the pronoun ‘we’ to express empathy towards their Italian origin. Moreover, a number of specific markers or predispositions—thought to be Italian—are mentioned, such as style, fashion, the ability to cook, as though they are perceived as ascribed characteristics of Italian-ness. It is also interesting to notice that among the third-generation participants there is widespread use of the word ‘wog’, which apparently has changed symbolically, becoming an adjective of quality rather than an offensive term (Marino 2019a, b). This word, taboo for their parents, is not taboo for them. As two female participants reported: I am the wogboy for my classmates. They often send me the videos of nonna Maria on YouTube and I have fun. That doesn’t bother me at all. Whereas my mum hates that word. I18IIIGF My Aussie friends say I am a wog. I don’t care. I don’t find it offensive. They always say to me like, ‘Ah, you really are a wog’ … but when they need a tip on fashion, cool stuff and things like that, they come to me. They are like, ‘Ask Francesca, she is Italian!’ It’s cool for me. I49IIIGF

In the contributions above participants claimed to accept being labelled as a wog. Francesca pointed out that she enjoys being considered as Italian by her friends; because of this, they rely on her sense of style. Like the second generation, she has been ascribed an ethnicity by her classmates, but the content of the ascribed ethnicity of this third generation is extremely different from that ascribed to their parents. It has changed from being noisy people who come from uneducated immigrant families, to consultants on style and food (I24IIGF; I49IIIGF). Francesca accepts and appreciates her ascribed identity and her ascribed Italian ‘congenital’ predisposition to sophisticated aesthetics given by her friends.

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Fig. 5.4  NVivo word frequency snapshot of third-generation participants’ key arguments

The third generation’s sense of ethnic identity, framed by the NVivo analysis of the use of their words, is portrayed in Fig. 5.4.

5.4  Observing, Recording and Gathering Markers of Ethnicity During Interviews and Participant Observation The ethnography and the participant observation have revealed a number of ‘thick descriptions’ and subtle details, providing considerations about the ways the participants express their ethnic identity. During the progress of my research, I observed and reflected on how the participants seem to utilise certain objects to perform and conform to certain shared and expected manners (and praxis) that are thought to be Italian. Other than the use of the Italian language, Calabrian dialect, and gesticulations and mannerisms often used by participants of

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all three generations, a number of objects were often employed when expressing ethnic membership (Marino 2020a). Certain objects might broadly indicate Italian culture, in that they are stereotypical m ­ ementos (perhaps promoted by the media), while others might be more ‘authentic’, passed down from grandparent to grandchild; but in all cases, they seem to be charged with semiotic meanings for the individual and are used in specific circumstances to emphasise ethnic identity. Moreover, I noticed, mainly among the young participants, that certain (presumed Italian) objects were used or behaviours were performed as evidence of ethnicity. It appeared that the more objects and performances they displayed, the more Italian they wanted to appear in the eyes of their peers, as if it were a competition to accumulate Italian-ness or Calabrian-ness. For example, among the tokens I noticed in the houses of the participants, there were refrigerator magnets symbolic of Italy: the iconographic cities—Rome or Florence—or emblematic characters from Pope Francis to Al Capone. All participating families had Italian automatic coffee machines (e.g. Gaggia, De Longhi), and the little caffettiera (Italian manual coffee machines, e.g. the Bialetti espresso pot). A third-generation participant had bought a Duetto-brand meat grinder from Italy to make salami with his grandfather. That same participant showed all the guests at his birthday party the boxer underwear he had received as a gift with the word mangiasti? (have you eaten?) on them. Another male participant had a red Ducati scarf from the emblematic Italian motorcycle company. ‘Folkloristic’17 T-shirts were observed at the houses of young participants (mainly males) with messages such as ‘Warning: Italian attitude’, ‘Sauce-mate’, ‘FBI: full blooded Italian’, and others inspired by the movie, The Godfather. These had usually been bought at Carnevale, an annual Italian festival celebrated in Adelaide in February. A female participant, when running, often wore a T-shirt with the words Ciao bella on it. Moreover, having an apotropaic accessory at home, like a horn amulet or a horseshoe outside the house, was not uncommon. In terms of habits, another young male participant keeps in his pocket an asso di denari (the ace of coins from the traditional southern Italian playing cards), as his grandfather told him it will bring him money. The practice of growing some vegetables in the garden, even a few tomatoes and basil, seem to be another marker of Italian-ness practised more by the first generation and by some young third-generation participants, who like asking their grandparents for gardening tips.

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Some second- and third-generation participants own a Vespa Piaggio, a new Fiat 500 or an Alfa Romeo car. In a number of such cars I saw rosary beads on the rear-view mirror or a square metal patch with the Italian tricolour flag. A male participant has personalised number plates reading ‘RESPECT’, while his cousins display ‘SAUCE’ and ‘BELLA’.

5.5  The Bianco Family: Perceptions of Ethnicity Across Three Generations The following section focuses specifically on the perceptions of ­ethnicity held by members of the same family, the Bianco family,18 in order to illustrate the connections and contrasts across three generations. Earlier versions of the data and some of the analysis in this section have been presented in Marino (2019a, 2020a). The Bianco family is composed of Enzo (male, 75, migrated from Bianco) and Rina (female, 70, migrated from Bova, a village near Bianco). The couple has three children, Rob (50), Joe (45) and Franca (50), all born in Adelaide. Rob is married to Anna (49), whose parents are from Rosso, also in Calabria. Rob and Anna have one child, John (20). The genealogy of the Bianco family is illustrated in Fig. 5.5. 5.5.1   Perceptions of the First Generation Enzo, the youngest of nine children, left Calabria when he was in his twenties, arriving in Australia in 1959. He met Rina in Adelaide, and the couple settled in the suburb of Tisone.19 Like numerous other paesani, Enzo was employed at the Holden car factory in Adelaide, and worked there for more than thirty years until he retired. Enzo, similar to many other Mediterranean migrants, was a victim of many episodes of xenophobia, especially during the 1970s. He recalls being called ‘blackie’ by his Australian bosses. Rina has always been a housewife. While I was having lunch at Enzo and Rina’s place, Enzo was talking about his feelings of displacement, when he was interrupted by Rina. Cca, non mi sentu a casa. Non mi sentu comu nto paisi meu. Se non era pe i figghi, mi ndi tornava all’Italia. [Here (in Australia) I don’t feel at home. I don’t feel what I feel when I am in my village. If it wasn’t for my children, I would go back to Italy.] Enzo, I22IGM

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Franca

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Rina

Joe

Rob

0DUULDJHERQG John

'HVFHQWERQG 0DOH )HPDOH

Fig. 5.5  Bianco family. Note Participants are represented in grey

Non e’ veru! Ricordi quandu tornammu all’Italia dopu vent’anni pe cattari a terra a Rob? Tu non dormisti pe du settimani pecchì tutti ndi criticavanu! I parenti, i paesani, puru Don Mariu ndi criticava! Tutti ndi ngiuriavanu ‘stranieri’! Ti paria cent’anni pemmu torni all’Australia, l’Australia ti mancava pecchi o toi paisi non ti sentivi a casa! [That’s not true! Do you remember when we returned to Italy after twenty years, to buy the land for Rob? You did not sleep for two weeks because everyone criticised us! The relatives, the paesani, even Don Mario (the local cleric) teased us! Everybody used the word ‘stranger’! You couldn’t wait to return to Australia! You missed Australia, because in your village you did not feel at home!] Rina, I23IGF

Rina was talking here about their experience when they went back their paese in the 1990s, after an absence of twenty years. They ‘visited home’ for thirty days. But during the first fortnight, Enzo had trouble sleeping because he could not deal with the fact that his paesani were calling him a stranger.

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5.5.2   Perceptions of the Second Generation Enzo and Rina’s son Rob, like many of the second-generation ­individuals discussed in Sect. 5.2, was raised within the standards and morals (and praxis) of his Calabrian family. As a result, like other second-­generation children, he realised how different he was from the majority of his (Anglo-Australian) classmates on his first day at school (see Sect. 5.2.1). Indeed, in one interview, Rob claimed to have been ‘the only ethnic’. In an informal conversation, he told me about his recurrent feelings shame experienced when his mother (Rina) used to pick him up from school. Rob also reported that, even today, sometimes, during family gatherings, he does not really cope with being teased by his father about how he is not Italian enough (see Sect. 5.2.2). For my dad, I am a cancaruni [skippy]. Everything I do, is wrong. When I cut the salami, Dad says, I do it wrongly. When I make the satizzi [sausages], Dad says that I waste too much meat. Rob, I24IIGM

Let us begin with a number of excerpts from interviews and conversations with Anna, Rob’s wife; like him, she was born in Australia but her parents had emigrated from Calabria. Most of these quotes have been presented earlier in other contexts. We consider ourselves here (in Australia) the lost generation! Yeah, we are lost! I am not Italian like my mum but, for Poms, I am very Italian. Here, for them, you are Italian, no matter if you were born here, like me or my sister […] Our face, our blood are Italian. Even if you do look like them, or act like them, here, you will never be considered a pure Aussie! … My first language was Italian until my first day of school. That first day, I still remember I was teased in class and I stopped talking for one year! I was always embarrassed about being Italian. I did not want to speak Italian nor to greet family friends in public places … I still don’t do that. I knew that they would raise the volume of their voice, use clumsy words. I did not want my classmates to see me talking in Italian. Anna, I55IIGF My first years at school I could not speak English. For one year I did not speak at all. No one understood me, I did not understand them, it was like I was invisible. Then I became like them, I got blonde, I dressed like them and I gave up with all the Italian peasant stuff. For more than ten years I was sick of all the woggy stuff. Anna, I56IIGF

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While I was listening to Anna’s words, it was interesting to notice how she describes her generation as ‘lost’. One can interpret Anna’s statement of feeling neither Italian nor Australian by taking into consideration her narrative and the participant’s feeling of being inadequate, not possessing some key aspect (eg. blood, face) that she believes are fundamental to the (Anglo-)Australians so that she could be considered ‘pure Aussie’. An example of this is Anna’s first language, Calabrian. It was the language she spoke at home until she went to school. It was at school that Anna realised that she was not ‘one of them’, and was different from the ‘normal’ classmates, those with an Anglo-Australian background. Anna, like other participants of the second generation whose first language was Calabrian, claimed that she did not speak in class for a year. Until she went to school, Anna spoke mainly the dialect, and was called ‘Anna’ (with the Italian pronunciation) by almost everyone in the neighbourhood. Once she attended school and was tormented from the first day due to her aspect, accent and clothing, Anna felt like a ‘fish out of water’. Anna’s comments exemplify the fear of being ridiculed because of having an ethnic origin Calabrian origin. Like other participants, for the sake of being accepted by her non-ethnic peers, she regularly and intentionally avoided public situations where she needed to ‘act’ Italian. As the years passed, due to the pattern of harrassment at school, Anna developed a revulsion towards her Italian origin that lasted for years. Like many other second-generation Italian-Australians of her generation, Anna changed her name, from Anna to Anne. As she mentions in the excerpt here, she dyed her hair blonde as her objective was to ‘become like them’. Anna disclosed that her abhorrence of her ethnic background was persistent and long-lasting. Her rejection of her ethnicity, associated with illiteracy and peasantry, lasted for ten years. The experiences of Rob, Anna’s husband, are in many ways similar to hers; once again, I bring together some representative quotes from interviews with Rob which have already been discussed. I cannot say I am Italian, nor am I completely Australian, I am in the middle, or neither one nor another. When I first attended school, I could not speak English, but only Italian. I felt excluded. […] I got teased because of the sandwiches my mum used to prepare […] and because of my stupid shoes I wore the first day. I was uncomfortable when my mum picked me up from school.

136  S. MARINO Once I got married, we planned to go to Italy for the honeymoon. The thing got public once one of Dad’s friends asked me to bring a small sealed package to his relatives in Calabria. I refused, I did not know what was inside. He said there were bomboniere but I did not trust him because he did not want to unseal the pack. Don’t you read the newspapers? Many people from Calabria deal with drugs and, if there is drugs in the pack? I would be in trouble. My dad got really pissed off with me, he called me cancaruni [kangaroo] because I do not trust people, I acted as an Australian and I do not make favours to paesani. Bloody hell, he could have posted that pack, stingy paesano [country fellow].

Rob defines himself as ‘being in the middle’. The elements that led to him being marginalised at school relate to his ‘being ethnic’. He possessed ‘ethnic cultural capital’ (his lunchbox and his Italian shoes), while at the same time lacking ‘dominant cultural capital’ (for example, his inability to speak English at school). Despite this, his ethnic cultural capital (i.e. his Calabrian capital) was sometimes perceived as ‘not enough’. When he refused to take his father’s friend’s parcel to Calabria his father interpreted that as a lack of Italian-ness: in that instance, and others, Rob was for his father a cancaruni or skippy, not Italian enough. It seems that Rob’s conflict is the result of him not embodying sufficient Calabrian cultural capital—or, alternatively, embodying ‘too much’ dominant (Anglo-Australian) cultural capital, in his father’s view. 5.5.3   Perceptions of the Third Generation John, in a number of interviews and informal conversations, reported that he is proud of ‘being Italian’. He talked about his early years in the 2000s, when he was so happy if his grandmother (nonna Rina) picked him up from school. When she did that, they stopped at her house, and John told me could not wait to have the merenda [afternoon snack] at the house of his nonni. Not only was John never a victim of any xenophobia when he was at school, but he, together with some other schoolmates, performed a sort of Italian-ness by wearing what he considered to be Italian clothes (eg. Adidas or Fila tracksuits). When John had his lunchbox made by his nonna, he sometimes used to sell it to his schoolmates of non-Italian background. Additionally, John developed an interest in Italian automobiles. Indeed, John’s first car was a Fiat Punto; he now drives an Alfa Romeo, on which there is a little sticker of the Italian flag.

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I am proud of being Italian. It’s cool! I can cook, I got style, I got an Alfa Romeo, you know? I think like Italians. My Italian friends got a Vespa Piaggio, a new Fiat 500, Alfa Romeo cars … we all got rosary beads in it. We all watch The Sopranos20 and impersonate Tony and play his lines. My friends and cousins got ‘SAUCE’ and ‘BELLA’ as a personalised number plate. I go grocery shopping every Saturday morning with nonna. It’s such a cool thing shopping with her, greeting her friends in Italian: Eh compà!, buying wog food, talking with the hands! Before we get home we have a cappuccino. I am proud of being Italian. John, I64IIIGM

John’s perceptions of ‘being Italian’ (and to a certain extent of his ethnic identity) contrast significantly with those of his mother Anna and father Rob. By listing some material and immaterial entities he acknowledges them as distinct markers, emblems of Italian identity (the style, the ability to cook). John appears to intentionally accumulate these ­markers and at the same time, he manifests devotion and passion for Italian culture and the fact that he has an Italian background. John, differently from his parents, likes going grocery shopping with his grandmother, and performs his Italian-ness by using the Calabrian words familiar to him. As noted in Sect. 5.4, it appears that John, together with his peers with an Italian background (those that he defines as ‘Italian friends’), utilises specific objects and acts performatively in a way that is generally understood to be Italian. As well as the use of some Italian words and phrases (including some expressions in dialect), a common pattern of performing Italian-ness seems to be the one of gesticulating and using imagined shared mannerisms (sometimes those from Hollywood mobster shows). Moreover, in order to display ethnic membership, specific diverse objects are generally used. These can vary from possessing a Vespa, to having a personalised Italian number plate. In comparison to his parents, John appears to have more freedom to express (or to emphasise) his ethnicity. It is in part the perceived coolness of being Italian that has given him and other third-generation participants the freedom and audacity to use the word ‘wog’, still a very derogatory term for his parents and the earlier generations.

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5.6  Perceptions of Ethnicity Across the Generations This chapter has illustrated the perceptions of three generations of participants about their ethnicity. The first generation tended to describe themselves as ‘neither meat nor fish’. They also reported a widespread feeling of ‘not being at home’ after several decades in Australia and the struggle to ‘find themselves’. The persistent feeling of being ethnically displaced, which Vince managed by playing traditional Calabrian music, is described with the Italian expression spaesato or ‘being out of one’s own town’. The term originates from paese, a multifaceted word meaning village or country, and covers the notion of home, homeland and the fundamental unit of belonging (Baldassar 2011). Such a feeling of displacement seems to relate to the sentiment of a perceived ‘non-presence’ in the first-generation participants. The second-generation participants reported a widespread inner conflict, resulting from having two lives. That is, they were brought up in a Calabrian family, usually perceived as ‘too traditional’, and also within Anglo-Australian society. Those participants commonly perceived the two worlds as conflicting, if not antagonistic. However, the participants of the third generation, who like their parents mentioned the influence of their school years in shaping their ethnic identity, reported remarkably different experiences and perceptions of being Italian, which they usually manifested proudly in public and private contexts.

Notes







1. As an anthropologist I look for patterned, repeated, shared behaviours. I chose certain data as representative examples after ‘data saturation’, when I began to find the same responses occurring repeatedly. 2. Identifiable place names have been replaced with pseudonyms where this would assist in ensuring the participants remain anonymous. 3. An Italian pork sausage, eaten cold, made from the dry-cured muscle running from the neck of the pork. 4. A pseudonym. 5. A pseudonym. 6. ‘Skip’ or ‘skippy’ is a slang term for Anglo-Saxon Australians, believed to have been introduced by non-Anglo Australians, and referring to the television show Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo. 7. Australians with a British background. 8. A pseudonym.

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9. A pseudonym. 10. A pseudonym. 11. The issue of respect is addressed in Sect. 6.1.3. 12. A pseudonym. 13. Said in a derogatory way to indicate Australian. 14. Peter’s name, together with the school he attended and the suburb he lives in, are pseudonyms. 15. Calabro 9 is a rapper who sings in ‘gangsta’ style, alternating between Calabrian dialect and American slang. The lyrics encapsulate an entire microcosm of Calabrian-ness, and concern matters of old and contemporary Calabria, mixing unemployment, criminality and values of respect and honour. It can be easy to idealise a culture from the decontextualised context of a song (see Chapter 8). I have Peter among my contacts on YouTube. His name on his YouTube channel is Wog, and on his playlist there Calabro 9 is among his favourites. 16.  This aspect, although not directly related to Italian ethnic identity, should not be underestimated. Such dynamics seem to be the consequence of individuals’ cultural assimilation, which is transforming the third-generation Italian-Australians (or at least those who participated in this study) into ‘new whites’. As a result, not only do these participants seem to be totally assimilated into the dominant culture, but they also see the new immigrants in the way Anglo-Australians used to see their grandparents. This racism seems to be perpetuated. 17. By using ‘folkloristic’, I wish to highlight the commercial and culturally constructed nature of these products, which, as suggested by Gatto (2007), make folklore into fake-lore. 18. The family name is a pseudonym, as are all given names. 19. A pseudonym. 20.  The Sopranos is an American crime drama television series. Tony Soprano is an Italian-American mafia boss.

References Baldassar, L. (2011). Italian migrants in Australia and their relationship to Italy: Return visits, transnational caregiving and the second generation. Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 20(2), 1–28. Gatto, D. (2007). Suonare la tradizione: Manual di musica popolare calabrese. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Marino, S. (2019a). The “double absence” of the immigrant and its legacy across generations among Australians of Italian origin. Journal of Anthropological Research, 75(1), 21–47.

140  S. MARINO Marino, S. (2019b). Ethnic identity and race: The “double absence” and its legacy across generations among Australians of southern Italian origin; Operationalizing institutional positionality. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(5), 707–725. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1451649. Marino, S. (2020a). An intergenerational conceptualisation of Italian-Australian ethnic identity through Bourdieu and Heidegger. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 26(1), 3–15. O’Connor, D. (1996). No need to be afraid: Italian settlers in South Australia between 1839 and the Second World War. Kent Town: Wakefield Press. Tuckett, C. M. (2004). Q and the History of Early Christianity: Studies on Q. London: A&C Black. Wilton, J., & Bosworth, R. J. (1984). Old worlds and new Australia: The post-war migrant experience. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books.

CHAPTER 6

The Calabrian Community and Its Cultural Practices

In this chapter the focus moves from general perceptions of ‘being Italian’ to cultural sites and practices. These are sites where participating in the life of ‘being an Italian in Australia’ are manifested. I chose to focus on the sites reported specifically by participants, such as Calabrian community clubs and events, stores and businesses, and regional festivals, where a linguistic and cultural landscape could be perceived, created and recreated as ‘ethnic’ across the three generations. These cultural and linguistic spaces, often understood as ‘Calabrian’ by the participants, are observed together with the senso comune generated by the shared practices of those who claim to belong to such a group.1 These cultural sites of ethnicity show practices that are not only maintained over time but also interpreted and modified, diachronically and creatively, in interactions with the dominant society in Australia. Sections 6.1 and 6.1.1 outline the key areas of the study—the western suburbs of Adelaide together with a number of specific places and activities. Sections 6.1.2 and 6.1.3 describe a number of diverse situations and practices extrapolated from my fieldnotes and participants’ narratives, in which the participants appear to be part of a network within which they follow specific patterns of behaviours based on certain shared words, ways of doing, world views, obligations and expectations. Section 6.2 then provides the basis for a reflection on the role of the religious or community festival or festa across the three generations of participants, portraying one specific festival in Adelaide in detail. © The Author(s) 2020 S. Marino, Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2_6

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6.1  Locating the Community The following is an extract from fieldnotes I took at a festival held in honour of Saint Giovannino in 2013. Rilassino,2 a northern suburb of Adelaide. Sunday the 24th of March. This is my first day as sonaturi (folkloric musician) at the San Giovannino club. The club organises weekly events, mainly to entertain the aged community of Italian migrants of Rilassino. Today, I am playing at the Festa di San Giovannino [Festival of Saint Giovannino]. This festa is considered almost the most important among Calabrians in Adelaide, since it is the celebration of the patron saint of a number of villages of the province of Reggio Calabria.3 8 a.m. Antonio and Michele, two participants of the first generation and members of the committee, are ready to receive more than ten thousand people. Michele, a bricklayer (who has been working at General Motors-Holden for more than twenty years), opens the gate, comes towards me asking to see ‘my instrument’.4 He says that his uncle used to play the lira [lyre] in the piazza [square] of Marrone.5 Antonio is a retired tiler and an influential member of the committee of the club. He originates from Giallo.6 He is asking me where (which Calabrian village) I come from. I answer: ‘Marrone’ (my mother’s village), ‘Non simu lontani!’ [We are not far]. We come in and enter the kitchen. Antonio says: ‘Prova chistu e dimmi chi penzi!’ [Try this and tell me what you think]. He wants me to try the wine he makes himself and therefore we have a glass of wine at 8 o’clock in the morning. With the glass in his rough hands, Antonio says that he has been helping the club for decades. He does so for ‘the community’, and he wants his figghioli [children] to maintain the tradition of his comunità [community]. He wants people to remember him. I make a mental note: Who inculcated these principles into him? Is his ethnic identity the result of ‘what he does’ within the community? What is going on within the community? And where is such a community? FN24.3.2013

6.1.1   Moving to the Field, Observations Antonio’s words on ‘his community’ encouraged me to seek a closer analysis. Moreover, an encounter I had with John, a third-generation participant in his twenties (who was introduced in Sect. 5.5), encouraged me to move the focus of my research to the suburb of Tisone.

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The following is an extract from my fieldnotes taken in John’s car while driving to the house of his nonni (grandparents). Sunday morning, I am with John who lives in the city centre. We are now in Rundle Mall, but we are going to have lunch at his nonni’splace, in Tisone (i.e. Enzo and Rina’s house). The boy is very young; in his early twenties. While John is driving, I notice a rosary hanging on the rear mirror and a small red horn amulet on his keys. He tells me that once a week he spends the whole day with his nonna Rina, in Tisone. It makes him ‘feel very Italian’. They go grocery shopping, they talk in Italian to the vendors, they greet the nonna’s friends in Calabrian and they talk with their hands and greet with two kisses on the cheeks. Once we pass the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, we head thorough Port Road towards Grange Road. Taking Marco Road, John says: ‘We are almost at nonna’s place, we’re in the wog zone now!’

I moved to Tisone. That western suburb, adjacent to the beach, at a first glance looked like an ordinary suburb of Adelaide. However, after participating in two events, the Festa della Maria Santissima di Crochi and the Saint Hilarion Feast, celebrated at Mater Christi Church, I saw it differently. I met dozens of Calabrian families, who invited me to play at numerous private and social events, such as christenings, engagements and weddings. Because of my daily meetings with participants and my role of sonaturi, I frequented the people and places (e.g. Paolo, the butcher; Pat, the hairdresser; specific churches; and Calabrian clubs). I started to live within what Bourdieu refers to as ‘the field’, among the participants, acting ‘as a fish in water’, and perceiving things according to my ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu 1986).7 The following are extracts from my fieldnotes concerning some days spent with the participants. July 2013. I am assisting Vince, a first-generation participant and a sonaturi (traditional musician) of the Calabrian community. He needs to see a doctor because he cannot play the organettu (concertina) as fast as he used to in the past. It must be his arthritis. We are going to a clinic. As we enter, I hear the Calabrian language being spoken. There are three telephone operators, Maria, Rosa and Tina, who talk in Calabrian dialect on the phone. Vince tells me they talk in Calabrian because here, everyone is Calabrian (however, I see other patients talking in Greek and English). In Adelaide, Vince says, ‘I calabbrisi ennu vicinu o mari e i napulitani sutt’a

144  S. MARINO muntagna’ [the Calabrians are near the beach, whereas the Neapolitans are by the mountain]. In the waiting room of the clinic, on the wall, there are a number of religious images. I notice that the elderly patients often look at them. They seem to be enjoying their time, chatting in Calabrian language and wondering about their respective families. Now they are gossiping about someone. I am reflecting on the social raison d’être of that clinic, for these people, apparently a point of orientation for migrants. FN16.6.13 April 2014. I am at Supermercato8 with Caterina, a first-generation participant who wants me to call her ‘nonna Caterina’. There are the staff of the Italian radio, promoting certain Italian products and giving the Easter greetings. The speaker, with a strong Calabrian accent, is saying, ‘Care signore, il prosciutto di Parma oggi costa solo 27 dollari al chilo! Presto sbrigatevi! La mozzarella è buonissima.’ [Dear ladies, today the Parma prosciutto costs only 27 dollars per kilo! Hurry up! The mozzarella is delicious.] Caterina is buying some food. She is talking to me in Calabrian, she talks loudly, apparently unconcerned about others listening to her. I can hear other people commenting on the offers in Calabrian. I clearly hear varieties of Calabrian dialect, mainly from the Ionic coast and Aspromonte. Although I believe I know the two varieties very well, as my parents, grandparents and relatives originate from those areas, there are certain words which I have never heard. I make a mental note. FN14.4.14 It is Sunday. I am in Marco Road,9 not far from the house of John’s grandparents (Enzo and Rina). The scents of tomato sauce with meat, fresh chilli and celery are pervading the entire street (up to the intersection with Prakash Road, where the smell of tomato sauce meets the smell of curry). This is with doubt ragù alla bolognese.10 It does not come only from one place. It comes from houses which have olive, lemon and orange trees and tomato plants in their backyards. I recall John’s words on the ‘wog zone’. FN21.4.14 November 2013. I am going, with a married couple of participants of the third generation, to see their 6-year-old child playing soccer. We just passed Vince’s house, where I have arranged with him for’na sonata (a jam session of traditional music) in a few days. We have just parked close to a cement mixer painted with the colours of the Italian flag. At the soccer field, I notice that the majority of these children (six or seven years old) have Calabrian surnames, typical of the province of Reggio Calabria, written on the back of their uniforms (though there are a few exceptions). During the match, Italian names, such as Antonio, Pasquale, Pietro, are called loudly by the coach. Also the parents of the children are supporting

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them, with encouraging sentences partly in Calabrian such as: ‘c’mon bellu’ and ‘bravu, bellu’ [c’mon good boy]. FN14.11.13 May 2014, Sunday morning. There is a funeral at the church. There are dozens of aged people. All the women are dressed in black. I am able to spot nonna Caterina, Rina and Francesco and Vince, but also people from the suburb of Rilassino, like Michele and Antonio, the bricklayer and the core member of the San Giovannino Club respectively. Someone very important must have passed away. The hearse has two flags: the Australian and the Italian. The condolences seem to mirror the ones practised in Italy: two kisses and a handshake. FN5.14 I am not far from Anna and Rob’s house, a second-generation couple of participants. There is a grocery store owned by a Calabrian family that sells a huge variety of imported food. People looking for a specific kind of salami (i.e. Calabrian capocollo) or a certain wine or tuna from Calabria (i.e. Cirò and Callipo respectively) can easily find them here. Inside, there is a shelf which displays folkloric Calabrian T-shirts, Italian playing cards and key rings, and lucky amulets and magnets in the shape of Italy. FN14.5.14

In particular areas of Adelaide, I have noted the distinctive insertion of Calabrians into the food industry. Specifically, in several suburbs there are numerous Calabrian shops that sell imported products, usually also displaying iconic Italian scooters and cars (i.e. Vespa Piaggio, Fiat 500). In some streets, several signs are written in Italian: macelleria [butcher], gelati [ice cream], capelli [hair(dresser)], ristorante [restaurant], ceramica [ceramics], la bella sposa [the beautiful bride] and so on. As well as ethnic grocery products, a number of other items are often sold as well, such as Italian and folkloric Calabrian CDs, T-shirts depicting Calabria, and Neapolitan cards, key rings or lucky amulets, such as horn amulets. The participants of the study seemed at their ease when frequenting certain places and tended to perform (what they believe are) Italian/Calabrian behaviours. However, the existence of ‘Calabrian sites’ is not essential (in a theoretical sense), and should be contextualised by taking into account the fact that, firstly, the community is made up of people from different villages and, secondly, the local (i.e. the Australian context) is highly relevant. Nevertheless, it seems that the participants of the present study feel empowered in these spaces to talk in Calabrian, loudly, and to express themselves in ways that they would not in other places.

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6.1.2   Cultural Sites of Ethnicity Across Generation After having been involved in a number of community events, I noticed that the three generations of participants, in different ways, manifested a tendency to associate with people of the same ethnic background. The participants of the present study reside mainly in two distinct areas, the northern Adelaide suburb of Salisbury and in western suburbs such as Seaton or Flinders Park. In talking about their suburb, nonna Caterina reported: Cattammu a casa a Tisone pecchì ndavi a cresia all’angulu e è chinu i paesani. Ndi sentimu cchiù sicuri e a dominica i campani ndi fannu penzari o nostru paisi. E cussì ndi sentimu puru chiu italiani! [We bought the house in Tisone because there is the church around the corner and there are plenty of fellow countrymen. We feel safer and on Sundays the church bell reminds us of our home. Hence we also feel more Italian!] I50IGF

Caterina stated that she explicitly sought to buy a house close to other paesani and near the church. When I talked to Caterina in her kitchen, surrounded by iconographic images of San Rocco11 and pictures of Calabria, she stressed how important living close to other paesani was to her and her husband, as it makes them feel ‘more Italian’. Vince said that his lack of English language was the main reason he moved to Tisone. Quandu vinnumu cca non parravamu per’nglesi, e allura cattavamu i robbi ntell’italiani. È megghiu parrari pe talianu, ti capisciunu e non ti guardanu bruttu. [When we came here, we did not speak English, so we bought things from Italians. It is better talking in Italian (when shopping), they understand you and don’t give you dirty looks.] I73IGM

Enzo reported: Me soru Ciccia, abbita u strittu appressu. Ogni jornu e tri, passa pe cca cu me cognatu e jocamu e carti. Facimu i cosi pe ttalian. [My sister Francesca lives in the next street. Every day at three o’clock she comes by with my brother-in-law and we play cards. We do things the Italian way.] I70IGM

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Enzo explains that by living close to his sister, he can play Italian cards every day, and do ‘Italian things’. His caring attitude towards his sons is confirmed by his words in wishing to look after his three figghioli [little children] (who are in their forties). He talked about his decision to buy two properties for them, in the same area of Tisone: Tutti a Tisone simu. Pecchì cussì, se i figghioli ndannu bisognu i cchi cosa, venunu ca. E puru nui ca ndi ficimu vecchi è megghiu. [Everyone is in Tisone. Because, if the kids need anything, they can come over. And for us as we get older, it’s better.] I72IGM

The participants of the first generation stressed the importance of maintaining a social network which was probably established at the point of their migration. In particular, the choice of the location of a family home and its proximity to a church were considered extremely important. The community frequent two main churches, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Henley Beach and Mater Christi in Seaton, and they assiduously participate in Calabrian religious feste, in particular the feste for Saint Hilarion, San Giuseppe and Maria Santissima di Crochi. There is another key church for the community, the Church of the Annunciation, in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide, between Newton, Campbelltown and Hectorville. It also seems that the first-generation participants have gathered together for the practical purpose of overcoming specific limitations that confront immigrants (e.g. language). In addition, there are cases where participants have bought a property for their children close to the area in which they themselves live. The second and third generations, who are not immigrants, do not seem to feel the same need to cluster together in order to assist each other. However, based on their narratives and my participant observation, they also gather together in places believed to be Italian, in order to feel Italian. For example, Rocco (25 years old) and Francesca (20 years old), both third-generation participants whose families originate from Giallo and whose nonni died a few years before the study, manifested a preference for attending Italian restaurants with their peers. Francesca reported:

148  S. MARINO When it comes to socialising with friends we mainly attend Italian restaurants like Café Buonasera or Biondelli. It makes me feel very Italian going into places like that … I love greeting Mario, the waiter at Biondelli, in Italian. I70IIGF

Likewise, Rocco claimed: We always hang out with friends in such wog places like Café Secondo, Bicchiere, Va Male.12 You should join us. We usually talk loudly, we swear in Italian and stuff like that… Yeah, mate, that makes us real wogs, I can be very Italian, when I want. I71IIIGM

The following is an extract from my fieldnotes about an evening I spent with Rocco and his friends. April 2014. I am going with Rocco and his friends to the Italian café Bicchiere. I greet everyone. I notice the common look of the boys: they all are dressed in black, with Adidas tracksuits and black T-shirts. All the youths wear a golden chain and have a similar cropped hairstyle. I also notice the way Rocco and his friends are moving their hands while talking loudly, their greeting of ‘ciao bella’ and the two kisses on the cheek they give to two female friends (also from an Italian background) who have just joined the group. Now the boys are displaying Italian playing cards. Now they’re making fun of the Napoletani, saying they are crooks […] Now they are talking about ‘the slowness of the Calabrians from Melbourne’ […] I wonder why Rocco and his friends are performing those practices. FN24

The younger generations seem to be gathering together and frequenting places linked to the ‘Italian world’ to corroborate their feelings of being Italian. The choice in the way they manifest their Italian-ness seems to differ from the practical ‘strategy of survival’ reported by the first generation, who lacked competence in English and felt displaced. During my formal and informal interviews, when I asked participants, with a voice recorder on the table, whether their best friends had an Italian background or not, they all reported that nationality does not matter. Some claimed they have ‘lots of Pom friends’, that is, Australians with an English background. However the answer usually changed when

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there were many Italians among the participants, when they stressed, publicly, the importance of clustering together. Rocco seemed to report shared ideas about the regional backgrounds of Australian-Italians living in specific places. In 2012, while I was moving from Tisone to Corvello,13 third-generation Rocco joked to me: You betrayed us, Simone, you are moving among Naps!

I asked what the word ‘Naps’ meant, and he replied: Naps are the Napoletani,14 you know? They are crooks!

I78IIIGM

When I was with John, another third-generation participant, in his car driving to his nonni’s place, he also indicated that the city was divided into two Italian regions. He said in Calabrian: The Calabrians are on the western side, whereas the Naps are by the mountains. I81IIIGM

The Italians from Veneto, according to the participants, were almost ‘as cold as Australians’, and lived in the same area as the ‘Naps’. Such ideas about the Italian community appeared to be widespread and shared among the participants. When I moved to the eastern side of Adelaide, I met my new neighbour, Giovanna, who had emigrated from San Giorgio La Molara in Benevento. One day, while chatting, I told her I used to live in Tisone. She commented: Ah, among calabbresi? E quilli so’ maffiosi! [Among Calabrians? They are mafiosi!] I80IGF

Even though the morphology and the characterisation of Adelaide has changed—especially following the 1970s peak of Calabrian immigration, after which the flow of Italians diminished (Giuffrè 2010)—some areas appear to maintain strong symbolic connotations for individuals originating from different parts of Italy. Participants seem to have a shared idea

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about an Italian community, its social actors and geographic distribution. Stereotypes about the ‘Naps’ or Calabrians were common and often associated with the specific suburbs in which they reside. 6.1.3   Practices and the senso comune Within the Community This section describes a number of diverse situations extrapolated mainly from my fieldnotes and the participants’ narratives. The participants of the present study seem to be part of a network within which they follow specific patterns of behaviours based on certain shared words, ways of doing, world views, obligations and expectations (see also Chapter 7). After a year of fieldwork in the western suburb of Tisone, I moved to Corvello ‘sutt’a muntagna’ [by the mountain], among ‘Naps’, as noted in Sect. 6.1.2. However, in Corvello there were not only individuals originating from Campania, but there were also several Calabrian families originating from Aspromonte. Many of them I had previously met; they already knew me as u sonaturi (the musician) and helped me to move. Some of them brought their old furniture and furnishings to my place (dishes, bed, table, couch, television, two bicycles). Everything for free. When I asked about this generosity, they told me that real paesani people originating from the same ‘country’—must do this, ‘we must help and respect each other’, they said. After conducting a number of interviews in which the word ‘respect’ (rispettu in Calabrian) was often repeated in different contexts (e.g. linked to people, gifts, favours or obligations), I asked participants what it meant. Rob, a second-generation participant, describes his understanding of the word ‘respect’: Well, that’s usu anticu [old school] stuff, mate. If you say ndi rrispettamu assai [we do respect each other a lot], that means we, say two families, always telephone, help and visit each other, do what the others do. But if you say that bloke, u rrispettanu tutti! [everyone respects him], that means he’s a maffiusu (mafioso), or an influential person. I61IIGM

Rob’s idea of respect was often confirmed by the other participants. The common denominator is the social visit. They reported that the word ‘respect’ has an ambivalent meaning. It could be the esteem that individuals feel for a person, based on honour or prestige, but it is mainly

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the practice of conducting social visits among families who follow the usu anticu (old school), that is, it conforms to the social visits practiced in Calabria. On numerous occasions the participants reported conforming to certain expectations of a network, based in Adelaide, composed of relatives, friends and acquaintances, all Calabrian and originating mainly from the same (or adjacent) villages. One day I played my lira calabrese at an engagement party organised by a participating family from Giallo.15 The engaged couple were a woman born in Adelaide to a family originating from Giallo, and a young Calabrian immigrant from Giallo. They had met the year before, when she went to Italy on holiday. At that engagement party, although the majority of the people had been born in Australia, the music and the food were typically Calabrian. The tarantella was played and zeppole (Calabrian fritters) were served. After my performance, I met two young guests, a young man and a young woman, who had just emigrated from Giallo, looking for some seasonal work as a pizzaiolo (pizza maker) and waiter, and who were friends of the new fiancé. During the party, I observed the way these two recent immigrants conformed to certain expectations—in particular, the way they greeted the elderly guests in Calabrian, and used certain other rituals and gestures. I also noticed the effort the young woman put into setting up and cleaning the tables, even though she was a guest. The young man, on the other hand, appeared to act more like the older males of the first generation, despite the age difference, especially when he played briscola, and confidently asked his friend to bring him a glass of wine. When the two recent migrants were alone, I talked to them. The young woman told me that in Calabria today, men and women cooperate in the kitchen, whereas here in Adelaide, because ‘time has stopped’,16 she knew exactly what to do: ‘Recitare la parte della donna di casa’ [play the role of the housewife]. Similarly, the young man told me that he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt because ‘they are very old school here’, and he felt he should not show his tattoos. Following the logic of these new Italian immigrants (and also contextualising their aim of looking for a job), by doing ‘what the others expected them to do’, they were respecting the family and conforming to the expected senso comune. This particular view of being Italian is considered ‘more traditional’ than the ways in which ‘being Italian’ are conceived in Italy today. It is, then, interesting to reflect on matters of Italian-ness and authenticity comparing between Italians in Italy

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(specifically in Calabria) and Italians in Adelaide, and matters of crystallisation. While some literature (at least within the field of Australian– Italian studies) defines the migrant community as fossilised, claiming that they do things ‘as they remember’, because of the great distances in time and space between Italy and Australia, one should also consider that, today, migrants (especially the second and third generations) visit Italy often and communicate regularly with those who ‘stayed behind’ in Calabria. They know ‘what is going on in Italy’. The following fieldnote—relating to a Sunday lunch at Enzo and Rina’s place (see Sect. 5.5) with all the in-laws present, and where everyone’s family originates from Calabria—describes how the participants report conforming to the expectations of a network of Calabrian acquaintances and Calabrian compari (godparents). The participants who are involved in this network have obligations towards certain people with whom they feel linked. April 2013. I am invited by Enzo and Rina to join their family for a Sunday lunch. We have finished eating. Enzo is playing with his grandchildren, talking in Calabrian. Rina is in the kitchen with her granddaughter. I am at the table with many second-generation individuals. We are having a coffee with some cannoli and babà.17 Now we are talking about where to buy ‘real’ Italian food. Anna, Rob’s wife, says she buys the paste (Italian cakes) at Pino’s, whereas Franca, Rob’s sister, buys cannoli at La Mita,18 an Italian restaurant not far from them, because the owners are paesani. They must buy the cannoli there (although Franca prefers the ones in another shop), otherwise, they would get offended. Rob said he buys the cannoli at both Al Caldo and Avanzi, but sometimes he goes to Azzurro, because, if the first are cumpari, the second are friends, and he simply likes the cannoli at Azzurro.

It seems the participants are part of a network that binds them in different ways (see also Chapter 7). At times, some bonds seem similar to duties, as when Rob said: Sometimes you must go to eat at paesani. Because of the community. We often eat at La Mita. They know my parents.19 If we don’t go, they talk. For the meat, we go to Paolo, the butcher. If we do not get it there, i ggenti parranu [people talk] and ieu perdu a faccia [I lose face]. I43IIGM

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Enzo had a similar point of view: I must buy the bread from Rosa’s, because she is cummari [godmother] with my wife, otherwise ennu guai! [it’s trouble!] I78IGM

The participants reported they ‘do what they have to do’, because of people, otherwise they talk. Their obligations are dictated by social concerns about ‘the community’.

6.2  The Festa The festa (feast, festival) plays a part in the way individuals perceive a community. It is a fundamental space to manifest ethnic identity. Similar patterns of behaviour were observed across the various festivals that were visited during this research; consequently, I focus here on a single festa, giving an in-depth ethnographic description. The festa, unlike other bonds (e.g. the bond of comparatico (godparenthood), which will be discussed in Sect. 7.1, and which requires more commitment), engages the majority of the participants. The following is an extract from my fieldnotes describing the modus operandi of the festa. Rilassino, Festa of San Giovannino, 2013. 9.30 a.m. People are arriving by bus and car. The bus is the number 58, the stop just in front of the club. Antonio tells me that they are expecting many buses of paesani from Melbourne, Mildura, Moonta and Griffith. 10 a.m. Padre Alessio [Father Alessio] is celebrating the mass in Italian, in the courtyard. I notice a large number of children with their grandparents. Two of them are sitting on the laps of their nonni, playing with their nonni’s rosary, listening to the priest in Italian. Children have a pin with the image of Saint Giovannino. All of them are dressed very elegantly. I observe the field and read the booklet. The existence of a Calabrian network and allied families seems to be confirmed in the brochure of the religious feast. There are a large number of businesses owned by Italians, Calabrians and Calabrian compari families in the brochure. On the cover there is the iconography of the saint. The first two pages consist of the program of the festival, the third page shows pictures of the guests of the previous year, mainly politicians. The remaining thirty-four pages consists of advertisements for the sponsors. In the booklet, as well as a number of private, mostly family-owned business activities, there are fifty sponsors: six

154  S. MARINO Australian, eighteen Italian but non-Calabrian and twenty-six Calabrian (easily recognisable from the surnames typical of Calabria). There are also the contact details for politicians (mainly originating from Calabria and Campania) who are keen to assist the community. A similar scenario is depicted in the booklet of Saint Giovannino from the previous year, 2012 10.30 a.m. After the mass, everyone goes out for the procession.20 A musical band, carrying the Italian and the Australian flags, leaves first, playing the Italian national anthem. The statue of Saint Giovannino, carried only by men, is followed by an orderly row representing the other religious clubs (each with its own flag21). Beside the statue, there are two persons dressed as carabinieri.22 The statue is golden, with a box at the front for the offerte [offerings]. Following, there are the devotees, dressed formally: women are wearing heels, long skirts and golden chains representing the Virgin Mary. Men appear dressed less formally. The long religious parade is walking, singing and praying in Italian along the streets of Rilassino. The squawking of the white cockatoos and the Aussie police car seem to me the only markers of an Australian identity. While walking, I see a number of cars (a great number of Holdens) with amulets (e.g. red horns)23 hung on the rear mirror. Some neighbours are looking at the processione passing. We are now praying in front of a group of four barefoot blonde children having fun playing football. They are wearing only shorts, and are almost equal in age to Pasqualina and Paul, near me, who are wearing elegant suits (shiny shoes, shorts and bow tie for him, and a nice pink dress, lipstick, hairband for her; both have the San Giovannino pin). Now the procession has stopped in front of another house. There is a couple preparing a barbeque. The man is turning the lamb steak on the grill, a cloud of smoke rises up and passes through the statue of San Giovannino. The procession is returning to the club. At the entrance, I can now again smell the tomato sauce Rosa and Maria are preparing inside. Some volunteers are cooking pasta. 3 p.m. The back yard of the club is already populated by numerous people. The vast majority seem to be from Calabria. I am able to recognise the nuances of the language: iamu ja [let’s go there], typical of some villages like Platì and Benestare, and iamu dda, typical of Palizzi and Bova, and iamu lla, from Siderno. It would seem that the official language is Calabrian. However, there is also quite a substantial ‘minority group’ from Benevento, but I haven’t heard anyone speaking in Veneto.24 I hear a Calabrian tarantella coming from the zeppola stand and on stage I see a young 18-year-old girl singing ‘Tintarella di luna’, a song from the late 1950s sung by Mina.25 I also hear the voices of dozens of men talking loudly in front of other stands: the trippa [tripe] stand, the gelati stand

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and the cannoli stand. There are other stands populated by youngsters displaying folkloric products such as Calabrian CDs and T-shirts with Calabrian and Italian phrases (e.g. ‘100% Calabrian’, ‘Italian stallion’26). Some of the young participants of the third generation are there. Two men are dancing a tarantella. Between them is a third man, the mastru i ballu (dance director),27 who shouts, ‘Evviva a cu balla!’ [long live the dancers!] While the men are dancing, I see a number of children dancing as well, imitating the men by jumping around and having fun. There is also a little mastru i ballu ‘supervising’ the dance. 9.30 p.m. The ritual of u ciucciu danzanti [the dancing horse]. This is a suggestive dance, and ends with fireworks. A man dances a Calabrian tarantella within the wooden structure of a horse. The tarantella is played by musicians, with an organetto [bottom accordion], a lira (I am the lira player) and a tambourine. From the wooden horse, fireworks are lit and go off. All is happening under the protective eyes of (the statue of) San Giovannino, in the courtyard of the ‘Calabrian community’, which today inserted itself in the periphery of Adelaide.

All three generations of participants in my study reported attending Calabrian feast days, which are celebrated in the suburbs where Calabrian migrants reside. The religious celebration usually begins with a triduum or a novena, then on the feast day itself the mass is sung and celebrated in Italian, following which there is the procession. The afternoon and the evening are dedicated to food and entertainment. The participants reported attending the following feste: • Santa Eufemia Virgin and Martyr (first Sunday in February) • San Giuseppe (in Salisbury circa 19 March) • Sant’Ilarione (circa 21 October) • Madonna delle Grazie di Panduri (second Sunday of October) • Maria Santissima di tutte le grazie (second Sunday of September) • San Teodoro (second Sunday of November). The participants described the importance for them of the feste. Vince, a first-generation participant, reported: Ieu vaiu a tutti i festi pecchì viu i paesani e iocu e carti e penzu o me paisi in Calabria. [I go to every festa because I see paesani and play cards and I think about my village in Calabria.] I61IGM

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John, a third-generation participant, noted: I go to the festa with nonna Rina. I like that then just catching up with friends. We enjoy the festa, we eat together the zippuli. I63IIIGM

In an interview with Anthony, a third-generation participant, he said: Yes, I attend the Carnevale and the Madonna feasts, whether it’s of Rosso or Panduri. I have been going since I was born, I guess, I have been to Santa Maria, just a month ago, my mum has a lot of families in those committees … my dad speaks on the Italian radio. In terms of those, we are sure that we actively contribute to the community. I usually go with my nonna but there, I catch up with my friends … we have fun, laugh a lot, we greet in Italian: ‘cumpari!’, we try the food, the zeppole, watch performances and stuff like that. I88IIIGM

It seems that the festa, for those who are engaged with it, represents a fundamental cultural institution able to connect paesani and affirm their sense of belonging, reproducing something which seems to be imagined or remembered. Those who attend appear to be the ones who openly observe their numerous links and obligations within the Calabrian community. For example, the participating Rosso and Verde families tied by comparatico (see Sect. 7.2.2), together with participants such as Michele and Antonio, Frank’s and Enzo’s families, and the young Rocco, John and Francesca, claimed they never miss the festa. Clearly the modalities of attendance are subjective and should not be assumed to reflect a ‘generational logic’—every individual is different. However, in general, older participants reported attending the festa in order to meet other immigrants and play cards, whereas the youngest, like Anthony and John, claimed they go with their grandparents and meet friends, ‘enjoy’ the food (e.g. zeppola), buy Italian T-shirts and other things, and greet people in Calabrian. Having observed the San Giovannino festa among the Calabrian community in Australia, I then witnessed, only superficially, several religious feasts in Calabria while on visits to Italy. I noticed an apparent dislocation in the ways the festivals are practised in the two countries. It seems that at least some cultural performances in Adelaide contained a number

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of practices no longer observed in Italy. For example, as discussed above, at the feast of San Giovannino in Adelaide the statue of the saint leads the procession, followed by the devotees, both men and women; the widows in the processione are often dressed in black and wear pendants with the image of their departed husband.28 In Calabria, the procession for the same saint is led by the priest, the chierichetti (altar boys) and a crucifix, followed only by the women, who sing. The statue of the saint, at the end of the procession, is carried only by men. The traditional dance of the ciucciu danzanti in Adelaide does not seem to follow the current modalities I witnessed in Calabria. In Palizzi (Reggio Calabria), the ciucciu danzanti appears to be currently practised following certain safety procedures. The dancer is not inside the wooden sculpture of the donkey and carrying a torch, but rather wears a horse hat over his head. In Adelaide, this dance is still practised as it was in Calabria before the 1970s, where the structure of the horse was life-sized and the dancer was inside it. Further, the moves and steps of the Calabrian tarantella, witnessed at a number of community events in Adelaide, appear to reproduce the archetypal pattern danced in the past in Calabria. In Adelaide, the dancers tend to be of the same sex. The men usually simulate a fight, with a third actor, the mastru i ballu, between the two dancers as an impartial mediator of the fight. Today, in Italy, generally speaking, such traditional modalities are rarely found.29 Instead, men and women often dance the tarantella together, and the figure of mastru i ballu appears only in specific contexts.

Notes

1. I would remind the reader here that senso comune is a technical term, used in this book in its Gramscian meaning. 2. All names of individuals, and also many names of places and clubs, have been converted to pseudonyms to protect research participants’ privacy. 3.  The towns for which San Giovannino is the patron saint are: Bova, Campo Calabro, Cittanova, Delianuova, Mammola, Melito Porto Salvo, Molochio, Rizziconi, Roccella Ionica, Platì, San Procopio, Scilla and Taurianova. In Calabria, the saint of the festa in question is so popular that many villages repeat the festival during summer, when migrants (manly from the northern regions of Italy or from Germany or Switzerland) usually return to their village of origin.

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4. The lira calabrese, the Calabrian lyra. 5. A pseudonym. 6. A pseudonym. 7. By ‘field’ here I mean, as discussed in Sect. 3.1, a Bourdieusian cultural construction, a network, ‘a semi-autonomous specialised space of action’ in which the agents have the same ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu 1977). To use a soccer analogy, practices are conceived as clustered around social ‘games’ played in different social ‘fields’, in which agents act with a ‘feel for the game’, a ‘sense of placement’, in pursuing interests. Social fields can be seen as the arenas of competition for status and material resources that are based on family, educational institution, occupation and the like. 8. Supermercato (a pseudonym) is a well-known supermarket that sells a huge variety of products, including many Italian products. The familyowned supermarket belongs to a family from near Reggio Calabria who own dozens of supermarkets in Adelaide. Most of the youths working there originate from Calabria. At Supermercato, fundraisers are often organised in order to ‘help the community’. A number of Italian institutions, such as the Italian Radio, regional clubs and community events like Carnevale, rely on their generosity. 9. Marco Road and Prakash Road are pseudonyms. 10. The classic Bolognese meat sauce. 11. San Rocco is thought to be the patron saint of immigrants. 12. Pseudonyms. 13.  Corvello (pseudonym) is a suburb located on the opposite side of Adelaide from Tisone. 14. The Napoletani would literally be the Neapolitans, people from Naples. However there is a widespread tendency in Adelaide to label the vast population originating from Campania with the label Napoletani. In fact, it is very rarely used to indicate people from Napoli, but rather people from Campania, and in particular from the province of Benevento. 15. Giallo is a pseudonym. 16. This also extends to the use of language itself. The first thing I noticed, when talking to participants in Calabrian, was the use of certain words that are no longer used in Calabria. For example, I recorded speakers using words such as cattiva (widow) and gadaru (donkey). Both Maria, a first-generation widow, and nonna Caterina, who migrated from Calabria in the 1950s, used those words. During a period of fieldwork in Calabria, I attempted to investigate the use of these terms, and it seems that gadaru was used in Palizzi Superiore before the 1950s and is no longer in use, having been replaced by the interregional word sceccu or ciucciu. Only two of the seventy people I talked to in Calabria remembered the old term: the first was a woman who had returned to Calabria

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after fifty years in Canada, and the second was a man who had spent more than thirty years in prison and was released just a few months before my arrival. Among the repertoire of the first-generation participants in Adelaide, I heard two words of a similar style—pullitriari (to have fun) and suriaca (beans)—which have been generally replaced in Calabria with the terms jocari (to play) and faggiola (beans). It should be noted, of course, that a number of the individuals I met had never returned to Calabria, and some had migrated to Australia half a century ago. Not surprisingly, a number of these terms have been transmitted to the second generation: the second-generation participants use the expressions they learned from their parents. For example, Anna and Rob, both from the second generation, on numerous occasions used the Calabrian expressions mulingiani sutta mazzara and i llivi in bite, to indicate aubergines in oil and olives in brine. The couple said that they realised they were using dated expressions when they visited Italy and were told by their relatives that the names of the recipes in Italian were melanzane sott’olio and olive in salamoia. 17.  Babà is a small yeast cake saturated in hard liquor, usually rum, sometimes filled with whipped cream or pastry cream. 18. All the names of the stores in this section are pseudonyms. 19. Rob’s father and the owner of La Mita restaurant migrated together. They were on the same boat, the Roma. 20. The procession usually follows the external perimeter of the club, touring many of the streets of Rilassino. It lasts 35–40 minutes. 21. Groups representing other parishes were carrying the standards of their church. I was able to see the Madonna delle Grazie, San Giorgio, San Michele Arcangelo, the Madonna dell’Arco, San Rocco, Santi Cosma e Damiano, Saint Hilarion, and the Madonna di Panduri. 22. The Italian (military) police. The two people are also wearing the ceremonial plume and sword. 23. I am able to see the hunchback, amulets with the sign of the corna [lucky charm]. I see cars with a hanging rosary. Many others have religious stickers such as the Madonna di Polsi, venerated in the province of Reggio Calabria. 24. In Adelaide, the most numerous groups of Italian migrants are thought to be from Calabria, Campania (especially Benevento) and Veneto. 25. An iconic Italian female singer of the 1950s. 26. The message is allusive. The T-shirt shows a horse, but the reference is to the purpose for which stallions are kept. 27. The mastru i ballu (dance director) is an important figure who traditionally directed the dance, which was practised only among men. The role, in the past, was played by powerful figures (usually the ’ndrangheta

160  S. MARINO capobastoni – the boss of the area). Traditionally, the tarantella is thought to be a dance which displays, figuratively, a fight between two men, each of whom, while dancing in a circle of other men, challenged the honour of the other dancer through specific moves, in particular the cuteddata (stab). The mastru i ballu was in charge of ensuring that only two men at time danced in the circle; it was his duty was to bring a new dancer in and exclude one who had already danced. 28. Golden pendants with an image of the departed spouse are still visible in rural and isolated areas of Calabria. However, even in such places, there are elements of innovation in the practices. 29. It should be noted that there are still specific places where, on specific occasions, the tarantella is danced in the traditional manner (e.g. in San Luca, Reggio Calabria, during the procession of the Madonna di Polsi).

References Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research in the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press. Giuffrè, M. (2010). L’arcipelago migrante: Eoliani d’Australia. Roma: CISU.

CHAPTER 7

Networks and Comparatico Across the Three Generations

This chapter extends the discussion of the sites and practices to the community network. The network, in particular the weight of its expectations and world views, and the degree of participation in social, cultural, familiar and religious practices, seems to contribute to a stronger sense of ethnic identity. Section 7.1 describes two particular situations in which the participants seem to have the same ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu 1986); that is, once they are thrown into the Calabrian network, not only do they conform to its practices, but they also link their practices to Calabrian identity. Section 7.2 presents an ethnographic collection of the genealogies of those participating families who are bonded by comparatico or the relationship of godparenthood. Comparatico seems to be a superbly emblematic example of the network. This cultural practice is one of family alliance that links a number of the participating families, who then conform to certain practices and expectations and report having a ‘more traditional’ identity. Its socio-economic modus vivendi comprises assistance, obligations, social visits, gift exchange and gossip. This is encapsulated within the idea of sharing the same ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu 1986), which keeps the families and the wider circle together and contributes a collective sense of ethnic identity.

© The Author(s) 2020 S. Marino, Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2_7

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7.1  Thrown in at the Deep End In this Section I describe two situations in which two of the participants (Antonio and Michele) and I seem to have the same ‘feel for the game’. It seems that the individuals who are thrown into the Calabrian network not only conform (not essentialistically, but rather functionally) to its modus operandi of practices, but they also link their practices to an aspect of Calabrian identity. ‘Illu ti iuta, iamu u trovamu’, ‘A cui ndavimu dda?’ and ‘A cu apparteni?’ are widespread Calabrian sentences: ‘He will help you, let’s go and see him’, ‘Who do we have there?’ and ‘Who do you belong to?’. The participants of the present study, primarily those of the first and second generations, addressed me with these sentences numerous times. From my first days in Adelaide, my participants phoned me on dozens of occasions to offer assistance for various reasons, from ‘getting me more gigs’ as a folkloric Calabrian musician to ‘fixing’ my temporary migrant situation in Australia. In one such case, Antonio, a retired tiler and core member of one of the religious clubs (and who we met in Sect. 6.1), came to my house one day with the aim of introducing me to a Calabrian entrepreneur who contributes economically to the club’s activities in a very generous way. At 9 a.m. on 12 December 2014, Antonio knocked at my door with a bottle of the wine that he had made himself and a box with twelve fresh eggs from his chicken coop. He greeted me: Bongiornu, paesano! Dormisti bbonu? Prepara u café ca poi nescimu. T’aiu a presentari nu pezzu grossu, nu paesano, Mario Pallone. Illu è paesanu. Si poti fari chiccosa, illu ti iuta, iamu u trovamu. [Good morning, paesano! Did you sleep well? Make me a coffee then we can go out. I am going to introduce you to a big shot, a paesano, Mario Pallone. He is from Italy. If he can do something, he will help you, let’s go and see him.] FN12.12.14

The fieldnotes continue: Antonio is taking me to Mario Pallone’s office.1 Before entering, he tells me not to speak: ‘Non parrari, parru ieu pe ttia’ [Do not speak, I will speak for you]. In the office, all the staff, expect for one person, originate from Italy. Antonio introduces me to Mario as his young cousin from Calabria looking for a job. The paesano asks Antonio a cui ndavimu

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dda? [Who do we have there?], then he tells me that, if I want to work as a waiter or in the construction sector, provided my visa allows it, I can start from today; he promises to make a couple of telephone calls for me. Antonio then goes to his car and gets out a wicker basket with two bottles of wine (Brunello di Montalcino and Chianti), some ricciarelli2 and a homemade capocollo.3 He says ‘a disposizioni’ [at your disposal]. Pallone thanks him, gives the basket to his assistant, then shakes our hands. We leave.

Antonio’s praxis linked me to a prospective influential person. I noticed ‘we’ were all paesani. The practice of bringing food and wine to the business man’s office, juxtaposed with simple gestures and words, seemed accepted and ordinary. Everyone was at their ease. Antonio built a bridge between two paesani. Because of the promise Mario made to me that day, I felt obliged to both Antonio, who introduced me to him, and also to Mario, since he promised to ‘make a couple of calls’ for me. A week later I was asked to play my lira at the Pallone’s house. A few weeks after that, I also played at Antonio’s seventieth birthday party, in front of a large number of people (and a cake that his grandchildren had brought for him in the shape of an Alfa Romeo car, on which was written ‘auguri nonno!’ [happy birthday, grandpa]). A similar scenario occurred two months later, in February 2015, when another of my participants, Michele (70 years old, a bricklayer), insisted that I meet Peter Sorriso, who also originated from Italy, and was also a business owner with a number of useful contacts. I remember Michele talking to me on the phone: Po lavuru non c’è problema, tu trovu ieu. Ma po vistu bisognamu nu agganciu. Iamu u trovamu. Illu aiuta a nui italiani, ti poti ggiustari u vistu e dari consigghi si voi i resti all’Australia. [For the job there is no problem, I’ll find it for you. But for the visa we need the right contact. Let’s go and see him. He helps us Italians, he can give you advice if you want to live permanently in Australia.] FN12.12.14

My fieldnotes tell the story of the meeting. 8 February, the day of the Italian festival Carnevale. I am going, with Michele, to meet his very important friend, Peter, at the Adelaide Showground, precisely at the Ferrari stand. I see a young man, formally

164  S. MARINO dressed, chatting with other people near a Testarossa, in front of the Radio Italia Mia4 stand. He is coming towards us with a bright smile. I hear Michele greeting him: ‘A bellezza du paesano! Sonaturi, veni cca! Chistu è Petru,5 illu ti aiuta, illu esti nu calabbrisi, comu a ttia.’ [Happy to see the fellow countryman! Musician, come here! This is Peter, he will help you, he is Calabrian like you.] The man greets us: ‘Michele! How you doing? A disposizioni!’ [I am at your disposal.] I greet Peter: ‘Nice to meet you! So you come from Calabria as well?’ Peter shakes my hand while showing his language skills: ‘Comu iamu?! [How’re you doing?], I was born here, but my blood is Calabrian! What a small world, isn’t it? Do you like Australia? Are you the sonaturi?’

Michele had introduced me to Peter, another contact. In the car with my participants, on the way to each of the above events, we were talking about the stereotypical differences between Australians and Italians (i.e. ‘they’ are cold people with no consideration of family, whereas ‘we’ are hospitable), and both Antonio and Michele independently addressed certain characteristics that ‘real paesani’ should possess. I was aware of the general performance of conforming to each other’s expectations, of course. But the main virtue that ‘real Italians’ must have was that ‘we help each other, we care’. As Antonio reported it: U veru paesano ti iuta, non ti dassa mai inmenza strata. Chilli chi non ti iutanu non sunnu mancu chiu pasani. [The real paesani helps you, he never lets you down. The ones who do not help you are no longer paesani.] I51IGM

Similarly, Michele stated: Se uno mantinene la tradizione, partecipa alla comunità e aiuta gli altri italiani, è un vero italiano. [If one keeps alive the traditions, participates in the community and helps others, one is a real Italian.] I52IGM

Antonio and Michele linked certain practices and behaviours with the essentials of ‘real paesani’. Respecting and helping each other is what separates real paesani from the others. According to Michele, real Italians

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follow the traditions. The idea that real Italians follow traditions and are involved with the community seems to be shared by all of those participants who are particularly engaged with their Italian-ness. The fieldnotes suggest the existence of a Calabrian network that links those individuals who are engaged with it, leading them to conform to specific practices, behaviours, gestures, words and rituals that are believed to be essential characteristics of ‘real Italians’.

7.2  Calabrian Comparatico 7.2.1  Comparatico in the Calabrian Community of Adelaide Having regularly attended formal and informal meetings at numerous Calabrian clubs in my role as a folkloric musician, I established an empathetic relationship not only with my participants, but also with their friends, relatives and compari. Having been ‘thrown into the world’ of the Calabrian community, observing the everyday life of participants, transcribing fieldnotes and writing up the genealogies of certain families after each visit, I noticed the existence of a community network of godparenthood alliances among a number of these families originating from Calabria. The relationship of comparatico is complex (see Marino 2020b for more details). However, simply put, it is a relationship between families established through the Catholic ritual of baptism. When a child is baptised in Italy, they will have a compare (godfather) and a comare (godmother), who are sometimes married— in Calabrian, these are referred to as cumpari and cummari. But the relationship, especially when it involves people originating from the same village, is not just between the child and his or her compari (godparents), but rather between the two families, and the terms comare and (in particular) compare are used by the parents and godparents of a child to refer to and address each other (and compare is indeed used more generally to mean something like ‘old friend’, in much the style of the Australian English word ‘mate’). The bonds established by comparatico can bind families together for generations. This section describes an ethnographic investigation of a network of comparatico which involves a number of the families linked to participants of the study; note that many of the members of these families are what I refer to in the methodology as ‘peripheral participants’.

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The rationale for this analysis is to acknowledge the existence of a ‘network within the network’, where there are some Italian-Australian individuals who could claim to be ‘more traditional’ than other Australians with an Italian background. As well as carrying out the ethnographic research with the primary participants detailed elsewhere in this book, then, I also mapped out the partial genealogy of fourteen specific Calabrian families, once again all living in Adelaide and its suburbs.6 These families included some primary participants, but the majority of the genealogies relate to peripheral participants, as I aim to demonstrate how individuals within the community are bonded together through social relations, duties and obligations. The analysis in this section is based on a total of 151 individuals, 78 males and 73 females, including 28 from the first generation, 68 from the second generation and 55 from the third generation (see Fig. 7.1). Of the fourteen families whose genealogies were examined, eleven are tied by comparatico and bound by obligations and privileges that involve both their private lives and their socio-economic lives. There are also cases of reciprocal comparatico, which boost the alliance between families. Some of the ties are the result of previous alliances begun in Calabria, whereas others are new alliances. Figure 7.2 illustrates the comparatico relations among the fourteen families. Figure 7.2 indicates the comparatico bonds between the fourteen families represented in Fig. 7.1. As can be seen in Fig. 7.2, the first-generation spouses of Family A are the compari of the second-generation male participant of Family B. The second-generation female participant of Family A is the comare of the third-generation female participant of Family I. In Family E, the first-generation spouses are the compari of the second-generation female participant of Family D; that ­participant and her husband have in turn become the compari of a third-generation male participant of Family E (a case of return godparenthood). The first-generation male participant of Family F is the compare of the second-generation male participant of Family J, who is also compare of a third-generation male participant of Family F (return godparenthood). In Family G, the first-generation male participant is the compare of the second-generation male participant of Family M; and that participant’s sister and her husband are the compari of the third-generation female participant of Family G (return godparenthood). The first-generation female participant of Family I is the comare of the second-generation female participant of Family L. The second-generation spouses of Family

7  NETWORKS AND COMPARATICO ACROSS THE THREE GENERATIONS 

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