Post-2008 Crises Mobility from Italy to Germany: a Case Study of Italian Youth Migration to Berlin
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August 2017 Universiteit Van Amsterdam Master in Sociology Migration and Ethnic Studies Thesis Post-2008 crises mobility from Italy to Germany: A case study of Italian youth migration to Berlin Supervised by: Dr. Simona Vezzoli (First Supervisor) Prof. Dr. Hein de Haas (Second Supervisor) Giacomo Spinelli 11262540 [email protected] 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY................................................................................................ 3 1) INTRODUCTION...................................................................................... 5 2) PAST CYLES OF EMIGRATION........................................................ 10 2a) Toward Decline......................................................................................... 14 2b) The 2008 Economic Crisis........................................................................ 15 3) THE RESEARCH FRAMEWORK........................................................ 16 3a) Theorizing the formation of migrants aspirations................................... 20 4) METHODOLOGY AND METHODS.................................................... 22 4a) Methods..................................................................................................... 24 4b) Ethical consideration and limitation.......................................................... 26 5) THE POST 2008 ITALIAN EMIGRATION TO BERLIN.................... 27 5a) The construction of an "empathic" relation with Berlin............................. 30 6) THE ITALIAN CONTEXT....................................................................... 33 6a) The role of civil society.............................................................................. 34 6b) Provincialism............................................................................................. 36 6c) The social environment.............................................................................. 37 6d) The Erasmus program ............................................................................... 42 7) CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION........................................................ 43 8) BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................ 48 2 Summary In 2013 nearly 82.000 Italians left the country. The numbers are impressive, compared with the early 2000s, when the average number was 50.000 individuals.. This trend was confirmed in 2014. Italian social and political scientists tend to characterize this fact mostly as “brain drain”, emigration of young skilled professionals (researchers, etc) who are forced to leave the country in search of better perspectives, even though only 30% of those who emigrated in 2013 are university graduates. Intra-European migrations are a social phenomenon whose dynamics and patterns changes quite rapidly. Statistical data furnished by Italian governmental agencies show that Germany has become again in recent years one of the primary destinations for Italian migrants, and, in particular has become a very attractive destination for young migrants. Despite the social and political relevance of the phenomenon, recent Italian emigration is still an unexplored field of studies and Italian and international scholars have called for more studies to research in depth this new type of emigration which appears to be very different from the previous emigration that, since the second part of the nineteenth century, have characterized Italian migration toward Germany. In particular what seems to be still missing from an analysis of the relevance of cultural factors as emigration determinants. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the mosaic of research on the determinants of the new Italian emigration; in particular analysing under which circumstances (how, when, and why) young Italians have developed the aspiration to leave their country. In particular this study focuses on emigration of young Italians to Berlin. A city that, among major European capitals , seems today to be able to offer a good quality of life, an affordable lifestyle, a more dynamic job market and relatively easy to achieve financial benefits. 3 What has emerged from this research on the cultural motivations which determine the choice of young Italians to leave the country toward Berlin, there is the fundamental rupture of the recent emigration from previous ones. Migration determinants of young Italians seems today very different from the past. There are several reasons for this difference. The revolution in the communication system has transformed the concept of distance; Skype, Facebook, and Messanger are servers used daily to remain in touch with family and friends. The current facility to travel and its affordability allow people to move very easily across European countries: today for a migrant who goes to Germany the possibility to return in Italy is an available option since a flight can be purchased for less than 50 euro. Last but not least the absence of borders together with all the other benefits of citizens living within the European Union certainly facilitates intra-European mobility. But what emerges from this micro research and could represent another significant break with past migrations is that the desire for material wealth does not seems to represent, compared with the past, as equally significant a determinant for a generation of Italian emigrants who grew up in an age of consumerism, whilst the perception of a country in decline seems to play a determinant role. Through an analysis of different elements and taking into consideration the Capability Approach developed in the 1980s by Amartya Sen and the studies by Hein De Haas, this research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the logics, patterns and dynamics at the determinants of contemporary Italian migration toward Germany. It is to be noted that from the first elaboration of the capabilities approach to the present, there has been a considerable transformation of the world we leave in: the advent of the World Wide Web, the world 2008 financial crisis and with it the crisis of liberal economic concepts. This has been accompanied by a rediscovery of theories opposite to liberal economy. The constants transformation of reality is of course accompanied by a transformation of theories. 4 1) Introduction Historical patterns of Italian migration toward Germany date back to the formation of the Italian State during the last three decades of nineteenth century. The radical shift of protagonists and areas of origin started in concomitance with the global changes produced with the advent of the so-called post-modern societies, in the 1980, Surprisingly in more than 150 years, protagonists and the modalities of this social phenomenon changed only to a limited extent in their pattern and trajectories. Italian emigration has always been analyzed as a classical case of migration from a southern European developing country, to a Northern more developed one. Italian emigration to Germany is historically divided into two main phases: the worldwide 1870- 1915 "great migration,” and the post War World II "guest workers" phase, officially terminated with the 1973 oil crises, when the Arab oil producers proclaims an embargo that impacted economy and politics throughout the world. Recent studies have explored the possibility that starting from the world financial crisis of 2008, Italy is going through a third phase of "structural" emigration (Fondazione Migrantes 2016). Between 2006 and 2016 Italian mobility grew by 54,9%, and the official agency established for the registration of Italians abroad (A.I.R.E) passed from 3 to 4.8 million registrations. During 2015 Germany was the first choice among the European countries for many migrants, with more than 16.586 new registrations (Huffington post.it). In Berlin among intra-European migrants, Italians figured as the second largest group after the Polish community. In 1990 the Italian community was officially composed of 12.858 individuals and in 2014 the numbers doubled, with more than 31.276 registrations (Amt fur Statistik Berlin Brandenbourg, 2015). However, despite the relevance of the phenomenon the literature on intra European migrations has concentrated its attention mostly on the East-West migration that occurred during the European 5 enlargements of 2004, 2007 and 2013, partially ignoring the mobility of Italians,. In this sense, what appears evident is the necessity to enrich the body of literature on the determinants of the current migration from Italy. And it is in this framework that this thesis is developed: this research analyses the dynamics and the factors that are considered important to the cohort of Italians aged 20-30, while they were making their decision to migrate to Berlin. The possibility that Italy is going through another phase of emigration, has remarkable theoretical interests and has recently been introduced in the academic debate as valuable topics for further theorization of determinants of migration. A recent research by Stazio (2017:155) on Italian migration to Berlin, indicates the expanding propensity to expatriate of young Italians as an unexplored category of analysis whose importance has been underestimated from studies that research the cluster of reasons behind the ongoing Italian migration. The study of young people propensity to migrate highlights the unexplored argument that leaving Italy is not motivated by economical personal improvement but could be considered as a suitable solution in order to escape from