Italophilia meets Albanophobia: paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes amongst Albanian immigrants in Italy Russell King, Nicola Mai To cite this version: Russell King, Nicola Mai. Italophilia meets Albanophobia: paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes amongst Albanian immigrants in Italy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2008, 32 (1), pp.117-138. 10.1080/01419870802245034. hal-00513309 HAL Id: hal-00513309 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00513309 Submitted on 1 Sep 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Ethnic and Racial Studies For Peer Review Only Italophilia meets Albanophobia: paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes amongst Albanian immigrants in Italy Journal: Ethnic and Racial Studies Manuscript ID: RERS-2007-0129.R2 Manuscript Type: Original Manuscript Albanian migration, Italy, assimilation, integration, Identity, Keywords: stigmatisation URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rers [email protected] Page 1 of 27 Ethnic and Racial Studies 1 2 3 Italophilia meets Albanophobia: paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and 4 5 identity processes amongst Albanian immigrants in Italy 6 7 8 9 Russell King and Nicola Mai 10 11 12 Abstract 13 14 This paper discusses what we call the ‘Albanian assimilation paradox’. Since arrival 15 16 in 1991, AlbaniansFor have Peer become one Review of the most ‘integrated’ Only of all non-EU immigrant 17 18 groups in Italy, based on their knowledge of Italian, geographical dispersion, balanced 19 demography, employment progress, and desire to remain in Italy. Yet they are the 20 21 nationality most rejected and stigmatised by Italians – stereotyped as criminals, 22 23 prostitutes and uncivilised people. Based on 97 interviews with Albanians in three 24 25 cities in Italy, we explore the multifaceted dimensions of their patchy assimilation. 26 Although the hegemonic negative framing of Albanians by Italian media and public 27 28 discourse plays a major role, other elements of the picture relate to Albanians’ 29 30 complexly shifting identities, framed both against and within this discourse (and 31 32 hence both resisting and internalising it), and against changing concepts of Albanian 33 34 national and diasporic identities derived from ambiguous perceptions of the national 35 homeland. 36 37 38 39 Keywords : Albanian migration; Italy; assimilation; integration; stigmatisation; 40 41 identity 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 1 URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rers [email protected] Ethnic and Racial Studies Page 2 of 27 1 2 3 Introduction and theoretical reference-points 4 5 6 7 Two refrains echo through the hundreds of conversations we have had with Albanian 8 9 immigrants living in Italy. The first is an overwhelming sadness at the stigmatisation 10 11 they have been subjected to by the Italian media and society. Their reactions to 12 stereotyping as ‘undesirables’ and ‘criminals’ range from extreme anger to resignation 13 14 and even to tacit acceptance and internalisation. The second refrain is often framed as 15 16 a question:For ‘Why won’t Peer they let us beReview like them?’ This can Only be seen as an inversion of 17 18 the title of Greeley’s (1969) famous essay about immigrants in the United States – 19 ‘Why can’t they be like us?’ By deploying the term ‘asymmetric assimilation’ we 20 21 explore in this paper the inclusion/exclusion of Albanian migrants in Italy. Our 22 23 neologism is not without historical precedent or analogy, as we shall see shortly. We 24 25 propose its application to the Albanian case because of the paradoxical situation 26 whereby the migrant group which is the most rejected by Italian society is that which, 27 28 on several indicators, is also the most ‘similar’ to the host society, and moreover sees 29 30 itself as such. 31 32 For a long time now, assimilation and integration have been dominant themes 33 34 in the study of immigration. Although there are important earlier origins in Europe in 35 Durkheimian sociology and in the Chicago School in the US, we pick up the 36 37 theoretical debate with Milton Gordon’s canonical Assimilation in American Life . 38 39 Gordon (1964) made a key division into structural assimilation (engagement in 40 41 multiple primary-group relations with the host society, entering into social institutions 42 and structures), and identificational assimilation (taking on a sense of host-society 43 44 ‘peoplehood’); Gordon correlates the latter, although not exactly, to cultural 45 46 assimilation or acculturation . This division has passed across into the European 47 48 literature on integration , which is much more recent (see e.g.Vermeulen and Penninx 49 50 2000). Hence European authors commonly make distinctions between structural, 51 socio-cultural and identificational integration; or between formal participation in 52 53 sectors such as education or the employment market, and informal participation in 54 55 neighbourhood relations and leisure activities (Engbersen 2003; Heckmann 2005). 56 57 Returning to Gordon, we note one of his major propositions: ‘ Once structural 58 assimilation has occurred, either simultaneously with or subsequent to acculturation, 59 60 all the other types of assimilation [here Gordon is referring to intermarriage, erosion of discrimination, absence of power differentials etc.] will naturally follow’ (Gordon 2 URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rers [email protected] Page 3 of 27 Ethnic and Racial Studies 1 2 3 1964, p. 81, italics in original). According to Gordon, structural assimilation 4 5 inevitably produces acculturation, but not the reverse; indeed, for the US, Gordon’s 6 7 thesis is that ‘whilst acculturation has been substantially achieved, this is not the case 8 1 9 with regard to the other assimilation variables’ (1964, p. 105). Gordon’s concept of 10 11 ‘acculturation without assimilation’ will be used as a template against which to assess 12 the Albanian experience in Italy. We will see that it approximates, but is not identical 13 14 to, our preferred notion of asymmetric assimilation. 15 16 WeFor suggest, byPeer way of signposts Review into our analysis, Only three essential differences 17 18 between Gordon’s model and our findings. The first is Gordon’s curious omission of 19 substantive discussion of the labour market, a key component of subsequent 20 21 assimilation/integration literature, especially in Europe. Second, Gordon suggests 22 23 (1964, p. 81) that acculturation implies the disappearance of prejudice and 24 25 discrimination, which is definitely not the situation in our case-study. Third, Gordon’s 26 account carries little acknowledgement of how different immigrant groups’ 27 28 aspirations for assimilation might be matched (or not) by the host society’s hegemonic 29 30 perceptions of the ‘assimilability’ of different groups. 31 32 Gordon’s landmark analysis was of course only a stage in the evolution of the 33 34 assimilation debate. Subsequently assimilation become a discredited term (Glazer 35 1993), although some revival can recently be noted, both in the United States (Alba 36 37 and Nee 1997) and in Europe (Brubaker 2001). Key to the concept’s rehabilitation has 38 39 been a shift away from the original assumption of ‘straight-line assimilation’ into 40 41 ‘Anglo-conformity’ (in the US context) to a more nuanced and analytically complex 42 use of the term. Much attention has been given to alternative models of assimilation, 43 44 notably the segmented assimilation of Portes and Zhou (1993), but this line of 45 46 analysis focuses on the second generation, less relevant to Albania where the 47 48 migration is less than a generation old. Finally, much depends on national models of 49 50 immigrant integration and exclusion; within Europe France has been the country 51 where the assimilationist tradition has been most strongly represented (Brubaker 2001, 52 53 pp. 535-7). 54 55 In the case of Italy, a recent country of immigration, there is as yet no 56 57 overarching model of immigrant incorporation. Policy measures have been ad hoc and 58 frequently contradictory. There seems to be an acceptance of the economic rationale 59 60 of harnessing migrant labour and of the inevitability of immigration in a scenario of enhanced global mobility; and yet the trend in legislation – from the Legge Martelli 3 URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rers [email protected] Ethnic and Racial Studies Page 4 of 27 1 2 3 (1990) through the Turco-Napolitano (1998) to the Bossi-Fini law (2002) – has been 4 5 to pay lip-service to integration and instead to keep immigrants as a marginalised, 6 7 temporarily-resident fraction of Italian society (Zincone 2006). Italian press and other 8 9 media have reinforced this stance by continuously representing immigrants as 10 11 outsiders and a threat to the nation. Throughout the 1990s and since, Albanians have 12 been the lightning-rod for this negative discursive framing of immigration. 13 14 In this paper we look at the assimilation-integration trajectory not from the side of 15 16 national modelsFor or policy Peer but from Reviewthe perspective of an Only individual migrant group – 17 18 Albanians. Our evidence base is 97 in-depth interviews, taped and transcribed, with 19 Albanian immigrants in three Italian cities – Rome, Modena and Lecce. These cities 20 21 were strategically chosen to represent different socio-economic conditions for 22 23 migrants in Italy (respectively the capital and medium-sized cities in the industrialised 24 25 North and less-developed South).