6.1 Introduction

Italy’s first large exposure to migration can probably be identified with the arrivals of Albanian citizens fleeing their country after the collapse of the Communist regime in the early 1990s and to whom the Italian government granted asylum. However, Italy has not been the destination for large numbers of migrants until much more recently. Indeed, with few exceptions, migration did not enter the public spotlight until the early 2000s, when the issue became increasingly politicised, particularly by some parties on the political right. Things changed even more radically when Italy found itself at the forefront of the migration crisis that started in 2014 and the country experienced the highest influx of non-EU citizens looking for economic opportunities and international protection in its history. Among southern European countries, only Greece experienced a similar situation. The increased inflow of migrants placed the issue of migration again at the centre of public debate. It brought new problems and heightened the old ones, namely a deficit in reception and integration structures.

Italian immigration policies have since evolved against this backdrop. Recent laws have upheld an increasingly restrictive and securitarian approach, which has eroded integration and support programmes for protection seekers and affected foreigners’ absorption via the labour market. Very few legal channels are provided for non-EU citizens to access the Italian labour market, and migrants face additional challenges from its structure. This is particularly true in the wake of the economic crisis, which left migrants more exposed than native workers to health and safety risks as well as the informal labour market. Nonetheless, migrants represent a crucial component of the workforce in many sectors.

The complexity of such struggles can only be partly grasped with systemic analysis at the macro or meso levels, and finer detail is needed to disclose specific aspects potentially neglected by broader analyses. This chapter makes use of biographical narratives to bring together the actual life experiences of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers (MRAs) in their journeys towards integration in the labour market, contrasting the formal legal framework and their pre-departure expectations against their lived reality upon arrival. In particular, the pool of informants – comprised of both recently arrived migrants and those who have been in the country for a longer period – allows comparing experiences across different periods and the differences or similarities in their challenges towards a successful integration. Our focus will be to outline the role of migrants’ agency related to the macro-reality, particularly when implementing resilience strategies to overcome adversities. In other words, we aim to highlight the relationship between the agency of our MRAs and the socio-political context in which they live.

In the light of this specific context, this chapter examines the migrants’ lived experiences and their inner thoughts about these experiences. Migrants in Italy have been identified as extremely ‘labour-oriented’ – either by necessity, will, spirit, or all – and work has been considered one of the most successful paths for integration. However, knowledge about how this process develops is limited. Moreover, it is not clear how a successful integration, with a safe and decent occupation, can be achieved. In fact, not just any job is sufficient, particularly if inhumane; as stated by the ILO (2020), decent workFootnote 1 is necessary for migrants to achieve self-fulfilling lives in their host countries.

A growing body of literature has developed on the integration of migrants in Italy and also on labour market integration. This is presented in scholarly works across disciplines, each shedding light on different aspects of integration, namely: education (Azzolini, 2015); employment-related policies (Accorinti, 2017); the contrast between irregular/informal employment and labour exploitation (Sagnet & Palmisano, 2015; Chiaromonte, 2018) or reception services (De Petris, 2018); and, migrants’ welfare rights (De Marcello & Lagravinese, 2015). Valuable data are also contained in other kinds of research, mainly reports produced by associations and research centres (most recently, for example, Oxfam, 2016, 2017; Capitani, 2019; IDOS, 2019; ISMU, 2019). However, these works do not specifically investigate migrant agency: they do not explore the capacity of migrants for navigating and overcoming barriers or for shaping their own lives in dynamic environments and under instable circumstances.

Indeed, the role of agency in migrants’ integration is an under-researched theme in Italy (see, for instance, Meini, 2019; Razzoli & Rinaldini, 2019). Even though data from qualitative interviews and focus group have been used in reports with a broader scope (i.e., UNHCR, 2017), there is a gap in the literature on the use of biographical data. This chapter aims to fill this gap by adopting a biographical perspective on the pathways to labour market integration of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers (MRAs). It offers a novel viewpoint that can complement existing analyses of policies and structural factors. Hence, this case study will foster a more in-depth understanding of the challenges that migrants face, highlighting their needs and the key elements that help or hinder their integration processes. On a broader level, it can lead to identifying possible differences between stakeholders’ perspectives, official data, and migrant perspectives.

In short, this chapter examines the role that individuals can play in the integration process. It also looks at what we can learn from their experiences, needs, and aspirations. We focus on the role played by the different skills and agency of MRAs in overcoming integration barriers and utilising opportunities they receive or conquer. This approach is based on to the ‘agency-structure’ nexus, where agency is ‘one’s capacity to shape one’s life and exploit opportunities or indeed open up new possibilities for one’s self and their family’ (Triandafyllidou, 2018, 8), and the structure can create or impede opportunities for agency. According to this nexus, migrants can develop new personality traits and make new decisions influenced by various circumstances of their migration, while also creating opportunities for themselves through these dynamics (Giddens, 2000; for this paradigm applied to integration of migrants see King et al., 2017; Squire, 2017; Triandafyllidou, 2018; Baglioni & Isaakyan, 2020). To do this we make use of diverse life stories that represent some of the most common categories of migrants, looking at the main turning points in their lives that helped them achieve a (hopefully) successful integration in the Italian labour market.

This is traced across four main sections. The first provides background information on the Italian context, describing the evolution of the migration phenomenon and the socio-economic and policy context. It also highlights the most relevant challenges MRAs face in their integration journey. The second introduces the methodology used for the research – in-depth biographical interviews and biographical narratives – and discusses the ethics and strategies employed. The third section is the core of our chapter, where we analyse the narratives of the integration paths of our informants, centring on the main turning point epiphanies they experienced and how these influenced their lives as migrants. Here we look at the interplay between the structural factors and MRAs’ agency as well as relative resilience strategies. The last section more specifically examines the role played by other actors according to the agency nexus structure and provides a typology of those actors as well as how they acted as catalysts for the events presented in the previous section.

6.2 The Italian Context: Immigration and Integration Challenges

To better understand the complexities of immigration in Italy and the main challenges migrants face, it is useful to start by briefly examining migration’s evolution. In this regard, we can follow the recent work of Michele Colucci (2018b), who presents a comprehensive historical reconstruction of the phenomenon in Italy since the post-war period. Another perspective, particularly looking at more recent times, is provided by the work of Maurizio Ambrosini (2013, 2017a) and Anna Triandafyllidou (Triandafyllidou & Ambrosini, 2011), which are more focused on both migration policies and migrants in the labour market. Looking at the legal context, and specifically its impact on MRAs’ labour market integration, has been the subject of a recent comparative work by Federico and Baglioni (2021).

Over the course of a few decades, Italy moved from being a country of emigration to a country (also) of immigration, with migration progressively becoming an issue present in public debate and society over the past 30 years. The earliest data on the presence of foreign workers in Italy are from 1978, when half a million foreigners resided in Italy, representing less than 1 per cent of the total population (Censis, 1979); in 1998, foreign residents were slightly less than 1 million, while in the past 20 years their number grew over four times, reaching more than five million in 2020, or roughly 9 per cent of the population.Footnote 2 Such growth has not been experienced by any other of the larger European countries. For some authors, this relatively recent (and sudden) exposure to migration has been proposed as one of the main causes of the legislative barriers and disfunctions characterising the Italian immigration and reception system (Colucci, 2018a). Indeed, across this period, Italian society struggled between the contradictions of experiencing the economic benefits of migrants while also rejecting them (Ambrosini, 2013).

We can identify four main phases of migration in Italy. In the 1980s, the number of foreign workers migrating to Italy started to see a slow but steady increase, particularly for domestic and agricultural workers. But it is not until a decade later, in the early 1990s, that Italy ‘discovered immigration’, a consequence of the fall of the Berlin Wall (De Cesaris, 2018; Piro, 2020). The early 2000s saw a spike in the arrival of foreign workers and a parallel politicisation of migration. This flow stabilised after 2008, and over the next decade, the number of foreign residents increased by just one-fourth to 5.14 million. The start of the latest phase followed the 2011 ‘Arab springs’. The 2014 migration crisis, in particular, placed the spotlight on the massive influx of refugees and asylum seekers arriving via the so-called Mediterranean route and can be considered a watershed in Italy migration history. However, the picture of the Italian migration scenario is more complex: indeed, between 2014 and 2017 (the period which saw the highest number of arrivals), residence permits for asylum or humanitarian reasons rose significantly and the main channel for obtaining it has consistently been family reunification, citizenship applications, and recognitions (Ambrosini, 2017a). Other paths taken by undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees are represented by the so-called Balkan and Mediterranean routes, while a residual way is that of visa overstayers. Such trend was confirmed in the period 2018–2019, when we saw a significant decrease in the number of asylum seekers and refugees as a result of a more restrictive approach implemented by the government.

The migration crisis did not radically alter the presence of foreign workers in Italy.Footnote 3 Still, the noticeably greater presence of African and Asian migrants in the period 2013–2019 can be linked to the new influx of refugees and asylum seekers from 2014 to 2017 from Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, and southern Asia. However, a significant number of arrivals in Italy at the peak of the migration crisis is not present in official statistics (i.e., undocumented migrants outside of the reception system).

The evolution of migration and integration policies is strictly related to the political environment. Generally, the 1990s were characterised by a benevolent public opinion towards migration, which also resulted in regularisation processes for migrants (Colucci, 2018b). A major reform of the immigration law in 1998 (the so-called Turco-Napolitano law) failed to address some already evident problems. In the early 2000s the main consequences of the increase in the number of foreign workers and a politicisation of the issue, with right-of- centre parties opposing the rising influx of migrants, was the 2002 ‘Bossi-Fini’ migration law approved by a centre-right government. Migration did thus become a polarising element in the political arena, with left-wing parties generally promoting more favourable integration and migration policies and right-wing parties promoting a restrictive approach. This is also reflected in the policies and stance of the various government coalitions since. Nonetheless, the core of migration policies in Italy, the ‘Bossi-Fini’ law, remains in effect to this day with minor amendments, which are related mostly to the reception and integration of refugees and asylum seekers. In particular, we can observe a significant difference between the more open policies of the centre-left governments in the 2014–2017 period.

If we look more closely at Italy’s immigration and integration policies and the related barriers, the foremost element is the increasingly unfavourable political, normative, and policy environment. Since the 2018 general elections (until very recently), immigration was progressively treated more as a security issue – something to be discouraged. This shifted away from political interest in integrating migrants to promoting new anti-immigration stances and policies. Still, one of the most severe barriers for a positive integration of MRAs remains the ‘Bossi Fini law’. Policies governing reception and integration are also insufficient, with migrants’ integration paths characterised largely by fragmentation, considering the connectivity between actors, official texts, laws, and contexts (see, for example, Oxfam, 2016, that defined the system of reception a ‘lottery’ for migrants). There is also a marked division in the paths towards integration according to different categories of migrants, with refugees and asylum seekers relying heavily on institutionalised patterns and programmes, often managed by civil society organisations operating as service providers for the government. Yet, standards of care and assistance for asylum seekers and refugees vary a lot between the different centres of accommodation, and the enjoyment of basic rights becomes a matter of luck’ (Oxfam, 2017). Indeed, the level of support offered varies widely between first-tier (CAS) and second-tier (SPRAR/SIPROIMI) reception,Footnote 4 where the former provides only a limited amount of support, generally on a voluntary basis, and the latter provides an ampler range of services for social and economic integration.

On the other hand, economic migrants, have no statutory support and are less reliant on CSOs and more dependent on informal ethnic networks or the ‘common’ network of services available for the resident population (job offices, agencies, trainings, professional formation) – or both (Maggini & Collini, 2019). Furthermore, the possibility of a successful integration is strongly influenced by the geographic, economic, political, and sociocultural peculiarities of the Italian context (see, among others, Triandafyllidou & Ambrosini, 2011; Ambrosini, 2013; Testaì, 2015). The already unfavourable background was aggravated by more restrictive and discriminatory normative and policy changes approved in late 2018 (the ‘Salvini Decree’), which severely impacted the reception system and related integration policies and was in force until 2020 (Chiaromonte, 2019). Despite such an opposing trend to migration, the practical management of migration displays examples of openness and solidarity, with the tertiary sector being at the forefront, particularly in the case of irregular migrants (Ambrosini, 2018).

Another critical element is the structure of the labour market; generally, foreigners experience low levels of unemployment (also during and after the post-2009 economic crisis) and, at the same time, poor quality jobs (Chiaromonte & Sciarra, 2014; Ambrosini & Panichella, 2016; ISMU, 2019). They are mostly employed in a ‘complementary’ labour market that generates ‘ethnic specialisations’ (or occupational segregation) in low-skilled jobs often avoided by the natives, particularly agriculture, tourism, construction, and domestic work (Ambrosini, 2017b). Ethnic specialisations also largely apply to migrant entrepreneurship, with some nationalities concentrating in specific sectors (i.e., food and beverage activities, shops). Migrants are also a large part of the workforce in new ‘gig economy’ jobs, such as couriers and delivery (the so-called riders). This results in significant wage differences and a slowdown in the process of labour and social integration. At the same time, it creates a phenomenon migrants’ ‘ghettoisation’.

Foreign workers are found mainly in the highly industrialised and developed northern regions, while only a smaller number, mainly seasonal workers, resides in the less-developed and more agriculture-dependent south (Ministry of Labour, 2019). According to a report by the Ministry of Labour (2017, 41) ‘foreigners easily face discriminatory behaviours, widespread risk of informal employment and high mobility. But foreign workers are strongly labour-oriented, so that the phenomenon of the so-called “disheartenment”, that is, the renounce to search employment, is very uncommon. In fact, unemployed foreigners can be constrained to accept the first job they find, under the pressure to maintain themselves and their families and/or renovate the residence permit’.

Furthermore, the Italian labour market (for both nationals and foreigners) is divided between regular and informal (non-regular) work, where the latter is particularly relevant for migrant workers with all the related risks of exploitation as well as for health and safety. On the other hand, this is also a necessity for the large number of irregular migrants present in the country and a consequence of the insufficient ways to legalise migrant workers without a valid permit of stay. There is also a lack of knowledge on how to tackle the problem of integration and cultural diversity in the workplace. Finally, the local socio-economic context is also a relevant factor for the successful integration of migrants in the labour market, influencing strategies and opportunities (for more details see Maggini & Collini, 2019; Collini & Federico, 2020).

If we want to understand the challenges and life experiences of the migrants interviewed, we cannot ignore the macro-level context outlined, as migration does not happen in a vacuum. Indeed, although barriers and enablers – i.e., formal and informal (macro) factors hindering or facilitating a successful integration – are usually structural, they still play a role in migrants’ lives and daily experiences. Hence, this chapter aims to lay out and analyse this interpolation through a micro-level scrutiny of the individual narratives, exploring the diverse experiences, strategies, and paths put in place by which migrants must navigate an intricate web of laws and a complex set of formal and informal practices present in the Italian socio-economic context.

6.3 Methodology and Ethics

This research is based on the interpretive biographical approach (Denzin, 2007; Creswell, 2013), with an in-depth analysis of the interview data collected for the SIRIUS research (Collini & Pannia, 2020). The interpretative narrative method focuses on people’s stories and experiences; in our specific case, the interviews aimed to uncover the most relevant turning points and ‘epiphanies’ in informants’ migration and integration experiences, which are our main analytical tools.

Epiphanies and turning points can be defined as conceptual markers. Turning points are made by significant events, while epiphanies are consequential to the former and represent transformational changes. This is generally exemplified by changes on the perceptions on their lives and reflects on life trajectories, both personal and professional (Nico & Van Vaart, 2012). Turning points and consequent reflections, or epiphanies, are also related to structural factors such as the socio-economic and cultural context (Denzin, 2001). Thus, in our analysis we can identify personified turning points, which are reactions to personal events (positive or negative) and institutional turning points, which are induced by external ‘structural’ factors (see Triandafyllidou, Isaakyan and Baglioni in this volume). On the other hand, for epiphanies we can differentiate between negative epiphanies, which may cause a withdrawing process, and positive epiphanies, which can generate empowerment and virtuous processes in our informants. The main epiphanies and turning points have been organised across themes; in the narratives examined, we could also observe a particular relevance for resilience strategies and agency. Human agency is generically defined as the power of individuals to freely make choices and perform actions that affect the course of their lives (Giddens, 1984), with its constitutive elements of being: iteration, projectivity, and practical evaluation (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). As can be seen in detail in the next sections, we were able to identify agency (to perform actions that affect the course of one’s life) in relation to migration itself, such as how to plan and execute the journey, and throughout all the subsequent phases of a migrant’s life.

In selecting participants for our research, we aimed to include a broad range of backgrounds and experiences that could offer a comprehensive representation of the main ‘types’ of migrants present in Italy (economic migrants, family reunifications, refugees and asylum seekers). The recruitment of informants largely relied on the collaboration of the various stakeholders we encountered during the work for the SIRIUS project (mostly NGOs and social cooperatives), as well as personal networks/contacts and ‘snowballing’. Regrettably, the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with the period dedicated to the in-depth interviews, with Italy being the first affected country in Europe and the first to implement drastic restrictions. We thus had to adapt and approach migrants who were more easily open to remote interviews. Consequently, we conducted interviews mostly with ‘early’ migrants who have a long or ‘most successful’ story of integration. The limitations posed by the pandemic precluded face-to-face interviews and forced us to rely solely on remote interviewsFootnote 5 that could not guarantee the same level of connection. In some cases, we were unable to create a significant bond with the interviewees, which made the process more impersonal. Generally, the remote format led to shorter interviews, lasting about 1 h. Hence, in most cases the interviews focused on recalling the informants’ more relevant experiences rather than extensive biographical narrations.

Overall, we conducted ten interviews, presenting the experiences of MRAs with different geographic, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds. Six arrived in Italy between 2000 and 2013, while the remaining four arrived in Italy after the beginning of the so-called migration crisis in 2014–2015. In terms of gender, we have an even proportion, with half the interviewees being females and half males. With regards to their status at time of arrival, we have economic migrants (including three former irregular migrants, all arrived in the early 2000s), family reunifications, refugees, and asylum seekers (all from Sub-Saharan Africa). Looking at the origin of the interviewees, most of them (five) are coming from Sub-Saharan Africa, three from eastern Europe and the former USSR, and two from Latin America. Most informants are currently located in central and northern Italy, which is an area with a traditionally high social capital and employment rate – a direct result of the availability of contacts and the restrictions related to the pandemic. At the same time, most of our informants are employed in the personal care and domestic work sectors, as through available sources we could not reach anyone employed in other sectors that see a high presence of migrant labour such as agriculture and construction. However, some of our interviewees had some past experiences working (occasionally) in such sectors. A detailed breakdown, including additional information such as migration year, education, family status, languages spoken, and occupations can be found in the annexed Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Profiles of interviewees
Full size table

All interviews were conducted with close attention to ethical issues, in full compliance with the SIRIUS Project ethical standards. For use in this publication, all informants have been anonymised, omitting all sensitive details that could make them identifiable. The interviews were conducted by two native Italian researchers, one male and one female. To mitigate potential gender-induced issues, we tried to have the female researcher interview most of the women; however, due to various constrains, this was not always possible. The male researcher concentrated on interviewing female migrants with a more solid integration background in Italy and coming from eastern Europe, where cultural barriers in this regard were hypothesised as being less relevant than for Muslim or African women. In several instances, the interviewees were not willing to open up about more sensitive issues they may have faced or provide details in that regard; we thus refrained from broaching potentially re-traumatising topics. The impersonal nature of phone interviews may have made some informants more reticent about disclosing personal traumas or details. Nonetheless, most still provided extensive narrations of their stories and even described sensitive experiences, for example regarding their journey and the violence they had faced. In general, they seemed more open to discussing their experiences after their arrival in Italy. As previously mentioned, most interviewees are migrants with a longer and often successful story of integration, with many denying having faced any ethically sensitive issue after their arrival; most were also educated individuals, holding high school diplomas or university degrees. This helped establish a favourable working environment for the interview. Another element conducive to the ‘opening up’ process of some informants is the fact that they have already exposed their stories to migration officials, researchers, or even in public.

6.4 Integration Paths of the Migrants, Biographies of Integration

Biographic narratives constitute the core of our research through which we can identify the relationship between structural factors (i.e., policies, labour market structure, integration services and opportunities) and individual agency. Indeed, our informants’ stories are rich of instances in which they effectively acted to overcome barriers in a sort of tug of war between opposing structural factors and personal efforts.

Based on the data provided by our interviewees, we identified some primary common themes from the most relevant turning points experienced with a particular focus on agency: migration channels, entrance in the labour market, expectations versus reality, and resilience. We have chosen to present first the most common themes that were linked to the journey of migration: how they arrived, why they migrated, what they expected, and what was the initial contact with the Italian labour market (regular or irregular). These experiences generally laid the foundation for their subsequent paths. The last themes represent some of the most relevant elements of the agency nexus and how they interplay with structural conditions, barriers, and enablers the migrant experienced and how they overcame these challenges.

6.4.1 The Beginning: Migration Channel and Legal Status

The first theme we present can be identified as ‘background and migration channel’ and is the extended set of experiences that are linked to the choice (or the need) to migrate and the subsequent journey, along with the associated legal status upon arrival, which has a direct impact on the pathways for integration. Indeed, for several of our interviewees, their background and reasons of their migration have a relevant impact on their expectations and resilience strategies that characterised their struggle for integration in Italy and in the labour market. In parallel, this also has a direct impact on the actors and factors that can influence their path.

How the migrants reached Italy represents in most cases the starting point from which the migrants narrate what happened before and after, a watershed between their previous life and their current one – in other words the beginning of their life as a migrant. Still, for some their consciousness of being migrants had begun even before, at the start (or during planning) of their journey or if they had already spent time living or working in other countries before reaching Italy. One element common to all interviewees is the desire to achieve a better life than the one they would likely have in their home countries, and as such migrating was the only possible way to achieve it.

Abdoulaye, a young man from Guinea who was later granted refugee status in Italy, left the country because he felt he had no future and also feared his very life was at risk in his home country. He grew up in the capital. He lived there with his family, enrolled in high school, and was also successful in one of his main passions, football, and recognised as a talented player. In general, he recalls living a good life, at least until 2010, when things started to worsen. It was on the football field that the idea of leaving the country started to mature in his head, amid the Ebola outbreak that had begun to plague the country, and the increasingly threatening ethnic conflicts. All these fears ultimately accumulated and made him think his life would have been at risk in Guinea. He recalls, ‘all of a sudden’, the moment when he, on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, realised it was time to leave, to try a new life in Europe, or he would not have a life in his natal country. He made the final decision overnight, without informing anyone. He left suddenly, carrying little more than the clothes he was wearing. This was when he became conscious that he was about to start a ‘new life’ as a migrant and that this would be a tough journey, although, as he admitted, he did not fully realise all the challenges that he would endure.

Arrival in Italy and his stay in the reception centre resulted in another turning point that created a positive epiphany:

There [in the reception centre] I started to get conscious I wanted a new life in Italy, a real life, where work is a central part of it. I was meant to be here.

In Abdoulaye’s case, we can see the interrelation between an institutional turning point (being in a reception centre) with a personal generative epiphany taking decisions about his future. This is the result of a personal maturation, based on his previous experiences and struggles, which was also helped by people he encountered in the reception centre, both fellow guests and operators.

Similar stories can be found in the narratives of other asylum seekers and refugees such as Franck, an asylum seeker in his early thirties. He was a student at the university in Cameroon and took part in some political protests. For this reason, he had to leave his country before graduating. He arrived in Morocco (after having passed through Niger and Algeria) and spent 2 years there, doing different jobs such as gardener, farmer, and manual labourer. This was his first experience of a migrant’s life. However, one day he was detained by the police; since he was without documents, they beat him and returned him to Algeria. At this point he realised he could not live the life he wanted there and decided to try the ‘Mediterranean route’ via Libya and eventually reached Europe. Upon his arrival in Italy, he was too inserted in the reception system, and, while things were not easy in the reception centre, he was greatly helped by a volunteer from a local association by organising some language courses in the reception centre and helping him to find a job as a cultural mediator. As we can see, Franck and Abdoulaye share a similar path in terms of clustered events and the accumulation of epiphanies that shaped their lives as migrants in Italy. It also shows the importance of finding actors capable of generating positive epiphanies in the reception system – something that cannot be given for granted (as many other migrants hosted in the reception system do not have these experiences).

Another important aspect that emerges from the stories of asylum seekers and refugees is that Italy was not necessarily their destination of choice; they only wanted to reach the mythical ‘Europe’. This often resulted in positive epiphanies once they arrived in Italy, although these were often followed by withdrawals once they gained full awareness of the struggles related to establishing a new life (and a new working life) in their host country, as we will see below.

The stories of Mariam and Valentina are those of early irregular migrants coming to Italy out of necessity or in search of personal affirmation and autonomy compared to the meagre prospects in their respective home countries.

Mariam was born in Georgia and raised in a city near the capital. A gifted student, she completed university studies in medical biology. She worked as an unpaid trainee at the local hospital; approaching her late 20s, she felt the need to pursue independence, personally and financially – something she could not realistically achieve in her home country at the time. The fall of the Soviet Union proved disastrous for the Georgian economy and the chances of finding a job and, more than that, a decent salary, were slim, thus also those of becoming effectively independent.

That period was terrible for my country. After graduating, I was working in a lab at the hospital, as a volunteer, an intern… I was not paid. I wanted to become independent and have my own salary…but there was no work. That is when I decided I shall leave…At that time, many people were migrating to Western Europe.

Ultimately, she decided to move to Italy because it was one of her favourite countries and one where, along with Greece, there was a realistic chance to move.

Valentina was forced to leave her country to find a job abroad to support her family, which was deeply indebted after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent economic crisis. Initially it was intended for her husband to seek work abroad: he tried a twice in neighbouring countries and failed in both instances. Since her husband could not manage to find a job abroad, she decided to go because ‘women had better chances to find a job in Italy’, at least according to anecdotal evidence at the time; after all, the family desperately needed the money: ‘I was forced to leave for Italy, otherwise it would have been impossible [to live] with our debts’. Before the collapse of the USSR, she recalls living a ‘decent life’ that would have never led her to migrate to a different country. She eventually arrived in Italy in 2000 on a tourist visa bought through smugglers specialised in ‘facilitation of unauthorised entries’ of eastern European migrants in western Europe and she stayed on as an irregular migrant.

In both cases, the decision to migrate was personal: in one, it was conscious and ‘positive’, in the other the result of a traumatic situation. Both, however, shared similar goals of temporarily migrating to achieve a secure economic position and returning to their countries of origin.

Looking at regular migration entries, we can refer to the stories of Andres and Samuel. Andres is an economic migrant from Peru; he decided to migrate because he was attracted by the possibility of a better life in Italy, where some of his family members already moved.

I was a mechanic…It was easy to find a job in Peru, but the pay was not good…I arrived in Italy in 2009, with a work visa, thanks to my father who already migrated to Florence a few years before. He managed to get me a job from his same employer.

In 2011, his wife and kids also reached him through a family reunification procedure. In his case, the turning point was facilitated by the presence of an established (family) network in Italy and the migration was not perceived as a traumatic event.

Family reunification allowed for a much smoother migration, at least in terms of legal status and support networks, although it often required a long bureaucratic process. However, for Patrick, who was a child at the time he migrated, reaching Italy represented the possibility of being reunited with his mother: ‘For me, when I arrived in Italy, the most important thing of all was that I was finally going to be with my mother’. At the time, he was not fully conscious of the efforts it had taken his mother to bring him to Italy, but this sense matured after several years and became a generative epiphany that motivated him to work hard to reach his goals, leading to a successful integration in terms of work and life.

Looking at the main aspects identified in the narratives, in most cases the turning points associated with the pre-emigration are generally personified and not institutional, although largely influenced by structural factors (economic crisis, wars, political issues). Institutional turning points, on the other hand, are present related to the legal status, and for economic migrants.

6.4.2 Entering the Labour Market

The second most relevant theme is entry into the labour market. Indeed, the first job can often be a major milestone in the integration process; it conveys the ‘first impression’ of the Italian labour market and can shape the subsequent integration path, as well as actions, trauma, and resilience strategies. It is also often related to the migration paths we explored before.

Clear examples of an immediate entrance into the labour marker, albeit the irregular one, can be found in the stories of some of our ‘oldest’ migrants. For Mariam, local contacts were instrumental for finding her first job:

I was initially helped by a Georgian family that moved to Italy for long…and whit whom we were in contact already before moving. Within a couple of weeks, through some contacts in the Russian speaking community I had already found a job as a [live-in] babysitter in an upper middle-class Italian (Roman) family. Luckily, my new “family” soon kind of “adopted” me and proved extremely supportive. At the beginning we were able to go along with my “fractured English” and later they helped me with learning the language [the main barrier back then] and to “settle” in Rome…Less than a year after my arrival, I could regularise my position, [thanks to the 2002 regularisation of undocumented migrants].

Entering the labour market represented her first step of integration, an occasion to get in touch with people and experiences that shaped her future life in Italy. Despite being in the informal market, a necessity given her irregular status, her first job was a very positive experience. It quickly allowed her to overcome the language barrier, the trauma of being alone in a foreign country, and to be regularised. It also helped motivate her to try to follow her wish to have her degree recognised in Italy. In short, her first work experience allowed her to be able to rely on herself and to approach the labour market also through formal channels (employment agencies). This turning point became a generative epiphany, from which she felt her new chapter in life was really beginning and gave her confidence towards the future.

Something similar also happened to Valentina, who also benefitted from the 2002 regularisation.

For others, such as Patricia and Ecaterina for example, entry into the Italian labour market was a rather negative experience. Looking at the full sample, we see both formal and informal sector experiences. In several cases, the first jobs were in the irregular market. This was expected by some migrants, particularly domestic workers (Valentina, Mariam), or other migrants who arrived through family networks, like Jean, an economic migrant from Cameroon. Her brother found her a job so she started to work the day after her arrival as a kitchen helper in a restaurant. However, that was not a positive experience: after 4 months, she had not been paid. Thanks to an Ivorian friend who spoke with her boss, she managed to get her money but was immediately fired. In this case, entrance into the labour market provoked an epiphany that made her conscious of the Italian labour market’s real face.

For refugees and asylum seekers, resorting to the informal sector was often necessary to earn an income or due to the legal constraints. However, the formal or informal nature of the first job does not predetermine a positive or negative experience, as we can see from the examples of Mariam and Patricia. For Mariam and Valentina entrance to the labour market (albeit, the informal one) was instrumental to their further integration as it allowed them to learn and improve their knowledge of the Italian language as well as find a reference point (their employers). On the other hand, Jean, who also got her first job in the irregular market, had a negative experience. Experiences also vary among economic migrants and asylum seekers involved in integration programmes, although even participants in the SPRAR system do not have a guaranteed positive labour market integration.

I found my first job as a handyman in a construction company…I found it by myself, looking on the street until I find a group of people who were looking for workers. Abdoulaye, CAS guest

There [he found his first job as a welder for a small company through the SPRAR] I felt treated as a slave…After some months, as soon as I found another job as a mechanic, I quit. Moussa, SPRAR guest

Eye-opening experiences on the discriminatory character of the Italian labour market resulted in a valuable lesson that motivated informants to look for better options (Moussa) or to realise their value and what they want to achieve or what they would not endure anymore (Franck, Abdoulaye). It should be noted that in no case did a disillusioning first contact with the Italian labour market stop our informants from continuing to look for other jobs nor did it lead them to consider returning to their country of origin or migrate to another country.

As we have seen, agency is prominent in relation to entering the labour market. Several migrants pointed out how their integration into the workforce was a personal endeavour, with little support from CSOs or public institutions. In this regard, agency is also important for guests of the CAS systems, where labour market integration programmes are not implemented (Abdoulaye). Economic migrants and, generally, migrants arriving until the mid-2000s, received no support and in some cases, even built their relationship networks mostly by themselves, presenting a proactive attitude of our informants.

6.4.3 Dreams and Reality (Expectations and Aspirations)

Expectations can influence migrants’ integration process, alongside life and work experiences. We found several examples in the narratives we examined. In general, from our informants, we can identify different sets of expectations. Economic migrants, particularly from eastern Europe (Valentina, Mariam), planned to stay for just a few years and then return. Still, in both cases they ended up staying in Italy much longer or losing the desire to go back to their home country. On the other hand, economic migrants from Africa or Latin America generally hoped to make a fortune and planned to stay longer in the host country (Patricia, Jean, Andres). Family reunifications mostly came with the ambition of having a new and stable life (Samuel). Unsurprisingly, things are easier for those who already have established contacts in Italy or even better a job, as was the case for Andres.

Refugees and asylum seekers present a different perspective as they recalled not having any clear expectations before arriving. Their main concern was saving their life or aiming for a better one; they just hoped for a better situation compared to their home countries. Most wanted to reach ‘Dreamland’ Europe and possibly France or northern Europe, not necessarily Italy.

‘In Africa we imagine Europe as the Paradise…while in Africa we’re in the Purgatory…You see it as in TV, this makes you dream…Down there [in his country] you almost never hear story of failures…because that would be shameful. Thus, you get the expectations that is a paradise, [when reality is much different]. Thus, this has an influence on the expectations, but this dreamland might work for students who go with visa to study in European universities…not for those who arrive through Libya’. Samuel

For Samuel, this knowledge made him more resilient as an agent. Although he had never set foot in Libya, he developed this opinion based on his experience and those of his (migrant) friends and acquaintances; he also did voluntary work and was active in an ethnic association. Overall, the fear of failure, of the shame associated with it, never left him and greatly contributed to shaping his behaviour throughout his life in Italy.

For migrants like Moussa, staying here was a matter of necessity; they could not leave once in the reception system. Still, most quickly accept this reality, are now happy to be here, and developed a sense of new belonging, as happened with Abdoulaye. In these cases, we can see a series of institutional turning points, which resulted in generative epiphanies (reactions to external factors).

I was confused. I did not know where I was: I have heard talking about Italy in 2006 because the Italian team won the world cup. That was the only thing I knew…Once in Italy I applied for asylum and was transferred to a reception centre in a tiny village in Tuscany’. Moussa

This is also the case of Franck, who arrived as an asylum seeker and developed a new sense of belonging in the host country:

For me…working in a nursing home means giving back the help I received from the Italian community…especially from elderly people.

Franck here refers to the help he received, particularly from elderly people in the village where he was hosted. In these cases, thanks to the experiences in their initial period in Italy, migrants developed a new consciousness that would influence the way they both perceived their host country and the actions towards integration into both society and labour market.

We can also observe that expectations and aspirations generally change and adapt to migrants’ stage of life and experiences. Such adaptations are generally related to knowledge or experience-based turning points that produce either generative or negative epiphanies, as we will see. Unsurprisingly, with higher expectations often comes greater disillusionment. High expectations are more common at the beginning, while migrants in Italy longer generally aimed for a stable life and stable job, even if this meant not being able to pursue their original ambitions. This can be considered a form of resilience in adaptability, which is also present in other themes (i.e., skills). We can see a general tendency to accept their current status and learn to live with it. This can be a negative process of fatalism, a condition that moves the migrants to accept their situation, realising there is no going back to their country of origin even if their initial aspirations or expectations were not met. Indeed, in our stories we almost always see an adamant unwillingness to ‘go back’.

If we look at the stories of Ecaterina and Patricia, the impact with the Italian labour market proved to be a negative epiphany, which stimulated self-awareness, resilience mechanisms, and a change of their expectations.

Ecaterina is a highly skilled migrant in her mid-thirties who arrived in Italy in 2011 with a family reunification visa after her mother and sister had already moved there a few years prior. She came to Italy after completing her Master’s degree and having already experienced migration to other countries. The main reason for leaving was the lack of opportunities in Moldova and her family’s insistence:

I came to visit my family and initially I had no intention of moving to Italy, but since my mother and my sister were already here they convinced me…This was the only reason...Ultimately, I moved after doing all the procedures for the recognition of my degrees. I wanted to apply for a Ph.D, but with my limited knowledge of Italian I preferred to enrol for a second Master’s degree in an Italian university in order to improve the language and have better chances.

She had a very disillusioning experience with Italian academia while trying to enrol for a Ph.D. This was followed later by repeated negative experiences with the Italian labour market:

I was hoping to find a much better environment and to be able to keep doing [at least] the same jobs I was doing before moving here. Reality was much different…Starting from how university [the academic system] works. I found just closed doors everywhere in my profession. And the private sector was not much better…If I had to say why I remained here, 90 per cent it is because of my husband [she married an Italian]…definitely I did not stay for work.

For Ecaterina, establishing a family was a turning point that created a generative epiphany, one that moved her to find resilience strategies in her new life in the host country, although there is still a feeling of surrender in her.

Patricia also experienced this resignation, even without a family or strong personal bonds in Italy, after a very disillusioning work experience and a period of unemployment. She recalls her first job as very disappointing:

I was young, we were just two in the staff speaking English, where English was the main working language. I was the only one with a master in fashion business. Nonetheless, I was the worst paid. I don’t know...I don’t know why…maybe they want to prove you for long time…maybe they do not care how much you earn...maybe it was because I was young and foreigner. They thought that I should have been rich to work in the fashion market and manage to survive in Milan…so I didn’t need money [while it wasn’t absolutely the case]. And then, my boss ... Sometimes he came to the office with prostitutes, and we had to pretend nothing and laugh at his vulgar jokes…I often felt humiliated...not respected...and I felt that my being a foreigner was a problem, they treated me differently. They thought “you’re a foreigner, I’m giving you an opportunity!” And every day I asked myself why don’t they see my potential? Why don’t they invest in young talent?

However, the real epiphany for Patricia came from not having economic security, from not having the financial ability to visit her family. Realising that she was merely adapting to what little pay she received, that she deserved better and more, was an eye-opening experience:

[After two years] I realised I had to [quit]; they were exploiting me. I wanted to go back to Venezuela and visit my family, but I did not have the money for the ticket…If I do not have the resources to go back to my family, something had gone wrong. I tried asking for a raise, but my boss refused…I realised that I had to wake up. I had to go away. They were taking advantage of me only because I was new to this country, new to this job. I used to see my boss coming at work with a Ferrari and me working as a slave for a misery.

Ultimately, Patricia decided to remain because she felt there was realistically no other way. She also became more flexible in terms of expectations and generally more adaptable:

Now I am unemployed, tomorrow I’ll maybe find something…I keep going on, it’s ups and downs…but I have to be a realist. I am still happy to be here, after all.

Nonetheless, in both cases the negative experiences generated a resilience mechanism and self-preservation that moved them to keep pursuing a more pragmatic way in the Italian labour market, with more consciousness and fewer expectations.

By contrast, other migrants positively realise they have achieved a real new life elsewhere (Samuel, Valentina, Mariam, Abdoulaye, Andres). This can also be related to family, personal relations, and the ‘anchoring’ effect on our interviewees. For instance, having the family resettled in Italy from their country of origin can be seen as a very relevant achievement, or when they become facilitators for the integration of others (Valentina, Andres). More generally, the new sense of belonging can move migrants to persist in their attempts to find their way into the formal or informal labour market, or even to come back after having left for a period.

Mariam was so changed by the time she spent in Italy that she felt out of place once she returned to her home country. It was the beginning of the global economic crisis and she could only find temporary jobs as a waiter, domestic worker, or babysitter. She felt the need to try to change something in her life and in 2011 moved back to Georgia where things, supposedly, were much better than when she had left. Indeed, the economic situation was improved compared to the 1990s but still not particularly favourable. After living abroad for so long, with only occasional visits to her family, she did not easily manage to resume a life in Georgia. Furthermore, she did not have many friends and relatives left there aside from her brother and his family. Ultimately, after one year, the inability to find a job in Georgia, particularly in her old biomedical field where she faced competition by both established former colleagues and younger generations, convinced her to move back to Italy. Now, she does not foresee moving back to Georgia again. This was a moment in her life when she realised her belonging was no longer ‘at home’ and that her host country was the place to be.

6.4.4 Resilience

In previous sections, we already hinted at how resilience is crucial in the integration process of the migrants we interviewed. Here, we consider resilience in a broad sense as encompassing the emotions, actions, aspirations that provided them the strength to overcome some of the most difficult challenges in the struggle between dreams and reality. Indeed, this theme is present throughout all the stories in one form or another and plays a crucial role in the management of traumas and vulnerabilities. It is an arc spanning the whole story of both migration and integration.

Sometimes resilience was deeply connected with the struggle of the journey, what they did to overcome the fear. We can find in the stories of Abdoulaye and Franck the struggle, fear, and risk faced by young men who abandoned their countries to take ‘the Libyan route’ towards a new life in Europe and a story of determination to integrate into the host country.

These informants can be taken as examples of the relevance of resilience for a successful integration into the Italian labour market and society in general. They also clearly represent some of the resilience strategies that can be employed to address difficulties and overcome traumas or vulnerability (journey, discrimination). Determination, aspiration, and patience were particularly helpful on this road towards integration and finding jobs. For instance, in the story of Abdoulaye (who was the most open about his journey), we can note at least three relevant epiphanies. The first was when he realised that he preferred to face an almost certain death rather than going back so that all further actions were aimed at creating a new life in Europe.

Abdoulaye left his home country conscious of the fact that he faced a tough journey, although he was not aware of all the challenges ahead: ‘The desert was the hardest part, that and violence, which started in Mali, and continued in Libya’. He experienced the same situation in Libya, where the locals expressed a strong racism towards ‘black African people’: ‘They kept calling us Negroes even if I am not [more] black [than them]’. There, he decided he would rather risk dying in the sea trying to reach Europe than again face all he had endured on the way there, burdened by an additional, unbearable, sense of failure: ‘Torture is dying many times, if you drown in the sea, you only die once’. This created in him a new sense of purpose, a potent drive that shaped his awareness and the desire to achieve a meaningful life, a new life for which he would work hard.

The second epiphany occurred while he was at the reception centre, when he felt destined to be in Italy and this pushed him to create a stable life in the country, to integrate and help others integrate: ‘I realised I was meant to be here, not to continue the journey to France or…other countries like many of my companions…I am sure of that now!’ He started doing volunteer work in the cooperative that runs the reception centre and helped other hosts whenever possible. Abdoulaye’s third epiphanic moment came after refusing a job and being offered better conditions:

While I was in the reception centre, one day a person came to us, inside the centre, looking for people to work in the fields…of course to be paid in black…A though job, very demanding. He offered us five euros, but I knew other people were being paid ten euros per hour for that job and I told him that, that either he paid us the same or we won’t work for him. He left…The other people, my friends, were not happy I drove him away, because we needed the money…But the day after he came back offering us eight euros. In the end we went working for him for nine euros…Patience is fundamental for foreigners looking for a job. Patience [and dignity], also helps avoid exploitation, if they [employers] want you, they’ll come back for you [proposing more decent conditions], otherwise, you’ll just find something else further on.

This incident made him realise that one can actually have some leverage and obtain fairer conditions. He was adamant on this point, which we can translate as ‘do not undersell yourself, do not put your dignity up for sale’, something he also tried to teach to fellow guests of the reception centre. Indeed, he recalls that this stance did pay off in several instances afterwards.

Resilience strategies have been widely employed to overcome prejudice and discrimination, which have been experienced by many of our interviewees, both in their everyday lives and in the workplace. We can find several such examples in the story of Samuel, a migrant in his early thirties who arrived in Italy through family reunification while he was still a child and often had to face discrimination and racism: ‘When I was a teenager, I stopped playing football in a local team due to repeated racist insults’. Recalling his experience as a migrant teenager who went to school in the early 2000s, he remembers how

We [migrants/persons of colour] were fewer than they are now…I was the only black in my class. [And later] during the first weeks at my second job…actually my first real job as an employee…I was discriminated by some of my colleagues, because of my colour.

Growing up, Samuel learnt to withstand such incidents, recalling how he changed his perceptions and mentality while maturing.

Ecaterina felt discrimination and prejudice by employers or recruiters for being ‘another eastern European migrant’, regardless of her education level or good command of the Italian language: ‘They clearly favoured Italian candidates even when on paper I had a better qualification’. She felt she ‘had to prove her value much harder than others’. She did not feel a significant change of attitude even after gaining Italian citizenship: ‘They still look at your name and place of origin more than citizenship’. On the contrary, Mariam and Valentina, who are also eastern European women but arrived in the early 2000s, did not report any similar issues of discrimination aside from the occasional racist or prejudicial comment that they ‘learned to ignore’.

A good example of this mix of skills, agency, and resilience can be found in the story of Franck:

Since I arrived in Italy, I made sure to have all the possible tools that could help me find a job, make myself able to prove I am an added value. I bought a pc, I prepared online my CV… all. I also got an Italian driving license…everything. Moreover, I know I am a valuable person…I know who I am, when someone tells me I am not valuable, I do not even get angry because I know I am an added value.

We should stress this term ‘added value’, which is common in the public discourse when trying to present the positive aspect of migration – something that Franck seems to have fully internalised as a coping mechanism.

In general, personal attitude seems to be a key factor for several of our interviewees. Furthermore, will and motivation can also be included among (a sort of) agency-driven resilience. Indeed, during our conversation with some informants, it emerged that personal qualities, often linked to their personal attitude, or shaped by events or people, had a relevant impact on the way they managed to integrate into the labour market. Abdoulaye, for instance, recognised the help received, but also placed on his agency the merits of his integration: ‘I received help, suggestion, but [integration] it was also a personal thing, due to my commitment, my willingness to succeed’. Resilience is also a way to address vulnerability.

In the stories of Ecaterina and Samuel it also emerges how, in their opinion, determination and a confident attitude were very important for overcoming prejudice and getting the most out of their jobs, which were obtained following formal channels (job agencies, CV submissions, direct interviews) and not personal contacts. Other important motivational factors rely on the aspirations of our informants, the reasons to leave and reasons to stay, to persist in the struggle to integrate. In this regard, two recurring elements in the stories of our informants are the desire for independence (Ecaterina, Samuel, Mariam, Patricia, Moussa, Abdoulaye) and the fear of failure (often referred as ‘going back’ or ‘coming back’). The latter is present in the stories of Abdoulaye and Franck, who explicitly indicates this as a cultural element: ‘You don’t want to go back, because if you come back you failed, you are a shame for your family’. Indeed, this was an important factor that helped them overcome hardships and obstacles, with a direct impact on their respective labour market integration. A final element to note is how several interviewees referred to a dimension that can be described as luck, fate, destiny, or ‘God’s will’, often using expressions indicating God, Allah, or deities, with a more profound meaning than simple interjections. This can be considered relevant, although in most cases seems more an ex-post acceptance of what they have achieved. In general, faith seems to be an element that can support the person, but in a very few cases was a motivational factor that directly helped them in successfully employing resilience strategies.

Thus, on the one hand we have the importance of personal resilience, while on the other personal exhaustion, which shall be considered two faces of the same coin.

6.5 Triggering Actors

Following the ‘agency-structure’ nexus, major turning points or epiphanies do not happen spontaneously, but were often a product of interactions with people or processes. For instance, material or immaterial help, psychological guidance, counselling, or simple advice received from someone (employer, operator in the centre, friend, host family) produced subsequent actions to bear fruit and, when successful, are often recognised as a major turning point in their lives. Indeed, many interviewees recalled how meeting a particular person, often unexpectedly, deeply influenced the course of their integration path.

Here, we assess the role of actors (or factors) behind those turning points, identifying which were mostly involved in shaping the integration paths of our migrants through actions or words. Following the common scheme identified for this book, Table 6.2 presents a summary of the main actors and their roles at the micro, meso, and macro levels. In order of relevance, as emerged during our interviews, we can identify a few particularly influencing categories such as: (a) family and friends; (b) ethnic and professional contacts and networks; (c) civil society and State support; (d) educational and training institutions.

Table 6.2 Typology of actors and factors
Full size table

6.5.1 Family, Friends, and Ethnic Networks

In almost every story, we see that recurring actors are generally family and friends. From the outset, family can be a trigger for migration and also affect migration channels. Of course, for family reunifications, family is the main actor involved (Ecaterina and Samuel). It is also the case when the decision to migrate is taken to support the family in the home country (Valentina).

Family and friends can have a prominent role in facilitating the entrance in the labour market as well when they can provide networks and contacts, particularly for economic migrants who are reaching family members already present in Italy (Jean, Andres) or when they provide references and contacts to rely on upon arrival (Mariam). Family, particularly when created anew in the host country, can be a crucial turning point – the most relevant reason that keeps a migrant in place after repeated disillusionment (Ecaterina).

Friends are also widely recognised by our interviewees as a major source of support, including for facilitating entry into the labour market. They are particularly important at the beginning of the migrants’ new life, but also in finding new jobs later, given the importance of informal contacts and word of mouth for employability in Italy. The role of friends as part of the resilience process is extremely relevant as well, and can be found as both specific events, words, or suggestions, or, more often, as a continuous presence that helped interviewees in both personal and professional integration.

What have changed my life here in Italy is friendship. I do not have friends in name only. My friends are special friends. Moussa

Furthermore, professional contacts may well become friends and vice versa. The same could apply for persons who provided services or counselling through civil society organisations.

Ethnic communities have played a particularly relevant role for economic migrants and family reunifications, where some of our informants even actively participated in creating and expanding ethnic networks.

After a few years I somewhat became a reference point for the Moldavan community…personally helping several other women to finds jobs as a badante or housekeeper…It is very important that we care and help with each other. Valentina

The latter in particular means reaching a sense of achievement and rooting in the local society and in the labour market. A similar experience can be also found in the story of Andres:

Later on I found most of my jobs [mostly informal] through the [Peruvian] community…Now I work together with friends and family. We also helped many relatives coming here.

Alongside family (and friends), ethnic networks act as facilitators for entering the labour market (formal or informal). In some cases, for economic migrants such as Andres, ethnic communities also tend to blend in with family and friends as well as professional networks. On the other hand, their prominence is far less for asylum seekers and refugees hosted in the national reception system, although in some cases they can still be useful for finding a job or providing support after the permanence in the first-line reception system.

Thanks to a Nigerian man who works with me, I found a bed. The bedroom has no windows. But what should I do? I deem myself lucky, life is hard! Moussa

6.5.2 Professional Contacts and Networks

Professional contacts feature in several of our migrants’ narratives and can be related to various epiphanies experienced by engaging with either a specific individual or group. The role of professional contacts can result in both emotional and instrumental turning points in the newcomer’s search for a job and to the integration path in general. Their role, however, is more ambivalent than that of other actors.

On the one hand, we have been presented with the very positive role of good employers, who were instrumental for a successful integration, particularly when associated with entry into the labour market (Valentina, Mariam, Abdoulaye, Andres). In some cases, the relationship between employees and employer grew towards real friendships, lasting after the interviewee had moved to a new job (Valentina, Mariam, Abdoulaye).

I [realised I] was so lucky to have been employed by this family…they really helped me with everything… they basically adopted me…It’s largely thanks to them I managed to integrate. Mariam

Developing skills and networking capabilities were fundamental for Abdoulaye, whose experience as cultural mediator and operator in reception centres allowed him to find several jobs in the sector:

I managed to find most of my recent jobs [as a cultural mediator and reception centre operator] trough my [professional] contacts working in the reception system I developed over the years…They value me…This even saved me during the pandemic.

On the other hand, the interaction with professional contacts can also present a barrier, with negative turning points associated with discriminatory attitudes witnessed in the workplace, such as specific words or phrases used by colleagues and employers or perspective employers (Ecaterina, Samuel, Franck, Patricia, Moussa, Jean, Abdoulaye) or exploitation (Patricia, Moussa). Nonetheless, in most instances this resulted in a positive outcome in terms of understanding the nature of the Italian labour market, self-realisation, and self-esteem, thus generating resilience strategies.

6.5.3 The Role of CSOs and State Policies and Support

The roles of civil service organisations and the State are generally dependent on the type of migrants as both are present mostly in the cases of asylum seekers and refugees but almost absent for economic migrants and family reunifications. A partial exception was Valentina, who recognised the help of a religious charity as instrumental in finding accommodation and work when she arrived as an irregular migrant in the early 2000s:

At the beginning I had no one, I was alone…I was helped by [name of the association] who hosted me, helped me…Thanks to them I also found my first [informal] job as a housekeeper after a few weeks.

Volunteering or participating in CSO activities can trigger significant turning points in the integration process that may also result in direct consequences regarding labour market integration.

A woman heading a local association was crucial [in his life course]. She managed to organize an event in the secondary school of the closest village where the asylum seekers met the children and other locals. There I played the drums. This gave me the opportunity [to build a network]. I also started to teach music as a volunteer in the secondary school. Moussa

For those involved in the SPRAR system, the support process was also recognised as more effective in terms of job placement, although not always resulting in a quality job, as was the case of Moussa (although this seems more dependent on the employers). This is not the case for CAS guests, as we have seen for Abdoulaye, who at the beginning had to rely almost exclusively on himself. In general, the role of CSO and State support is seen as instrumental or as a process they have undergone, but it becomes particularly relevant when it translates into specific actions or words (suggestions) performed or received by the operators – in other words, turning points capable of generating epiphanies and stimulating the agency of our interviewees.

I received a very good advice when I was in the reception system and following it has been one of the most intelligent things I did in my entire life. Abdoulaye

6.5.4 Education and Training Institutions

Education and training institutions do not feature prominently in the stories of our informants, but mostly indirectly. However, refugees and asylum seekers seem particularly aware of the importance of receiving a basic education and professional training (Franck, Moussa, Abdoulaye). Attending skills or language training programmes provided valuable experiences that many interviewees recognised as important for increasing their employability. Above all, the most important skill to be acquired is command of the Italian language. Indeed, learning the language can be considered a fundamental turning point acknowledged by almost all our interviewees, many of whom managed to learn Italian with the help of language schools or programmes.

Such is the importance attributed to language that Valentina recalls a small pocket dictionary being one of the dearest things she had with herself once arrived in Italy:

When I arrived in Italy, I was scared; I only had a phrasebook in my pocket to help me with the language.

In parallel, attending school is also indicated as a major turning point in the integration paths, which later resulted in better opportunities for employment.

I immediately started learning Italian, I was good at it…I passed all the levels A1, B1…Then I could even skip the middle school degree test and take directly high school courses. Franck

Following the advice to learn Italian and commit myself to do it was one of the most important things he could do to integrate in Italy…In the end I did not do the A1 or B2 courses, but I did directly to the middle school final exam, and I passed it. Abdoulaye.

Our interviewees’ stories presented a plurality of turning points that led to generative and withdrawing epiphanies shaping both their lives as migrants in Italy and their integration into the Italian labour market. However, if we look in more detail at the structure of turning points and epiphanies, an important element that emerges is the presence of turning point clusters. Indeed, several of our narratives present a series of consecutive turning points that lead to an accumulation of experiences and epiphanies. This accumulation seems to play a particularly significant role in shaping the integration path of several of our migrants, their capacity to learn and build from these, making them both more resilient and more adaptive. In some cases, we can also observe how some epiphanies could generate other epiphanies in later stages of a migrant’s life.

6.6 Concluding Remarks

Our research allowed us to delve into the lives of MRAs seeking to integrate into the Italian labour market and shed light on the dynamic interactions between individual perspectives and actions (i.e., the agency) and the context in which they live (i.e., the superstructure, formed by the legal framework, structure of the labour market, and culture). The study focused on the interplay between the experiences of cognitive and emotional aspects (turning points or epiphanies) that migrants had during the process and the subsequent actions and consequences on their lives and professional perspectives in Italy. Such knowledge could only emerge through the specific methods and techniques used for the analysis of our data: in-depth biographical interviews. The study confirms patterns documented in the relevant academic literature and policy analyses.

Sifting through the various narratives examined, how and when a migrant arrived influences the perspectives of MRAs across many aspects regarding their legal status, potential networks, support, and the actors involved in their path to integration. Macro level (f)actors such as immigration policy played an important role in affecting employment opportunities as well as this is associated with immigration status: entrance into the labour market is linked to the migration channels and legal status. In this case, we can identify different patterns according to regular/irregular entries and between economic migrants and asylum seekers/refugees who, on arrival, are placed into the national reception system where the latter can benefit from (limited) institutional integration support. Unless they can count on ethnic networks or local contacts, economic (regular) migrants and family reunifications are largely left ‘on their own’, with few services beyond those provided to the general resident population such as welfare provisions, job placement and orientation, and training.

The structure of the Italian labour market and its shortcomings and opportunities also emerge from our stories, notably the presence of large informal economy. However, this did not necessarily lead to negative experiences as it became a normalised non-issue for several migrants, who either expected or rather easily adapted to it. Expectations can influence the degree of satisfaction with regards to the level of integration or their experiences. Indeed, there is often a discrepancy between expectations and the actual integration process caused by structural factors – something that is more prominent for highly skilled economic migrants and family reunifications. Negative or challenging experiences associated with unrecognised skills, discrimination, and a general sense of being unwelcome, are all domains where contextual factors have played a role restricting MRAs’ abilities to access employment opportunities. Very few of those migrants actually find work in areas that are related to the skills acquired before their arrival in Italy.

Thus, the path towards integration in the Italian labour market is a challenging journey where the desired outcome is not always achieved. While most interviewees were able to turn integration barriers into enablers, others were not able to fulfil their aspirations. Structural factors related to the prevailing policy paradigm and latent biases and prejudice effectively constrained migrants’ capacity to realise their potential, presenting a clash between actors’ needs and structures that can lead to negative epiphanies. On the other hand, several actors – either individuals or networks – emerged as facilitators who mediated the labour market integration process, with the most relevant being family and friends as well as professional contacts and CSOs, which also tended to overlap.

The agency nexus is crucial in relation to resilience strategies against adversities. Indeed, MRAs proved to be extremely resilient actors, capable of facing extremely dire situations, enduring while often maintaining their dignity and self-esteem, which is underlined by several epiphanies recalled by our informants. Questions of self-confidence generated epiphanies, which led almost all of our respondents to make them feel they have agency to challenge the barriers to labour market integration. In parallel, the role of agency emerged as crucial, including when they were able to exploit what they attribute to ‘luck’ or ‘fate’, which can be considered a peculiar form of agency in itself.

The picture that emerges from our research is of a mostly unfavourable ground for a quality integration where, nonetheless, success is still possible. This can be linked mostly to structural factors such as migration policies and the Italian labour market, leaving much to the resilience and agency of migrants to overcome the most prominent barriers, often exploiting loopholes or informal solutions. In other words, through the various experiences of our interviewees, we saw how structure shapes agency and resilience strategies. Finally, a very interesting element we could observe, is the presence of turning points’ clusters throughout several narratives, which result in accumulated epiphanies. This is indeed an element to consider in further research.