Abstract
In this chapter, I present and discuss the key concepts that emerge from the study: institutional positionality, engagement and the relevance of the family. These concepts correspond generally to three spheres of social life: the macro (the mainstream society), the meso (the ethnic community) and the micro (the family). The first key concept, institutional positionality, relates to a widespread cross-generational tendency to perceive ‘double absence’, in-between-ness and ethnic revival. Individuals’ ethnic identities depend on their institutional positionality, that is, the subjective perception (and position) of individuals’ ethnic being, based principally on the ascriptions of the dominant society. As dominant perceptions towards a certain ethnicity change, individuals’ institutional positionality also changes. The second key concept, engagement, relates to the meso sphere of social life. It is specifically the individual’s engagement with the ethnic group that creates and maintains a collective sense of ethnic identity. The third key concept relates to the micro sphere of social life. The nonni (grandparents) are at the top of the intergenerational line and participants’ ethnic identities are shaped within the domestic domain of their Calabrian grandparents. A sense of ethnic belonging is embodied and idealised (mainly by the third-generation participants) from memories, emotions and cultural practices.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Vancouver: Verso Books.
Baldassar, L. (1999). Marias and marriage: Ethnicity, gender and sexuality among Italo-Australian youth in Perth. Journal of Sociology, 35, 1–20.
Baldassar, L. (2001). Visits home: Migration experiences between Italy and Australia. Melbourne: University Press.
Baldassar, L. (2011). Italian migrants in Australia and their relationship to Italy: Return visits, transnational caregiving and the second generation. Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 20(2), 1–28.
Barth, F. (1970). Ethnic groups and boundaries. Berfen: Universitets Forlaget.
Bertelli, L., & Pascoe, R. (1988). Immigrant Italians and the Australian Catholic Church: Folk festivals and the evil eye. In A. Ata (Ed.), Religion and ethnic identity: An Australian study (pp. 230–244). Richmond, Vic: Spectrum Publications.
Bettoni, C. (2007). Un profilo sociolinguistico della comunità italo-australiana. In A. Ciliberti (Ed.), La costruzione interazionale di identità: Repertori linguistici e pratiche discrosive degli italiani in Australia (pp. 36–67). Franco Angeli: Milano.
Bettoni, C., & Rubino, A. (1996). Emigrazione e comportamento linguistico. Galatina: Congedo Editore.
Bhabha, H. (1990). The third space: Interview with Homi Bhabha. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, culture, difference (pp. 207–221). London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Boas, F. (2005). The mind of primitive man. [Macmillan] Internet Archive. Originally published 1938. Retrieved February 13, 2018 from https://archive.org/details/mindofprimitivem031738mbp.
Boccagni, P., & Baldassar, L. (2015). Emotions on the move: Mapping the emergent field of emotion and migration. Emotion, Space and Society, 16, 73–80.
Borrie, W. D. (1954). Italians and Germans in Australia: A study of assimilation. Melbourne: Cheshire for Australian National University.
Bottomley, G. (1992). From another place: Migration and the politics of culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research in the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological Theory, 7(1), 14–25.
Bromberger, C. (2008). Hair: From the West to the Middle East through the Mediterranean. Journal of American Folklore, 121(482), 379–399.
Chiro, G. (2003). Cultural maintenance and ethnic self identification: A model cultural types. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 3(2), 2–19.
Ciliberti, A. (2007). La costruzione interazionale dell’identità. Milano: Franco Angeli.
Cromhout, M. (2015). Jesus and identity: Reconstructing Judean ethnicity in Q. Oregon: James Clarke.
De Fina, A. (2005). Identity in narrative: A study of immigrant discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
De Martino, E. (1975). Morte e pianto rituale: Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria. Turin: Boringhieri.
Di Carlo, A. S. (1986). I luoghi dell’identità. Milan: Franco Angeli Press.
Dumais, S. A. (2002). Cultural capital, gender, and school success: The role of habitus. Sociology of Education, 75(1), 44–68.
Durkheim, E. (1973). Emile Durkheim on morality and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Epstein, A. L. (1978). Ethos and identity: Three studies in ethnicity. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction.
Erickson, F. (1997). Culture in society and in educational practices. In J. Banks & C. Banks (Eds.), Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (pp. 30–60). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Fanon, F. (1968). Black skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press. Originally published in 1952 as Peau noire, masques blanc.
Gatto, D. (2007). Suonare la tradizione: Manual di musica popolare calabrese. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Gramsci, A. (1975). I quaderni del carcere. Turin: Einaudi.
Gramsci, A. (1999). Prison notebooks: Further selections from the prison notebooks. London: Electric Book Company.
Hansen, M. L. (1952). The third generation in America. Commentary, 13, 492–500.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Trans. from 7th German edn by John Macquarie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper. (Originally published 1927 as Sein und Zeit, Tübingen: Neomarius Verlag.)
Holland, D. (2001). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Huber, R. (1977). From pasta to pavlova: A comparative study of Italian settlers in Sydney and Griffith. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.
James, S. (1997). Passion and action: The emotions in seventeenth-century philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Jenkins, R. (2008). Rethinking ethnicity (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Kottak, C. P. (2011). Cultural anthropology: Appreciating cultural diversity. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lenclud, G. (1987). La tradition n’est plus ce qu’elle était… Sur les notions de tradition et de société traditionnelle en ethnologie. Terrain: Anthropologie & Sciences Humaines, 9, 110–123.
Levi, C. (1963). Cristo si è fermato a Eboli. Torino: Einaudi.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (2009). Antropologia strutturale (Vol. 68). Milano: Il saggiatore.
Lombardi-Satriani, L. M. (1997). Antropologia della mafia. Milano: Il Grillo.
Malinowski, B. (1929). Argonauts of the western Pacific. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Mandel, R. (1990). Shifting centres and emergent identities: Turkey and Germany in the lives of Turkish Gastarbeiter. In D. Eichelman & J. Piscatori (Eds.), Muslim travellers: Pilgrimage, migration, and the religious imagination (pp. 153–171). London: Routledge.
Maton, K. (2014). Habitus. In M. Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts (pp. 48–64). New York: Routledge.
Mauss, M. (1954). The gift: Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. London and New York: Routledge.
May, S. (1999). Critical multiculturalism and cultural difference: Avoiding essentialism. In S. May (Ed.), Critical multiculturalism: Rethinking multicultural and antiracist education (pp. 11–41). London: Falmer Press.
May, S. (2011). Language and minority rights: Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language. New York: Routledge.
O’Connor, D. (1996). No need to be afraid: Italian settlers in South Australia between 1839 and the Second World War. Kent Town: Wakefield Press.
Ortner, S. B. (1973). On key symbols. American Anthropologist, 75(5), 1338–1346.
Ortner, S. B. (1984). Theory in anthropology since the sixties. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26(1), 126–166.
Parsons, T. (1975). The present status of structural-functional theory in sociology. In T. Parsons (Ed.), Social systems and the evolution of action theory (pp. 110–116). New York: Free Press.
Phinney, J. S. (1990). Ethnic identity in adolescents and adults: Review of research. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 499–514.
Phinney, J. S., & Ong, A. D. (2007). Conceptualization and measurement of ethnic identity: Current status and future directions. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54(3), 271–281.
Purkayastha, B. (2005). Negotiating ethnicity: Second-generation South Asian Americans traverse a transnational world. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Reay, D. (1998). ‘Always knowing’ and ‘never being sure’: Familial and institutional habituses and higher education choice. Journal of Education Policy, 13(4), 519–529.
Romm, N. (2010). New racism: Revisiting researcher accountabilities. Heidelberg: Springer Science & Business Media.
Roosens, E. E. (1989). Creating ethnicity: The process of ethnogenesis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Sartre, J.-P. (1944). Huis Clos [No exit and three other plays]. New York: Vintage International.
Sayad, A. (2004). The suffering of the immigrant. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Smith, A. D. (1981). The ethnic revival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Snow, D. (2001). Collective identity and expressive forms (CSD Working Papers). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2zn1t7bj.
Turner, V. (1980). Social dramas and stories about them. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 141–168.
Vanni, I. (2013). Oggetti spaesati, unhomely belongings: Objects, migrations and cultural apocalypses. Cultural Studies Review, 19(2), 150–174.
Vasta, E. (1993). Rights and racism in a new country of immigration: The Italian case. In J. Wrench & J. Solomos (Eds.), Racism and migration in Western Europe (pp. 83–98). London: Berg.
Vasta, E. (1994). Cultural and social change: Italian Australian women and the second generation. Center for Migration Studies, 11, 406–425.
Willis, P. E. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wilson, R. (2008). Cultural (re)locations: Narratives by contemporary Italian Australian women. In G. Rando & G. Turcotte (Eds.), Literary and social diasporas: An Italian Australian perspective (pp. 147–164). Brussels: Peter Lang.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Appendix
Three scales of social life
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Marino, S. (2020). Findings and Discussion. In: Intergenerational Ethnic Identity Construction and Transmission among Italian-Australians. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48145-2_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-48144-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-48145-2
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)