Views of Migrants and Foreign Residents: A Comparative European Perspective

Abstract

When I began outlining the content of this chapter, two descriptions of human migration flashed through my mind. One is ethnographic, the other poetic. Let me start with the ethnography. While doing research in Brindisi, in southeast Italy, in the late 1980s on how political ideologies had influenced economic policies in the area, a successful local entrepreneur told me that he had rejected the suggestion to move his business to the North of Italy. Experience, he said, had taught him that, because of his southern origins, he would be treated as an immigrant, a “rich” immigrant perhaps, but a “migrant” nonetheless (Prato 1993). Personal feelings apart, he said that due to the negative stereotypes associated with southerners, the relationship with his northern business partners would inevitably change once he moved to the North.² This entrepreneur’s observations brought to mind the poem dedicated to the transhumant shepherds of Abruzzo, in central Italy, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, which stimulated comparative reflections.

Settembre, andiamo. È tempo di migrare. Ora in terra d’Abruzzi i miei pastori lascian gli stazzi e vanno verso il mare: […] Ah perché non son io cò miei pastori?¹

(Gabriele D’Annunzio, “I pastori.” In Alcyone. Sogni di Terre Lontane)