‘Migration and Migrant’ seminar at the University of Padua

Padua (Italy). 3-4 June 2019

WORKING PAPER ‘Love at the time of Globalization: intimate relationships as practices of everyday multiculturalism’

One of the most profound effects of globalization is that people from everywhere are falling in love with people from everywhere else. Increasing migration worldwide has facilitated the unions of people from different countries, religions, ethnicities and, presumably, cultural backgrounds. Such unions are often celebrated as a sign of integration; however, the classic assimilation theory no longer suffice in tackling the growth of large cities, which are witnessing unprecedented levels of diversity. We know little, therefore, about what happens the next generation down: the romantic relationships among young people in super-diverse urban contexts.

Drawing on narratives collected from a qualitative research study, this paper provides a beginning exploration for how difference both matters and does not matter in young adult (native born) Italians’ relationships with the second generation migrants in the metropolitan area of Milan. What meaning is made about these differences? And what is the role of the network, the extended family, the neighborhood, and others in constructing difference? In eliciting discourses of difference, mixed couples face more prejudice from outsiders, and subsequently they may feel that the experience of diversity is a source of great stress. Particularly from their parents, tensions and negative reactions are based on discriminatory attitudes and preconceptions linked to the partner’s origin, phenotype or ethnocultural characteristics, such as religion, in intersection with gender. At the same time these relationships represent a ‘quiet revolution’ that holds for re-envisioning people’s idea of ‘us and them’, challenging what it means to inhabit multiculturalism in our everyday lives.

Keywords

Intercultural Relationships, Everyday Multiculturalism, Second Generation Migrants, Young Adults, Integration, Milan

Authors

Lidia MANZO, lidia.manzo@unimi.it

Enzo COLOMBO, enzo.colombo@unimi.it

Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan (Italy)

Download the full conference program

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Pre-Conference of Irish Geographers Workshop

Maynooth University | South Campus | Rhetoric House | ROQUE LAB | Maynooth | Ireland

Tuesday, 8 May 2018 at 15:30 – Wednesday, 9 May 2018 at 19:00 (IST)

The increased intertwining of finance and real estate was a prelude to and intimately bound up with the global economic crisis, yet the aftermath has been particularly dynamic as new roles are cast for private-equity firms and other financial actors in the ‘for-rent’ residential sector and as states engineer new policies to further affirm the treatment of housing as a financial asset. One upshot of these new post-crash configurations of cities has been to accentuate sharply the vulnerability of urban communities, left with fewer state protections and buffers to resist urban marginalization.

This workshop brings together the latest theories and empirical findings in the research field surrounding contemporary cities and late-neoliberalism, taking into account the ‘aftermath’ of the global economic crisis and its different implications – from political-economic arrangements to more micro consequences for urban communities, such as housing accessibility crises, marginalized citizenries and raising socio-spatial segregation. It does so with a multi-disciplinary approach that seeks to better unify geographical, economic, political, sociological and anthropological understandings of the intertwining of global processes of financialisation of housing and gentrification with neoliberal urban policies at different scales.

The ‘Post-Crash Cities’ workshop is organised by Sinéad Kelly and Lidia K.C. Manzo at Maynooth University, Department of Geography with the generous support of Maynooth University Conference & Workshop Fund, Irish Research Council, MU Department of Geography.

Attendance is free and we hope that you will all enjoy it!

Register here: https://post-crashcities.eventbrite.ie

For enquires about this workshop please contact: lidia.manzo@mu.ie

All details can be found on the MU Department of Geography website: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/geography/events

And on the Conference of Irish Geographers’ website: http://www.conferenceofirishgeographers.ie/events

On March 30 2014, Impact-HUB Milan invited me (as social innovator!!!) to talk about “Community-based collaborative research (CBCR)” during the Soul Tea #3 at “Do the Right Thing” [Fà la Cosa Giusta], the Italian exhibition of critical consuming and sustenible lifestyle fair at Milanocity, Milan (Italy).

Inspired by such an audience, I spoke about how communities partnering with social scientists in collaborative inquiry can produce new culturally-situated knowledge and action to promote social justice and equity.

Here some little memories, together with Marta Lasen Impact HUB Milan, Giulia Barbieri SocialFarming and Perigeo.