Italians in Australia: History, Memory, Identity [Hardcover]

This book provides a concise and innovative history of Italian migration to Australia over the past 150 years. It focuses on crucial aspects of the migratory experience, including work and socio-economic mobility, disorientation and reorientation, gender and sexual identities, racism, sexism, family life, aged care, language, religion, politics, and ethnic media. The history of Italians in Australia is re-framed through key theoretical concepts, including transculturation, transnationalism, decoloniality, and intersectionality. This book challenges common assumptions about the Italian-Australian community, including the idea that migrants are stuck in the past, and the tendency to assess migrants worth according to their socio-economic success and their alleged contribution to the Nation. It focuses instead on the complex, intense, inventive, dynamic, and resilient strategies developed by migrants within complex transcultural and transnational contexts. In doing so, this book provides a new way of rethinking and remembering the history of Italians in Australia.

1. Mapping complexity: a transcultural approach.- 2. Historical outline.- 3. Work and socio-economic mobility.- 4. Racism and racial ambiguity in a settler colonial context.- 5. Family and generational negotiations.- 6. Transnational ideologies and transcultural practices.- 7. Concluding remarks.

Italians in Australia offers a thought-provoking and innovative examination of migrant history and deserves a wide readership. It will appeal to scholars in the broad field of migration studies and to readers interested in immigrant history in particular. (Simone Battiston, Italian American Review, Vol. 11 (2), 2021)

Francesco Ricattis comprehensive study offers a fresh and lucid understanding of the interrelation of core issues and processes affecting settlement and governance of immigration strategies for Itlã'