Ciao Ousmane: The Hidden Exploitation of Italy's Migrant Workers [Hardcover]

A searing expose of the netherworld of exploited migrant labor that holds Europe aloft.In 2013 Ousmane Diallo, a 26-year-old Senegalese olive harvester, lost his life when a gas canister exploded in a Sicilian field. As an African migrant, he was little mourned. But though they've been deliberately forgotten, neither the events of Ousmane's life nor his tragic death are uncommon. Across Italy today, African workers toil in the fields that make it one of Europe's largest exporters of fruit and vegetables. Having fled home countries devastated by colonialism and global capitalism, those who survive the journey across the Mediterranean arrive on European shores only to find themselves systematically segregated and exploited. They have been subject to anti-migrant policies over decades, from administrations across the political spectrum. Trapped in a chokehold of subhuman living and working conditions, they are the dehumanised Other, invisible by design--the people hidden behind foods and goods branded 'Made in Italy'. Ciao Ousmane is the story of this subordinated class. Through the lives and stories of Italy's migrant workers, Hsiao-Hung Pai exposes the open secret of how state and society create necessary outcasts. This is a bitter, frank and moving tale of racial capitalism, against which workers constantly find new ways to organise and fight back.ForewordOmert?1. Olive Country2. Building Babylon3. Fires and a Model Worker4. In and Out of Camps5. Young Labour and 'Integration'6. Joining the Harvest in Calabria7. Becky and the 'Integration' Villages8. 'If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It'9. Eviction10. Five Star and the Ills of the Town11. Salvini and a Racist Murder12. 'Tell me, Minister, Would You Yourself Live in a Place 165 Like This?'13. Olive Season Once Again14. Out of Sight, Out of Mind15. Full Moon16. Winter Survival in the Calabrian Tent City17. End of Season18. 'Integrate' and Disintegrate19. The Repeated Cycle of Demolish and Re-ghettoise20. 'How Much LolÓc