Pre-occupied spaces - Teresa Fiore

By linking Italy's long history of emigration to all continents in the world, contemporary transnational migrations directed toward it, as well as the country's colonial legacies, Fiore's book poses Italy as a unique laboratory to rethink national belonging at large in our era of massive demographic mobility. Through an interdisciplinary cultural approach, the book finds traces of globalization in a past that may hold interesting lessons about inclusiveness for the present.

Fiore rethinks Italy's formation and development on a transnational map through cultural analysis of travel, living, and work spaces as depicted in literary, filmic, and musical texts. By demonstrating how immigration in Italy today is preoccupied by its past emigration and colonialism, the book stresses commonalities and dispels preoccupations.

Table of Contents
Preface vii
Introduction. All at One Point: The Unlikely Connections between Italy's Emigration, Immigration, and (Post)Colonialism 1

Part I. Waters: Migrant Voyages and Ships from and to Italy Aperture I: An Osean of Pre-Occupation and Possibilities: L'orda 23
1. Crossing the Atlantic to Meet the Nation: The Emigration Ship in Mignonette's Songs and Crialese's Nuovomondo 31
2. Overlapping Mediterranean Routes in Marra's Sailing Home, Ragusa's The Skin Between Us, and Tekle's Libera 50

Part II. Houses: Multiethnic Residential Spaces as Living Archives of Pre-Occupation and Invention
Aperture II. A Multicultural Project in a National Square: The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio 75
3. Displaced Italies and Immigrant "Delinquent" Spaces in Pariani's Argentinian Conventillos and Lakhous's Roman Palazzo 83
4. Writing the Pasta Factory and the Boardinghouse as Transnational Homes: Public and Private Acts in Melliti's Pantanella and Mazzucco's Vita 104

Part III. Workplaces: A Creative Re-Occupation of Labor Spaces against Exploitation
Aperture III. Labor on the Move: Rodari's Construction Workers and Kuruvilla's Babysitter 131
5. Edification between Nation and Migration in Cavanna's Les Ritals and Adascalitei's "Il giorno di San Nicola" 137
6. The Circular Routes of Colonial and Postcolonial Domestic Work: Per's and Ciaravino's Alexandria and Ghermandi's "The Story of Woizero Bekelech and Signor Antonio" 161
Conclusion. Italy as a Laboratory for Imagi-Nation: The Citizenship Law between Inbound and Outbound Flows 183

Notes 197
Works Cited 227
Index 241
Image Credits 249