The coloniality of Casa. Homing, emerging adulthood, and differentiated embedding among South-Italian Youth in Northern England
The article explores the homing (home-making) practices of South-Italian youth migrating to Northern England. These youth borrowed aspects – such as places, routines, and values – of both Southern Italy and Northern England to construct a sense of home. Homing, in turn, mediated the processes of eme...
Tallennettuna:
| Julkaisussa: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/aam, |
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| Päätekijä: | |
| Aineistotyyppi: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Kieli: | Anglais |
| Julkaistu: |
Archivio antropologico mediterraneo
2026
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| Aiheet: | |
| Linkit: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Yhteenveto: | The article explores the homing (home-making) practices of South-Italian youth migrating to Northern England. These youth borrowed aspects – such as places, routines, and values – of both Southern Italy and Northern England to construct a sense of home. Homing, in turn, mediated the processes of emerging adulthood and differentiated embedding in which they were invested, and at the same time worked as a marker of the accomplishment of both processes. South-Italian migrant youth, indeed, linked the ideas of a successful adulthood and successful embedding in the destination country to hard working, the ability to take root and make home, the embrace of meritocracy, and a relative containment of nostalgia towards Southern Italy. This implied othering and despising migrants whom they judged unsuccessful at such processes – unwilling to make home in the UK, unwilling to advance in life, or simply not well-integrated. Such ideas of accomplishment as adults and functionally embedded migrants were strongly influenced by a logic of coloniality, adjusting migrants’ values and practices to the neoliberal organization of Europe and of North-South European relations. According to such logic, success – as an adult and as a migrant – meant adherence to the values of meritocracy and deservingness that oriented such relations and framed the government of migration in England and, more generally, in Europe. However, the adjustment between such broad logic of coloniality and migrants’ own practices and dreams was always imperfect and precarious. Migrants’ understandings of home and adulthood reflected the ambiguities of their own adjustment to the logic of coloniality. |
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