Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T22:19:53.172Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Emplaced and embodied encounters: methodological reflections on transcultural research in contexts of Italian migration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2020

Georgia Wall  and
Naomi Wells Open the ORCID record for Naomi Wells [Opens in a new window]
Georgia Wall
Affiliation:
Independent researcher
Naomi Wells*
Affiliation:
Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London
*
*Email: Naomi.Wells@sas.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the practical, ethical, and epistemological issues which arise when carrying out and sharing research in contexts of Italian migration, highlighting how greater reflexivity on our own geographic and historical location as researchers can productively inform and shape our understanding of sites of contact, exchange and confrontation in relation to contemporary Italy. Specifically, we write as researchers informed by ethnographic theories and practices, and who through our research have engaged in emplaced and embodied cultural encounters in sites which are identifiable as both transcultural and Italian. Drawing on vignettes from research in Italy and the UK, the article highlights some of the particular contradictions, opportunities and responsibilities generated by our respective positions. We address how our positionings as white, English and female scholars located within nationally-defined Italian Studies structures have raised pertinent questions of power, privilege and voice, as we place our own biographies and bodies, themselves shaped by specific colonial, national and local histories, into critical dialogue with those on and with whom we research. Through a discussion of these ‘irresolvable tensions’ of our research, we seek to practically engage with the broader imperative of finding new ways of studying and writing culture.

Questo articolo considera alcune delle questioni etiche, epistemologiche e problemi pratici che sorgono spontanei qualora si fa ricerca in contesti di migrazione italiana. La nostra prospettiva è alimentata da teorie e pratiche etnografiche. Utilizzando le nostre rispettive esperienze di ricerca in Italia e nel Regno Unito scaturite dalla partecipazione al progetto ‘Transnationalizing Modern Languages’, esaminiamo come il nostro posizionamento di ricercatrici bianche e inglesi nell'ambito dell'italianistica abbia sollevato questioni pertinenti di potere, privilegio e voce. A dare corpo all'articolo contribuisce l'uso dello strumento di ricerca ‘vignette’ nel quale la personale esperienza etnografica gioca un ruolo primario nell'analizzare la realtà. Attraverso l'analisi di alcune delle ‘tensioni irrisolvibili’ della nostra ricerca, ci impegniamo a rispondere alla necessità di trovare nuovi modi di studiare e scrivere cultura.

Keywords

ethnographyreflexivityItalian Studies, UKmigrationracetranscultural
Type
Special Issue
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 25 , Special Issue 2: Transcultural Exchanges and Encounters in Italy , May 2020 , pp. 113 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Association for the Study of Modern Italy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abram, S. 2014. ‘“Bias Binding”: Re-calling Creativity in Qualitative Research’. In The Craft of Knowledge, edited by Smart, C., Hockey, J. and James, A., 21–38. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Agnew, J. 1997. ‘The Myth of Backward Italy in Modern Europe’. In Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture, edited by Allen, B. and Russo, M., 23–42. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. R. O'G. 2018. A Life beyond Boundaries. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Appadurai, A. 1986. ‘On Culinary Authenticity’. Anthropology Today 2 (4): 24–25.Google Scholar
Asad, T. 1986. ‘The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology.’ In Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by Clifford, J. and Marcus, G. E., 141–164. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: California University Press.Google Scholar
Back, L. 1996. New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms and Multiculture in Young Lives. Race and Representation 2. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Translated by Holquist, M.. University of Texas Press Slavic Series, no. 1. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Baldassar, L., and Gabaccia, D. R., eds. 2011. Intimacy and Italian Migration: Gender and Domestic Lives in a Mobile World. 1st ed. Critical Studies in Italian America. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Bartoloni, P., and Ricatti, F.. 2017. ‘David Must Fall! Decentring the Renaissance in Contemporary and Transcultural Italian Studies’. Italian Studies 72 (4): 361–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/00751634.2017.1370787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhabha, H.K. 2004. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge Classics.Google Scholar
Bond, E. 2014. ‘Towards a Trans-national Turn in Italian Studies?’ Italian Studies 69 (3): 415–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, E., Bonsaver, G. and Faloppa, F., eds. 2015. Destination Italy: Representing Migration in Contemporary Media and Narrative. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Brioni, C. and Brioni, S.. 2018. ‘Interdisciplinarity and Collaborative Writing in the Humanities: Lara Saint Paul and the Performativity of Race’, Interdisciplinary Italy, 22 May, accessed 15 April 2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190328192914/www.interdisciplinaryitaly.org/interdisciplinarity-collaborative-writing-humanities-lara-saint-paul-performativity-race/Google Scholar
Brioni, S. 2013. ‘Pratiche “meticce”: Narrare il colonialismo italiano “a più mani”’. In Postcoloniale italiano: Tra letteratura e storia, edited by Sinopoli, F., 89–119. Aprila: Novalogos.Google Scholar
Brioni, S. 2015. The Somali Within: Language, Race and Belonging in Minor Italian Literature. Cambridge: Legenda, Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing.Google Scholar
British Academy. 2009. ‘Languages Matters’, British Academy, 30 June, accessed 15 April 2019, https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/LanguageMatters2_0.pdfGoogle Scholar
Burdett, C. 2018. ‘Moving from a National to a Transnational Curriculum’. Languages, Society & Policy. 18 July. http://www.meits.org/policy-papers/paper/moving-from-a-national-to-a-transnational-curriculum-the-case-of-italian-stGoogle Scholar
Cecchini, R. and Amelii, F.. 2014. ‘Investire nella diversità. Una fotografia della rete dei centri interculturali dell'Emilia-Romagna’. Regione Emilia-Romagna (Assessorato Politiche Sociali).Google Scholar
Certeau, M. de. (1984) 2013. The Practice of Everyday Life. 1. Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Clifford, J. 1986. ‘Introduction: Partial Truths’. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by Clifford, J. and Marcus, G. E., 1–26. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: California University Press.Google Scholar
Cook, I. et al. . 2005. ‘Positionality/Situated Knowledge’. In Cultural Geography: A Critical Dictionary of Key Concepts, edited by Sibley, D., Jackson, P., Atkinson, D. and Washbourne, N., 16–25. London, New York: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Copland, F., Creese, A., Rock, F. and Shaw, S.. 2015. Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analysing and Presenting Data. Los Angeles: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creese, A., Blackledge, A., Bhatt, A., Jonsson, C., Juffermans, K., Li, J., Martin, P., Muhonen, A. and Takhi, J. K.. 2015. ‘Researching Bilingual and Multilingual Education Multilingually: A Linguistic Ethnographic Approach’. In The Handbook of Bilingual and Multilingual Education, edited by Wright, W. E., Boun, S. and García, O., 127–144. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118533406.ch8.Google Scholar
Creese, A., Takhi, J. K. and Blackledge, A.. 2016. ‘Reflexivity in team ethnography. Using researcher vignettes’. In Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives, edited by Martin-Jones, M. and Martin, D., 203–214. Oxford, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Derobertis, R. 2014. ‘Da dove facciamo il postcoloniale?’ Postcolonialitalia. http://www.postcolonialitalia.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56:da-dove-facciamo-il-postcoloniale&catid=27:interventi&Itemid=101&lang=it. Accessed 15 April 2019.Google Scholar
Eddo-Lodge, R. 2017. Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Emejulu, A. 2016. ‘On the Hideous Whiteness of Brexit: “Let Us Be Honest about Our Past and Our Present If We Truly Seek to Dismantle White Supremacy”’ (blog). Verso Books. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2733-on-the-hideous-whiteness-of-brexit-let-us-be-honest-about-our-past-and-our-present-if-we-truly-seek-to-dismantle-white-supremacy. Accessed 15 April 2019.Google Scholar
Fabian, J. 2014. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faloppa, F. 2011. Razzisti a parole (per tacer dei fatti). Il Nocciolo series. 64. Rome: Laterza.Google Scholar
Forsdick, C., and Milne, A. L.. 2018. ‘Le regard de l’étranger? France as “Elsewhere”. Un echange à partir de six Questions.’ Fixxion: Revue Critique de Fixxion Française Contemporaine, 18: 179–190.Google Scholar
Freidman, J. 1995. ‘Global System, Globalization and the Parameters of Modernity’. In Global Modernities, edited by Featherstone, M., Lash, S. and Robertson, R., 69–90. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, D. N. 2012. ‘Uncomfortable Antinomies. Going Beyond Methodological Nationalism in Social and Cultural Anthropology’. In Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Research Methodologies for Cross-Border Studies, edited by Amelina, A., Nergiz, D. D., Faist, T. and Glick Schiller, N.. Oxford, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Giuliani, G., and Lombardi-Diop, C.. 2013. Bianco e Nero: Storia dell'identità razziale degli italiani. Quaderni di Storia. Florence: Le Monnier.Google Scholar
Guglielmo, J. and Salerno, S.. 2003. Are Italians White? How Race is Made in America. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Guilherme, M. and Dietz, G.. 2015. ‘Difference in Diversity: Multiple Perspectives on Multicultural, Intercultural, and Transcultural Conceptual Complexities’. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 10 (1):1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2015.1015539CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, M. 2009. ‘Doing Ethnography’. In The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism, edited by Wei, L. and Moyer, M. G., 249–262. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444301120.ch14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, P., Fay, R., Andrews, J. and Attia, M.. 2013. ‘Researching Multilingually: New Theoretical and Methodological Directions: Researching Multilingually’. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 23 (3): 285–299. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12038.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, M. 2014. ‘Le regard de l’étranger: What French Cultural Studies Brings to French Cultural History’, edited by Hewitt, N.. French Cultural Studies 25 (3–4): 253–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957155814543894.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Komla-Ebri, K. 2013. Imbarazzismi. Prato: Edizioni SUI.Google Scholar
Kubota, R. and Lin, A. M. Y.. 2009. ‘Race, Culture, and Identities in Second Language Education’. In Race, Culture, and Identities in Second Language Education: Exploring Critically Engaged Practice, edited by Kubota, R. and Lin, A. M. Y., 1–23. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombardi-Diop, C. and Romeo, C., eds. 2013. Postcolonial Italy: Challenging National Homogeneity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Luke, A. 2004. ‘Two Takes on the Critical’. In Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning, edited by Norton, B. and Toohey, K., 21–29. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauss, M. 1936. ‘Les techniques du corps’. Journal de Psychologie 32 (3–4): 271–293. Published 1973 in English as ‘Techniques of the Body’, trans. Ben Brewster. Economy and Society 2 (1): 70–88.Google Scholar
Miller, D. 2008. The Comfort of Things. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity.Google Scholar
Mullings, B. 1999. ‘Insider or Outsider, Both or Neither: Some Dilemmas of Interviewing in a Cross-Cultural Setting’. Geoforum 30 (4): 337–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7185(99)00025-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parati, G. 2005. Migration Italy: The Art of Talking Back in a Destination Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, D. 2018. ‘Race and Foreign Language’. Inside Higher Ed, 12 June. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/06/21/paucity-asians-and-other-minorities-teaching-and-studying-italian-and-other-foreign. Accessed 15 April 2019.Google Scholar
Patriarca, S. and Deplano, V.. 2018. ‘Nation, “Race”, and Racisms in Twentieth-Century Italy’. Modern Italy 23 (4): 349–353. https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2018.38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, A. 2012. Unexpected Places: Language and Mobility. Critical Language and Literacy Studies, v. 15. Bristol; Buffalo: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfister, M. and Hertel, R., eds. 2008. Performing National Identity: Anglo-Italian Cultural Transactions. New York: Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillip, N. 2018. ‘My Very Personal Taste of Racism Abroad’. The New York Times 23 October. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/travel/racism-travel-italy-study-abroad.html. Accessed 15 April 2019.Google Scholar
Phipps, A. M., and Gonzalez, M.. 2004. Modern Languages: Learning and Teaching in an Intercultural Field. Teaching & Learning the Humanities in Higher Education. London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Piller, I. 2016. ‘Monolingual Ways of Seeing Multilingualism’. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 11 (1): 25–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2015.1102921.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polezzi, L. 2013. ‘Disrupting Europe: Polylingual Models and Common Selves’. Transversal web journal, June. Vienna: European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0613/polezzi/en Accessed 15 April 2019.Google Scholar
Ponzanesi, S., and Polizzi, G.. 2016. ‘Does Italy need Postcolonial Theory? Intersections in Italian Postcolonial Studies’. English Literature 3: 145–161. https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/media/pdf/article/english-literature/2016/0numero-monografico/does-italy-need-postcolonial-theory/art-10.14277-2420-823X-EL-3-16-8.pdfGoogle Scholar
Pordzik, R. 2005. The Wonder of Travel: Fiction, Tourism and the Social Construction of the Nostalgic. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Pratt, M. 1991. ‘Arts of the Contact Zone’. Profession 91, 33–40.Google Scholar
Puri, S. 2016. ‘Finding the Field: Notes on Caribbean Cultural Criticism, Area Studies, and the Forms of Engagement’. In Theorizing Fieldwork in the Humanities, edited by Castillo, D. A. and Puri, S., 29–50. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Puri, S. and Castillo, D.A.. 2016. ‘Introduction: Conjectures on Undisciplined Research.’ In Theorizing Fieldwork in the Humanities, edited by Castillo, D. A. and Puri, S., 1–27. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramzanali Fazel, S. 2013. Lontano da Mogadiscio/Far from Mogadishu. Milan: Laurana.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, R. 1993. Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (with a new introduction). Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Santos, B. de S. 1999. ‘Towards a Multicultural Conception of Human Rights’. In Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, edited by Featherstone, M. and Lash, S., 214–229. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sennett, R. 2012. Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Sennett, R. and Cobb, J.. 1993. The Hidden Injuries of Class. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Skeggs, B. 2004. Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Z. 2016. ‘On Optimism and Despair’. The New York Review of Books, 22 December https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12/22/on-optimism-and-despair/ Accessed 15 April 2019.Google Scholar
Transnationalizing Modern Languages 2014–2018. Transnationalizing Modern Languages: Mobility, Identity and Translation in Modern Italian Cultures. www.transnationalmodernlanguages.ac.uk Accessed 10 May 2018.Google Scholar
Welsch, W. 1999. ‘Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today’. In Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, edited by Featherstone, M. and Lash, S., 195–213. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willman, K. 2018. ‘Contemporary British Travel Writing on Italy and British Broadsheets: Tobias Jones, John Hooper and Tim Parks’. Modern Languages Open 1: 8. http://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.159CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, A., and Glick Schiller, N.. 2002. ‘Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences’. Global Networks 2 (4): 301–334. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0374.00043.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, S. 2016. ‘Object Interviews, Material Imaginings and “Unsettling” Methods: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Materials and Material Culture’. Qualitative Research 16 (4): 359–374. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794115589647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar