Urban Translocalities The Role of Cities in Transnational Migration

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Urban Translocalities The Role of Cities in
Transnational Migration
International conference Transnational
identities, cities unbound, migrations
redefined Centre for European Studies,
Jagiellonian University Kraków, 6-8th October 2006

• Dr. Giulia Sinatti
• University of Milan-Bicocca
• London School of Economics

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Transnationalism

• An increasingly characteristic feature of
  contemporary migrations.
• Migrants live their lives across multiple
  countries, giving way to flows of circulating and
  mobile people, resources, images.

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Translocalities

• The locus in which migrants networks are pinned
  down in given nodes
• (Appadurai 1995 and 1996 Smith 2001).
• Collective sites of reference, that transcend the
  multiple trajectories of individual paths.

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A new way of conceptualising space and place

• Idea of movement and flows
• Translocalities are established in connection
  with other places.
• Idea of bodily co-presence
• Translocalities are constructed as settings for
  social interaction.

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A new role for cities

• Translocalities are typically established in
  urban areas
• Mobility as a characteristic interest of urban
  scholars.
• Insertion in urban areas as a central issue
  within migration studies.

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What is a translocality in practice?

• the translocalities of Senegalese migration

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Dakar a port of migration

• Pole of attraction for South-South migration.
• City of origin or of forced passage for every
  international migrant.
• Port of departure for current illegal emigration
  Barça or Barsakh.
• Place not only of symbolic, but also of material
  investment in the home-country.

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Barça or Barsakh
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Place of material investment
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and symbolic investment

• Its a sign of success and having made it in
  life for a Senegalese to have a house in Dakar.
  You can even be a multimillionaire, but for as
  long as you dont have a house in Dakar you
  are nobody. This idea is so deeply rooted in the
  mentality of all Senegalese, from the highly
  educated international executive down to the
  Senegalese who cant even sign his name they all
  think the same way.
• (TD, Dakar)

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Zingonia a Little Senegal

• High concentrations of resident Senegalese.
• Commercial base for informal import-export
  merchants.
• Place of strong passage for Senegalese living in
  Northern Italy.
• Place of symbolic reference for the Senegalese
  community.

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Centre of passage

• In Zingonia one finds information, information
  on the Senegalese world, or one may come here to
  shake off a bit of nostalgia with his countrymen,
  in a Senegalese environment where one can chat,
  drink tea with friends. One comes here to find
  out about the latest Senegalese novelties
  cassettes, videos and many other things. Or else
  one comes here for religious reasons to go to
  the Daara, pray and listen to religious chants.
  Or again one comes here to use services phone
  centres, money transfer, to buy tropical
  products, food . Zingonia is a centre and it
  is good for this kind of resources it offers
• (HD, Zingonia)

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A conquered land

• Zingonia is almost Africa, because there are
  many, many Senegalese
• (AD, Zingonia)

Id say Zingonia is Africa. Zingonia is no
longer a part of Italy (SF, Zingonia)
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Place of temporary residence

• Similarly to Dakar, Zingonia is a place where
  every Senegalese can count on an acquaintance to
  help him out in the first steps
• Not all those who arrive here stop here. They
  may stay for a while, until they have sorted out
  their documents, found a way of insertion, found
  a job then they leave and find their own way
• (MT, Zingonia).

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The features of translocalities

• Commonalities
• Not places of departure or arrival, but stepping
  stones along the migration path.
• Places of passage or transit, as such divorced
  from their national hinterland.
• Differences
• Dakar as outward looking a gateway to the West
  (openinness and change).
• Zingonia as backward looking towards homeland
  (conservation and nostalgia).

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Thank you
giulia.sinatti_at_yahoo.it