Maurizio Ambrosini,
University of Milano
Economic transnationalism
 A form of “globalization from below”?
 A new phenomenon?
 The antecedents: diasporas and middleman minorities
 The background: self-employment of migrants as an
emerging trend in all developed countries
 Diversification and stratification of migrants’ activities
Migrants’ % on total self
employment in some countries
(OECD, 2006)
Country
1999
2004
France
10,4
11,2
Germany
9,2
10,3
U.K
10,2
10,9
Spain
2,7
4,5
Switzerland
--
17,5
Italy
--
5,2 ( 2006)
A typology of different forms
of transnational economic
activities
 Circulatory transnationalism
 Connective transnationalism
 Commercial transnationalism
 Symbolic transnationalism
 an intensity scale of the involvement in transnational
activities and links: from circulatory transnationalism
to symbolic transnationalism
A case of circulatory
transnationalism:
couriers along East routes
 An ethnographic study in Milano (station of Cascina
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Gobba)
The clients: transnational families and mothering at a
distance
The objects: the gifts symbolizing the absent: help,
functional, showy meaning
The economic side: small is efficient
Not only informality: different levels of organization of
the activity in different national groups
The creation of a weekly market
Between commercial and symbolic
transnationalism: “ethnic” shops and
activities in Milan and Genoa
 analysis of 52 cases, 32 in Genoa and 20 in Milan
 The difficulty to separate traded goods from their
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symbolic content
The clients: natives and migrants
The stratification: from informal (and also illegal)
activities, to luxury goods for elite clients
The complex trips of the traded goods
The local context matters: differences between Milan
and Genoa
A case of contrasted
trasnationalism
 Phone centers rapidly grew and the declined in Italian
towns, above all in ethnic districts
 They have become the object of strict regulations
(regional law in Lombardy, local rules in Turin) and
inspections
 Fears of covering terrorism, laundering money, or
simply disturbing the natives: gathering of strangers
around the shops, also in the evening
Conclusion: the ants of
globalization
 a privileged viewpoint in order to observe a world on
the move: the actors of the space-time compression
 The mobility of people, the mobility of imagination
 A wide range of actors and activities
 A contribution to make more clear the meaning of
“transnationalism”