Post-2008 crises mobility from Italy to Germany : a case study of Italian youth migration to Berlin

1 August 2017 Universiteit Van Amsterdam

Post-2008 crises mobility from Italy to Germany:

A case study of Italian youth migration to Berlin

Supervised by:

Dr. Simona Vezzoli (First Supervisor)

Prof. Dr. Hein de Haas (Second Supervisor)

Giacomo Spinelli

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY... 3

1) INTRODUCTION... 5

2) PAST CYLES OF EMIGRATION... 10

2a) Toward Decline... 14

2b) The 2008 Economic Crisis... 15

3) THE RESEARCH FRAMEWORK... 16

3a) Theorizing the formation of migrants aspirations... 20

4) METHODOLOGY AND METHODS... 22

4a) Methods... 24

4b) Ethical consideration and limitation... 26

5) THE POST 2008 ITALIAN EMIGRATION TO BERLIN... 27

5a) The construction of an "empathic" relation with Berlin... 30

6) THE ITALIAN CONTEXT... 33

6a) The role of civil society... 34

6b) Provincialism... 36

6c) The social environment... 37

6d) The Erasmus program ... 42

7) CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION... 43

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Summary

In 2013 nearly 82.000 Italians left the country. The numbers are impressive, compared with the early 2000s, when the average number was 50.000 individuals.. This trend was confirmed in 2014. Italian social and political scientists tend to characterize this fact mostly as “brain drain”, emigration of young skilled professionals (researchers, etc) who are forced to leave the country in search of better perspectives, even though only 30% of those who emigrated in 2013 are university graduates.

Intra-European migrations are a social phenomenon whose dynamics and patterns changes quite rapidly. Statistical data furnished by Italian governmental agencies show that Germany has become again in recent years one of the primary destinations for Italian migrants, and, in particular has become a very attractive destination for young migrants.

Despite the social and political relevance of the phenomenon, recent Italian emigration is still an unexplored field of studies and Italian and international scholars have called for more studies to research in depth this new type of emigration which appears to be very different from the previous emigration that, since the second part of the nineteenth century, have characterized Italian migration toward Germany. In particular what seems to be still missing from an analysis of the relevance of cultural factors as emigration determinants.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the mosaic of research on the determinants of the new Italian emigration; in particular analysing under which circumstances (how, when, and why) young Italians have developed the aspiration to leave their country.

In particular this study focuses on emigration of young Italians to Berlin. A city that, among major European capitals , seems today to be able to offer a good quality of life, an affordable lifestyle, a more dynamic job market and relatively easy to achieve financial benefits.

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What has emerged from this research on the cultural motivations which determine the choice of young Italians to leave the country toward Berlin, there is the fundamentalrupture of the recent emigration from previous ones. Migration determinants of young Italians seems today very different from the past.

There are several reasons for this difference. The revolution in the communication system has transformed the concept of distance; Skype, Facebook, and Messanger are servers used daily to remain in touch with family and friends. The current facility to travel and its affordability allow people to move very easily across European countries: today for a migrant who goes to Germany the possibility to return in Italy is an available option since a flight can be purchased for less than 50 euro. Last but not least the absence of borders together with all the other benefits of citizens living within the European Union certainly facilitates intra-European mobility. But what emerges from this micro research and could represent another significant break with past migrations is that the desire for material wealth does not seems to represent, compared with the past, as equally significant a determinant for a generation of Italian emigrants who grew up in an age of consumerism,whilst the perception of a country in decline seems to play a determinant role.

Through an analysis of different elements and taking into consideration the Capability

Approach developed in the 1980s by Amartya Sen and the studies by Hein De Haas, this research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the logics, patterns and dynamics at the determinants of contemporary Italian migration toward Germany.

It is to be noted that from the first elaboration of the capabilities approach to the present, there has been a considerable transformation of the world we leave in: the advent of the World Wide Web, the world 2008 financial crisis and with it the crisis of liberal economic concepts. This has been accompanied by a rediscovery of theories opposite to liberal economy. The constants

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1) Introduction

Historical patterns of Italian migration toward Germany date back to the formation of the Italian State during the last three decades of nineteenth century.

The radical shift of protagonists and areas of origin started in concomitance with the global changes produced with the advent of the so-called post-modern societies, in the 1980, Surprisingly in more than 150 years, protagonists and the modalities of this social phenomenon changed only to a limited extent in their pattern and trajectories.

Italian emigration has always been analyzed as a classical case of migration from a southern European developing country, to a Northern more developed one.

Italian emigration to Germany is historically divided into two main phases: the worldwide 1870-1915 "great migration,” and the post War World II "guest workers" phase, officially terminated with the 1973 oil crises, when the Arab oil producers proclaims an embargo that impacted economy and politics throughout the world.

Recent studies have explored the possibility that starting from the world financial crisis of 2008, Italy is going through a third phase of "structural" emigration (Fondazione Migrantes 2016). Between 2006 and 2016 Italian mobility grew by 54,9%, and the official agency established for the registration of Italians abroad (A.I.R.E) passed from 3 to 4.8 million registrations. During 2015 Germany was the first choice among the European countries for many migrants, with more than 16.586 new registrations (Huffington post.it). In Berlin among intra-European migrants, Italians figured as the second largest group after the Polish community. In 1990 the Italian community was officially composed of 12.858 individuals and in 2014 the numbers doubled, with more than 31.276 registrations (Amt fur Statistik Berlin Brandenbourg, 2015).

However, despite the relevance of the phenomenon the literature on intra European migrations has concentrated its attention mostly on the East-West migration that occurred during the European

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enlargements of 2004, 2007 and 2013, partially ignoring the mobility of Italians,. In this sense, what appears evident is the necessity to enrich the body of literature on the determinants of the current migration from Italy. And it is in this framework that this thesis is developed: this research analyses the dynamics and the factors that are considered important to the cohort of Italians aged 20-30, while they were making their decision to migrate to Berlin.

The possibility that Italy is going through another phase of emigration, has remarkable theoretical interests and has recently been introduced in the academic debate as valuable topics for further theorization of determinants of migration. A recent research by Stazio (2017:155) on Italian migration to Berlin, indicates the expanding propensity to expatriate of young Italians as an unexplored category of analysis whose importance has been underestimated from studies that research the cluster of reasons behind the ongoing Italian migration. The study of young people propensity to migrate highlights the unexplored argument that leaving Italy is not motivated by economical personal improvement but could be considered as a suitable solution in order to escape from other fundamental problems (e.g.: existential, relational, occupational) (Stazio, 2017: 115). A point of view adopted also by Sanguinetti (2016), who in his research on post 2008 Italian migration in a southern Lander of Germany highlights how the necessity of flight/escape from Italy was a fundamental driver in determining the decision to migrate.

In order to better understand Italian post 2008 migrations to Germany it is fundamental to consider factors that played an essential role in reshaping the very same idea of mobility among young Europeans.

The generation of Europeans born between 1985-1995 is the first one that grew up with the new technological possibilities linked to the ICT revolution. It is the first 'Schengen generation', that grew up in a Europe without borders and no restrictive residence permits and with a daily choice of low cost flights available to go back. Moreover is a generation that has had the possibility to enjoy European study mobility through programs like Erasmus, Erasmus+ and Erasmus Mundus. All

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these factors change the perception of living abroad, which seems to be much more affordable, feasible and less difficult nowadays than in the past.

Another aspect that seems relevant in understanding post 2008 migration from Italy is the perception young migrants have of their country of origin.

Some scholars have advanced the idea that the young generation of Italian migrants has a symptomatic distrust in the future of the country, which is perceived as hopeless not because the economic indicators do not sign positive trends in the near future, rather because of a specific cultural attitude, or mentality, which is seen as one of the main causes of the Italian stagnant socio-political and economic situation (Gjergji, 2015). Without underestimating the importance of economic factors, including the ability of young Italians to overcome structural constraints that prevent the entry into the labour market and social mobility, what should be considered in an analysis of recent Italian migration is the role played by the way young people perceive the country and its future developments.

This research has approached the topic through the theorization of migrant capabilities and aspirations, in order to develop a deeper understanding of the relation between the Italian context and people aspirations.

Originally the concept of capabilities has been developed as an alternative theory in for welfare economics (Sen, 1999), and only lately it has been applied to other branches of social sciences. Among them, it has been applied and expanded to migration studies by de Haas, who developed a framework to theorize the concept of migrant aspirations with the one of migrant capabilities (De Haas, 2003).

Relying on previous elaborations of migrants’ aspirations and capabilities the idea this research aims to demonstrate is that in Europe young people move according to their personal capacity of mobilizing and making an efficient use of the socio-economic resources available in their country of

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origin. The accessibility and availability of these resources is based on the level of freedom that people enjoy in the place where they live. The concept of capability "the ability to lead the life in which people have reason to value and to enhance the substantive choices they have" (Sen, 1999), has been used as a cornerstone concept to operationalize the formation of migrants aspirations.

The main guiding question on which this research is:

'Which factors and dynamics have shaped the migration aspirations of Italians aged 20-30 who migrated to Berlin in the period 2008/09-2016/17?'

And more in details:

- ' what has affected migration aspirations among young Italians migrating to Berlin?' and

- 'which constrictions have contributed to the decision to migrate?'

The methodology used to investigate these questions involved the use of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and the use of statistical data on Italian emigration (published by Italian agencies) and on Italian population resident in Berlin (furnished by the Municipality of Berlin).

The thesis is structured as follow:

The first two chapters aims is to give an historical overview of Italian emigration phenomenon by approaching the topic through the most influential literature on the argument and through figures and data related to the past and current Italian emigration.

We will see how Italy was a country of emigration for nearly 80 years, with the only exception being during the two decades of fascism. With the transformative process of the world economy that occurred during the 1970s, Italy ceased to be a country of emigration becoming for the first time a country of immigration. In the same period the country reached a substantial level of growth, in terms of livelihood and welfare distributions. Even though Italy witnessed in the same decade a

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reduction of inequalities, the socio economic cleavages between the north and the south remained the source of many structural problems.

The following chapters are focusing on the main topic of this research: the post 2008 emigration. A trend nowadays confirmed by many quantitative studies. However the relevance of numbers is not enough to capture the complexity of this new phenomenon. The relation between the perception of the Italian context and the decision to leave is the central aspect analyzed by this thesis.

Methodologically , a constructivist approach has been used in order to evaluate the subjective relevance of cultural features, an approach that asserts how cultural and social phenomenon are constantly created and re-created in relation to circumstances. Data have been collected through 15 semi structured interviews and participant observations. Interviews have been made to young people in their twenties; the provenience has been diversified as much as possible in order to represent perceptions and discourses from different parts of Italy.

What has emerged from the analysis of these data, are four main elements: the provincial attitudes and dynamics as cultural issues felt as oppressive by the young people consulted; the role of the

family in generating and modifying migrants aspirations; The role of the Erasmus program in

shaping people views and perceptions over their aspirations and, last but not least, the perception of the role of the state and its credibility as an actor able to bring major changes.

Two are the main conclusions reached. The determinants of Italian emigrations, despite objective regional differences and subjective perceptions, have some common features in how the Italian context is perceived: the majority of people who leave do not see a future in which they can fit back in Italy, despite the fact that they may go back often to Italy to visit friends and family. The feeling and the idea of these young individuals is that they have abandoned a country in an irremediable path of decline.

A feeling that has caused some resentment in some parts of the Italian ruling apparatus, in particular after the press argued that the ones who left were the brightest. “I know people who left and it is

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fine that they left because surely this country will not suffer from not having them anymore. " said the Italian labour minister, Giuliano Poletti,in a statement on December 19, 2016, reported widely on newspapers and television.

The second conclusion is that the perceived decline of the country of origin that most of the young migrants interviewed have is the most direct outcome of more than 20 years a cultural decline. The generation of which this unit of analysis is composed of has grown up in a period of cultural decline. This thesis acknowledges and convenes on the necessity of more studies on Italian emigration, encompassing perspectives that were considered not relevant up to the present.

2) Past cycles of emigration

For approximately one century, Italy was one of the main European countries of emigration and only in the second half of the 1970s, the country started to receive immigration flows: first from the Third World and later from Central and Eastern Europe.

Italy witnessed the first, most intense, phase of emigration in the decades following the 1861 unification of the country reaching its peaks during the first 15 years of the nineteenth century. The peak lasted until the First World War, when it was impacted by disruption of travel routes and by restrictions imposed by receiving countries.

During the first phase emigration came mostly from the North-East regions of Italy but by the end of the century there was an increase of emigration from the southern regions. During emigration at the beginning of the 1900s, almost 600,00 people emigrated from Italy every year, with the highest number, 873,000, in 1913 (Bonifazi et al, 2009, 3). During this period, transatlantic migrations accounted for 60% of the total emigrations, while Italians emigration within continental Europe headed for industrial developing counties such as France, Germany or Switzerland. When the first

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cycle occurred Italy was a nation in the making and migration was characterized by rural to urban mobility. Characteristic of this first cycle was the return of migrants to their homeland, perhaps to leave again afterwards (Trincia 1997).

With the takeover of fascism mass emigration came to a halt as a result of both the 1929 economic crisis and the regime's obstructive policies toward international migration, favouring programs of internal (forced and not) migrations, organized around land reclamation projects and the construction of new urban agglomerates in the most depressed area of the peninsula.

Another important emigration flow occurred after World War II, between 1950 and 1960, with a European rather than an intercontinental dimension. From the aftermath of the Second World War up to 1965 the outflows of Italians amounted to 6.5 million. Non-European destinations declined substantially during the second half of the 1950s (Bonifazi et al, 2009, 3).

This cycle of mass migration from Italy occurred during a phase of social transformations, characterized by the necessity to reconstruct materially and morally what the war had destroyed. European industrial economies recovered quite fast and Western Europe experienced one of the fastest growths that the world had ever seen up to that moment. Economic growth and enhancing well being conditions spread throughout the old continent. Italy was one of the states whose growth, among the other things, was fostered by emigration of low skilled and semi-skilled manual workers.

It is interesting to note that even if the circumstances and the dynamics were quite different, throughout the second cycle of emigration migrants’ determinants would have remained quite similar to the ones of the first cycle (Maciotti and Pugliese, 1999); also trajectories and patterns were retraced by post-war migrants, on national and international destinations (De Clementi, 2014). What differed radically from the first to the second cycle of emigration was the role of the state, from being a passive actor in the first cycle to being a main promoter and guarantor of emigration in the second one (Gjerji, 2015).

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For those states of Western Europe in search of temporary manpower, the Italian government played a crucial role not only in terms of numbers, but also by selecting and recruiting workers.

Emigration was strategically chosen and implemented by the Italian Government through numerous bilateral agreements in Europe (France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Luxemburg and Great Britain), and overseas (Argentina, Brazil, Australia). The prevailing model of emigration was the one defined mainly by migrations in Switzerland and Germany: the "guest worker", who worked for short-medium periods of time abroad and then returned to Italy. As Pugliese (2006) noted migrations in this period were caused by the economic conditions in both sending and receiving states, and the recruitment of Italian low and semi skilled workers was a substantial contribution to many countries in Europe.

During the second cycle of migration, the number of Italian agricultural workers declined from 43.9% in 1951, to 16.6% in 1973 while the number of industrial workers increased from 29.5% to 38.3% within the same period. The economy grew by an average rate of 5.8% per year between 1951 and 1963 reaching an average of 6.5% between 1958-63, while growth remained stable around 5% from 1963 up to the oil crisis of 1973 (Bonifazi et al, 2009, 75). Despite the relevance of those numbers, the structural problems such as unemployment, socio-economic regional cleavages or infrastructural flaws, remained unresolved issues throughout that period that is recognized as a period of growth and development.

To sum up, Italian emigration was characterized as a form of work mobility relying mostly on legal frameworks established to orient and organize the movement of Italians. Through the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC) workers were allowed to freely move between Italy and Germany, until the end of the “guest worker” period which could be symbolically represented with the German recruitment halt called "anwerbestopp" in 1973.

Internal migration is a topic outside of these sphere of analysis, but it is however important to point out that internal migration from southern to northern Italian regions never letup as, despite the

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degree of development and social transformations in the 1960s and 1970s, the social and the economic imbalance between the north and the south did not diminish. It needs to be also noted how internal migrations from the economic backward area of the south, toward the North-West and the city of Rome grew in the same period as international migration occurred (Bonifazi and Heins, 2000). Internal migrations has never ceased to be an extremely relevant issue in Italy. Indeed, despite ongoing progressive improvements, the south of Italy remains an area characterized by serious structural problems from the first post unification periods up to the present..

After the oil crisis of 1973, and the far-reaching transformation of modes of production in western Europe, migrations trends in Europe changed again. In the mid-70s Italy experienced for the first time a net immigration rate. From being a country of exclusively emigration Italy shifted to a country predominantly characterized by immigration (Pugliese, 2015). At the beginning of the 1980s, the presence of foreigners was documented throughout the country. Some common features of the new immigration flows toward Italy were: the high presence of female migrants; the employment of the majority of migrants in the third sector; and a high rate of unregistered, thus illegal, migrants throughout the nation (Pugliese, 2015).

The reasons and the processes through which Italy between 1970-1980 shifted from an emigration to an immigration country are complex. However, it is worth to at least itemize some of the main factors that pushed Italy to become an immigration country:

1 - Two decades of economic growth and increased livelihood expectations.

2 - Shrinking channel of entrance from the mid-1970s in other Western European countries.

3 - The absence in Italy of legal frameworks and migration policies (the first one dates 1986).

4 - The existence of extensive informal "shadow" economies throughout the country.

5 - An initial attitude of tolerance toward migration from the government and public opinion (Bonifazi et al; 2009).

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2a) Towards decline

The 2008 economic and financial crisis that erupted in the United States hit extensively the already weak Italian economic and social structures. However despite the harshness of the 2008 crisis, it would be a major mistake to consider the crisis as a moment of ruptures with pre-crisis trends. In Italy the economic and political situation was already starting to deteriorate. Historians and sociologists commonly aknowledge that in the last two decades Italy has started a path of decline and decay (Barbagallo, 2017;- Gentiloni 2015;- Pugliese, 2015). The crisis of 2008 is considered in this thesis in its symbolic value: the disruptive power of the financial breakdown has weakened the structural social and economic assets of Italy, increasing the pace and the dimension of an already existing phenomenon.

The Italian shift from emigration to immigration coincided with a crisis of legitimacy within the Italian state structures. The political system of the Republic was shaken to the foundation by the collapse of the traditional political parties, after the "Tangentopoli" scandal in 1992. The scandal, also called “Mani pulite” (clean hands), an investigation of corruption within the Italian political structure, brought to the end of the so-called First Republic.

The two years between 1992 and 1994 represent the beginning of the Italian symbolic "Transition" from the first to the second republic, a period in which structures and protagonists of the first fifty years of government after the end of World War II collapsed (Gentiloni 2015). With the election of 1994 a new bipolar political system emerged: a centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, which dominate Italian politics for more than twenty years and an opposition of centre-left parties guided by PDS (Democratic Left Party) which then changed its name to PD (Partito democratico).

The decade of global economic crisis, represents for the Italian economy - differently from other developed countries - an acceleration within the very political and economic crumbling process started in 1990s. Giannola (2015) argues how the key factors to understand the involution of the

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Italian economy were: the growing integration of global markets in national economy; the loss of a national currency usable to foster competitiveness when required; and last but not least, the lack of any industrial state-driven strategy when the liberalization of the market allowed many privatizations of key sectors of the national economy.

2b)

The 2008 economic crisis

Acknowledging the past two decades decay in Italy allows us to frame the new emigration not as an immediate response to the 2008 crisis, but more as the result of a longer process of social transformation in which the values and the structures of the so called "First Republic"(1946-92), slowly deteriorated, losing their legitimacy and moral authority over a large part of the population. The dramatic aspect is that Italians started to question the credibility and the reliability of the Italian Republic, as a system, as a representative democracy. In 2016, the "5 Stars” movement, an anti-establishment movement that gathers consensus through the vehement attacks of Beppe Grillo, the leader of the group, against the "rotten Italian political system", represented the second political force in Italy.

As we have said, the structural flaws were clearly evident even before the world crisis and before the austerity measures imposed by the EU. From 1994 up to 2014, the growth of the Italian GDP was 19 points below the Euro zone average, with a peak of -6.3% in 2009. The 2014 official ISTAT (Italian national statistical agency) data revealed how from the outburst of the crisis in 2008 up to 2014 the individuals in Italy living below the poverty line passed from 8 to 14 million, among which 4 million live in absolute poverty. The main structural problem that affected Italy remained unemployment: in 2015 it reached quota 12.5%, of which 38% concerning young people. Not surprisingly, much more dramatic is the situation in the south: youth unemployment touched quota 55%; during 2015 the Italian GPD grew by 0.8%, while in the south it grew only about 0.1% (Barbagallo, 2016, 333). This even though Italy still figured as the most industrialized European country, behind Germany, although between 2008 and 2015 industrial production dropped by 38%,

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mostly in its most valuable hi-tech niches. Moreover, between 2008 and 2013 around 134.000 historical enterprises shut down in Italy, and among those 90.000 had more than 50 years of activity. For those that remained, property transfer was the only means of survival: historical enterprises such as Edison electrics, Pirelli, and Ansaldo Breda, were all sold during 2015 (Barbagallo, 2017, 334).

The statistical data gives us a framework to contextualize the third cycle of Italian emigration. The significance of those numbers, which represent the macro context, needs to be evaluated in relation to how individuals perceive those numbers, and how they consequently decide to act (or not). For example, unemployment can signify less competition for those who start from privileged positions, or can represent an extra challenge for those who suffer from a situation of already relative deprivation. Statistical numbers do not represents a social reality, they need to be disentangled from each personal micro context and "put aside". This doesn't mean that numbers and statistical data are not important as they are useful to frame a situation; showing analogies or connections between two or more macro events. But, for those who embrace a qualitative approach and method of analysis, macro data represent a starting point useful to give a general overview of the situation. For the sake of this thesis, statistical data are used only for descriptive purposes.

3) The research's theoretical framework

The literature on post 2008 migration from Italy is divided in two: on one side structuralist authors, which see Italian migration as a new cycle of emigration caused by inherited and new structural problems, on the other a functionalist, or utilitarian, literature which frames Italian migration as an internal (European), circular form of mobility, in which people move from state to state while pursuing economic and non-economic benefits.

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The first approach looks at Italy as a country affected by structural socio-economical problems, as a country that due to its odd socio-political conformation and historical circumstances is facing serious problems in the attempt to make a clear shift from a developing to a developed country. The most recent collections of publications on the new Italian emigration (Gjergji, 2015;- Bonifazi and Livi Bacci 2015) show how the recent emigration is a social phenomenon triggered by structural factors such as shrinking channel of entrance in the job market, infrastructural flaws, scarce and disorganized networks of public services, and a complex functioning of the public administration apparatus. The evidence furnished by the statistical data elaborated by the Italian (ISTAT) and European (EUROSTAT) statistical agencies, are approached as objective realities used to demonstrate the relation between the statistical socio economical data and emigration. The

worsening material conditions and possibilities for people in Italy after the crisis of 2008, stand not as concurrent but leading factors that pushed Italians to migrate. These studies are somehow problematic for a number of reasons. They assume, for instance, that Italian migration is a direct response (as it was in the past) to a cluster of external stimuli that constrict people material possibilities. This could lead us to think that in a situation in which the regional rate of

unemployment is particularly high, such as in Sicily, for example, people migrate because of the series of problematic structural circumstances which constrict or obstruct directly their

professional self-realization.

One of the interviewee, Giovanni, a 24 years old person from Palermo (Sicily), left his city to move first to Rome, and after two years to Berlin. The economic consideration in Giovanni's migration trajectories seems to play a minor role if compared with his desire to find a more proactive social environment, which of course is among the other things influenced by economic factors, The determinants of Giovanni's would probably have been "covered" by reading it's migration trajectory as economically driven, which play instead a minor role in the subjective decision to migrate. Migration determinants are formed by a cluster of very different and very subjective motivations,

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and quantitative studies very often miss the reciprocal influence between the micro and the macro consideration while a qualitative research attempts to find out the deeper meanings of particular human experiences that can generate observations that are not easily reduced in numbers.

By relying almost exclusively on the relevance of numbers the risk is to overshadow the subjective dimension of migration: unemployment for example could became an instrumental measure which results in a reduction of the complexity of concurrent determinants important for migrants.

The second of branch literature, tend to frame Italy in the European landscape of neoliberal developed states within which migration represent one of the main means through which states loose or gain human and financial capital. Differently from the first more structuralist approach, this one value intra-European migration as a positive phenomenon through which states attract capitals, and individual get benefits from the liberalization and the unification of the European market. According to this second approach, from the creation of the European Coal and Steal Community in 1952 up to the present, the European institutions have pursued the idea of gradually enhancing states to cooperate in a beneficial win-win situation for both private and public actors, while reaching the full applications of the so called "four freedoms", movement of goods, people, services, and capitals over borders

In countertendency with the view that Italians are leaving due to objective structural constriction, this second branch of literature has approached Italian post 2008 migration as a phenomenon of internal European mobility. With the creation of a European Single market in 1986 and the abolishment of borders in 1995, the classical way of defining and categorizing migration through the lens of the exclusionary dichotomy internal-international, became somehow inadequate to describe the new Intra-European flows.

The definition and categorization of migrants is generally considered as a leftover of classical theories, applicable only to international migrations; more consistent with the new situation is the term free movers or mobile Europeans (Recchi, 2013). Intra-European migrations are characterized,

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mostly by highly skilled individuals who freely move in a framework where nation states are in competition with each other in pursuit of human capital (Docquier, Rapaport, 2012. Milio et al 2012). This approach theorizes that migration of skilled migrants occurred in a sort of enclosed network of possibilities in which migrants can chose where to move in relation to the different form of capital that they own. According to this views, intra-European such as the migration of young Italians in Germany, are phenomenon which need to be studied and understood as an experience that has a symbolical rather than an economic value. The economic considerations play a minor role among the determinants of those who migrate across Europe (Recchi, 2013); from this follow the second assumption: that people move chasing a certain kind of lifestyle, one that is multicultural and European (Verwiebe, 2011).

This second point seems to be very similar to what de Haas (2014, 24) has called the intrinsic value attached to the experience of migration. In such a framework, the main destinations became the Eurocities, places characterized by a "vibrant" cultural and social life (Favell, 2013).

The problem that emerged from this second branch of literature is that by focusing on the stock of resources that migrants could gain but not lose through migration; we are unable to process decisions based on uncategorized thus irrational behaviours through which migrants can make a different use of the resources accumulated up to that moment Among Italian immigrants interviewd in Berlin, for example, a 30 years old man, with a rising career expectation in Italy who decided to move to Berlin without having any relevant offers (wage) comparable with what he was earning in Italy; nor he was moving for lifestyles or cultural reasons, but just for the sake of radically changing its life experiences and expectations.

The other problematic insight in human capital theories, of interest for this thesis, is the attempt to overcome the national dimension of migration, by describing it as a polycentric phenomenon in which the characteristics of the resources that individuals endow constitute the central feature behind it.

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In conclusion, the structuralist literature that considers the new Italian emigration determined by the context of structural deficiencies seems to be prone to consider Italy as a country that shows sign of socio-economical decline, highlighting a series of macro structural problems quite atypical for a developed counties. What it can be considered valuable for the sake of this thesis is how studies on the new Italian emigration have framed the historical continuity of migration from Italy. On the other hand, the "Europeanist" more neoliberal literature that views Italian migration as a phenomenon of internal migration, has avoided to make a clear distinction among different national situations, concealing instead what is considered to be more a sort of European reticular system of interdependent states.

3a) Theorizing the formation of Italian migrants' aspirations

Both the approaches have valuable insights in trying to understand trends of the actual Italian emigration, reason why the theoretical framework of the thesis needs to embrace different perspectives.

In order to find a theoretical approach suitable to investigate the formation of migrant aspiration from a micro level of analysis without losing the grasp with the macro circumstances that affect migration, it is relevant the capabilities and aspiration framework developed by de Haas (2003; - 2009; -2014). It needs to be mentioned the fact that De Haas (2003) for its concept of migrants aspirations relied on the capability approach developed by Sen (1999). From this point of view migrants are actors whose capacity to migrate rely on their ability to mobilise and make efficient use of the resources available and accessible to them.

The use of resources is instrumental: people tend to gain, modify ,or voluntarily loose resources by considering how they can benefit from it. However, the capacity that migrants have to make a beneficial use of resources depends also on a series of external circumstantial situations

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continuously shaped by specific processes of social transformations, historically and socially defined.

The core concept used to operationalize the research has been as follow: "people migration

aspiration are affected by the opportunities they perceived they have to lead the lives they aspire to" (de Haas, 2014, 23). Evaluating the ability that people have to pursue and live a life they have reason to value, is a way to inquire migrants determinants of the new Italian emigration, by considering the decision to migrate as a choice taken first and foremost from a subjective point of view. It is important to underline how the idea of embracinga subjective perspective needs to be seen as a deepest and more personal layer of analysis embedded within the more general concept of agency, which reflects: “the limited but real ability of human beings (or social groups) to make independent choices and to impose these on the world and, hence, to alter the structures that shape people’s opportunities or freedoms” (de Haas, 2014, 21).

The definition of agency clarify the importance of approaching migrants as actors whose capacity to migrate belongs to their ability to instrumentally make an efficient use of the social, economic and cultural resources available to them. Indeed, even though they are embedded in a context that exert a certain influence on their decisions, migrants, consciously make a number of independent choice to pursue well-being and life aspirations.

Following de Haas (2014), it is useful to make at this point also a distinction between the instrinsic and the instrumental dimension of migration. In the first case, with the term we refer to "the value people attach to the migration experience itself, such as the joy and pleasure derived from exploring new societies"; in the second case, we refer to the dynamics that can be seen more from an

utilitarian or functional perspective, such as labour migration or student mobility (de Haas, 2014, 24). With this further clarification, we should be able to process migrants aspiration avoiding any kind of exclusionary categorization.

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The idea is to put migrants decision beyond theories and not the opposite, because the decision and the effective capacity to migrate is based on what people themselves perceive as accessible and available in the circumstances in which they are embedded. It should be clear, that theories emerge from the narrative of actors. Migrants construct their aspirations in a physical environment, whose values tend to be determined by the subjective perception of it, and the possibility to move out of it or modifying that subjective reality. is the objective attempts made to reach the possibility to lead the aspired life.

In conclusion, it needs to be note, that de Haas has developed the concept of migrants aspiration and capabilities in order to inquire the relations between migration and development and how

development can lead to more migration. The concept has been originally applied to international migration, in this thesis is applied to Italian emigration to Germany, even though is not a case of "international" mobility but neither an internal or circular mobility.

In the next chapter the methodology of this thesis will be outline, showing how the methodology and the theoretical framework used have tied ties.

4) Methodology and methods

This chapter will provide an explanation on methodology and chosen methods on which the results are based. The fieldwork of this research has been conducted from the beginning of April 2016 until the first couple of days of May 2016. All the interviews were conducted in Italian. Observations and document analysis has been done throughout the period spent on the field. The location of the research was Berlin; where interviews and meeting took place.

This study approached the social phenomenon of emigration from a constructivist prospective, according to which, reality and knowledge are always social constructions made by human beings. This view is antithetical to the positivist epistemology approach, which considers the construction of knowledge as a process through which we establish objective facts. The flaws of positive

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epistemology lies in the fact that in order to construct social and cultural knowledge the empirical reality is subjectively evaluated and oriented toward the creation of social laws. Differently, through their work on social knowledge, Berger and Luckmann (1966) argued how knowledge is lawless, constantly created, modified, and re-created, through process of social interactions. The perception of social reality that people have is detached from their own volition. It follows that what could be considered subjectively real, is inalienable (as a subjective reality) from the social circumstances in which the individual has constructed the notion of what is real and what is not. Therefore, social phenomenon are always common constructions derived from perceptions; and as societies change and transform, ideas and perceptions derived from those ideas change as well, modifying social practices and social relations.

The relativistic and constructivist approach fits with the idea that migrants are both actors endowed with agency and therefore able to make independent choices, while also being inevitably part of a transformative process

Whereas, on one side this could be seen as a flaw - because the line is not clearly drawn between the two spheres- it highlights how it will be highly contradictory using a theory that does not reflect the epistemological approach of the research. These ties seem to be even more important if we consider that the research has been carried out using mainly qualitative methods.

In the field work a sense of empathy with the interviewee and shared feelings and ideas represented a first bias of the constructivist approach. A shared cultural heritage represented during the research the a "blind side". Words such as family, culture, corruption, mentality etc etc, were slightly biased, since their significance was sometimes taken for granted, and directed toward a specific discursive construction Another bias could be corroborated by the fact that we were (during the interview) sharing a common vision on our country, even if I have never encouraged this emphatic approach. The research was conducted through semi-structured interviews. Migrants were therefore free to develop their own thoughts, and encouraged to express their own perceptions and feelings. The fact

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that we were almost always peers, facilitated all the "ice breaking" moments during the initial stages of interviews. Each narrative were somehow unique in his contents, even if some common issues such as the high rate of unemployment or the heavy functioning of bureaucracy emerged as a leitmotif throughout the interviews. The deep discussions about perceptions opened a space to develop within each thematic area an argument by creating interaction. Here, the problem of my own personal capacity of interpreting and contextualizing emerged, as I was making an attempt to understand how relevant the argument was perceived by the person being interviewed. Migration assumed a personal meaning because it is located in that personal sphere of time and space in which the singular experience of migration takes place. Hopefully, more research will be conduct based on an analysis that considers how each kind of migration experience is firstly a personal experience that acquires a value for the individual for a heterogeneous set of reasons which cannot be fully understood if approached through a categorical exclusionary analysis.

4a) Methods

The results are based on the combination of net-ethnography, and two qualitative methods: semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. Net-ethnography was conducted before my arrival in Berlin. I have "navigated" through Facebook pages of Italians in Berlin, blogs that gave tips to newly arrived Italians and other websites that provide general information about the city. Through that information, I was able to virtually enter into some of the discussion common to Italians in Berlin. The most useful insights of net-ethnography was the creation of new

acquaintances before my physical arrival in Berlin. Once arrived in Berlin, the network from which I have benefited the most was the German venue of the Italian democratic party, which was more a symbolic space where Italians from different backgrounds, proveniences, and ages, gather

frequently, than a proper political venue. Through a constant frequentation of it, I was able to get more insight.

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The snowball technique was the method that I most frequently used to get in touch with new people. Snowball sample is a technique that begins a sample with a few relevant participants you have identified and then expands through referrals. is a technique that begins The passage from friend to friend allowed me to detach myself more and more from the social environment from which the snowball started. The same snowball technique was used with a group of acquaintances recently emigrated to Berlin from Rome. The only criteria followed during the selection of the samples was to diversify as much as possible age and regional provenience, while including people from both town and cities. As the graph in the appendix shows, the 15 people interviewed matched the required criteria.

In all encounters, after a brief introduction of the interviewee -age, regional provenience, current occupation- nine basic question where posed:

- Since when are in Berlin? - Why did you chose Berlin?

- Why did you chose to leave Italy, it was an episode in particular or a series of event? -Have you tried to moved somewhere else in Italy?

-This was you first migratory expeirence? - what attract you to Berlin?

- Did you go through the Erasmus program, and if so, how did it influence your choice? - Do you plan to back to live in Italy, if yes, why?

- In which way and through which means your aspiration has been frustrated?

The interviews were all recorded; nevertheless off-record informal talks before and after the interview were not only useful but also required from some of the interviewees. All the interviews have a length that goes from 30 to 45 minutes. The data that I have analyzed are the ones recorded, there are no further notes that I have used for additional analysis.

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4b) Ethical considerations and limitations

This research has been conducted in respect of the ethical guidelines established by the College of Social Science and Graduate School of Social Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA 2017). All interviews have been conducted after having explained the aims and the nature of the research. Informal consent has been obtained and a common understanding reached on the use of the

information gathered before each interview. The privacy of the people has been respected; nor they were not exposed to any danger or violation of their fundamental rights.

The information disclosed by the interviewee has not been manipulated to fit the goal of the research and sensitive information has not been handed over to third parties. The interviews were carried out so as to avoid either excessive physiological distance or affinity with the respondent.

No limitations or ethical problems derived from the behaviour of the individuals involved. The interviews were completed avoiding a biased use of snowball technique. Indeed it could happen in case studies such as this to exclude through subjective evaluation certain kinds of person during the selection of the samples. This problem has been avoided by balancing the gender of interviewees and by diversifying as much as possible their regional provenience so as to avoid any kind of stereotypical judgement regarding the relation between regional circumstances and gender with the decision to migrate. The only problem was the limited time of the research: at the end of the

fieldwork it became clear that understanding the complex mosaic of Italians in Berlin additional study and time.

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5) The Post 2008 Italian emigration to Berlin

We have embraced a narrative according to which the Post-2008 Italian emigration is a phenomenon whose roots need to be searched in almost two decades of political and economic decline.

The graph below shows the statistical data furnished by the statistical office of Berlin- Brandenburg highlights how Italian migrations to Berlin rapidly increased after 2008. After a peak in 1995 when the Italian population resident in Berlin was more than 20.000, the total Italian population in Berlin remained always beneath 10.000 from 1996 up to 2009. More recently, the Italian population of Berlin reached 31.276 in 2014, more than doubling its values from the 1990s.

Nowadays Berlin is generally recognized as a city in Europe that tends to attract migrants for its socio-cultural life. The low presence of Italian “guest workers” in Berlin highlights how the city was initially characterized by non-industrial activities. If the recruitment of foreign workers in general is datable to around 1955, when the bilateral agreement between Germany and Italy were signed, in Berlin they took place only after 1965 (Pichler, 2002).

Evolution of Italian population in Berlin from 1998 to 2013

Grafico.6.1. Evoluzione della popolazione italiana a Berlino dal 1998 al 2013.

Source:

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The industrial development of Berlin occurred at a later date compared with the general industrial development that took place in other cities such as Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich or Stuttgart. This is due to the fact that in the aftermath of World War II, Berlin witnessed the exceptional situation of being reconstructed while being politically (from 1961 also physically) divided into two different political, cultural and economic sphere of influence, which reflected the bipolar division of the world amid capitalism and socialism.

The history of the recent Italian migration to Berlin can be traced by following the historization made by Edith Pichler. Pichler theorized how during 1960-1970s, the city became a pole of attraction for many of the young people who belonged to the left and the extreme left in Italy. They have been identified by Pichler as "the rebels" (Pichler, 2002): young people who belonged to extra-parliamentary groups, such as "Autonomia Operaia" (Workers Autonomy) or "Lotta Continua", (The struggle continues) willing to reproduce group structures and dynamics in Germany, while also being susceptible to eventually learn and adopt new experimental forms of political activism. When in the mid-1970s the wave of student protest come to an end, the young Italians that arrived in Berlin almost a decade before began to diversified their activity within the western part of the city. From the epicentre of where the student contestation, the universities, Italians moved - always in coherence with their political identity - to new areas that only a decade after will became renowned for their vibrant socio-cultural life. For example, when the alternative and occupied scene reached its peak in the 1990s, neighbourhood such as Kreutzberg, became the centre of the cultural life of Berlin, where new cosmopolitan lifestyles met and meshed (Del Prà, 2006, 112).

Throughout the 1990s, during the formation of the "alternative scene", cultural and political activities moved in unexplored new urban spaces: like art galleries, design studios, and other kind of places where "leftist" people reinvented also in economic terms their social identity (Del Prà, 2006, 112). The sector of activities in Berlin where Italians reinvented themselves with success

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were ethno-gastronomic activities. The fact that Italians migrants arrived in Berlin moved by political and cultural stance for almost two decades, contributed. among others, also toward the creation of an image different from the stereotypical ones related “guest workers”. Nevertheless, stereotypes sometimes could contained hints and the view of Italians as "pizza and mandolino" people was probably fostered by those mushrooming activities related to gastronomy; which contributed, among other factors, to the creation of new temporary jobs available for newly arrived Italians.

Alongside the new possibilities represented by growing Italian activities in Berlin, decreasing restrictions on the European migratory legal framework contributed to the arrival of the post modern migrants in the late 1990s who were characterized by being apolitical and beneficiaries of new sustained forms of mobility throughout Europe (Pichler, 2002). Indeed, the formation of new possibilities enhanced by the European communitarian initiatives fostered a new type of circular mobility, from which students in particular benefited.

During the two decades that followed the downfall of the wall Berlin was transformed also by how the citizens elaborated collectively the "wounds" derived from being a city divided for more than three decades. How powerful is Berlin, in its historical heritage, is something that I also felt when I was there as well almost all the individuals that I interviewed, who were captured and fascinated by how unique the city is for its recent history and by the way in which Berlin became one of the most, if the not the most, dynamic and tolerant multicultural capital of the world. In my opinion, if Berlin is such a cosmopolitan capital, capable of attracting people from all over the world, it is due to the way its people shaped their environment by collectively facing the elaboration of historical memories. If avant-garde and experimental lifestyles spread in Berlin is perhaps also linked its civil society always aware of the concrete chance it has to influence the cultural, political and economic environment of the city.

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Berlin grew under the influence of specific political and social environments that called for tolerance, coexistence and respect, attitudes that shaped and marked the identity of the city.

Among the positive aspects that were pointed out by some of the individuals interviewed there were the fact that Berlin continues to be a city where living cost are lower if compared with other cities such as London, Paris or Rome and rents in Berlin are substantially lower than in Rome or Milan and events are accessible to the large majority of residents.

One other feature that characterizes Berlin is the good quality of services and infrastructure; every corner of Berlin is well connected with all the other areas of the city, travel from point A to point B of the city will take you a maximum of 30 minutes wherever you are and wherever you have to go. The movement over long distances in short periods of time was an important discovery for those Italians coming from the areas of the peninsula in which good services are still a mirage. Last but not least, since Germany is a country where welfare has not been totally dismantled, there is a substantial help from the state for the unemployed, which guarantees a minimum wage while one is searching a job and also people employed but receiving very low wages can access some state financial contributions.

5a) The construction of an "empathic" relation with Berlin

Berlin represents for a great number of people interviewed a city able to transmit deep feelings, which help individuals to reflect on life trajectories and life aspirations. Liliana from Naples, for example, argued how she was fascinated by Berlin since when she was a child and the fact that she didn't know much about it at that time increased her sense of fascination, stimulating the deepest fantasies and increasing her desire to directly explore it. Once Liliana arrived in Berlin (without any kind of long term plan) she felt that it was exactly how she imagined it, which lead her to decide that Berlin was the place where she wants to conduct her life, despite several difficulties (the

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language in first place) It seems considerable the enormous power that migrants have to bend a so called - objective- reality in accordance to their emotional disposition.

The empathic experience of Liliana shows how certain feelings are substantially supported by shared narratives about Berlin; for example that Berlin is a tolerant city, which is something that was repeated over and over by almost all the person interviewed.

It is perhaps from this feeling of being in a tolerant and multicultural environment that the sense of empathy emerges. The discursive rhetoric of being "in contact" with the city makes sense once we compare how migrants used to feel when they were in Italy. Arianna, for example, feels that in Berlin when she walks in the streets she does not feel observed because, according to her, the huge dimension of the city and the mentality of its inhabitants contribute to give you a sense of

anonymity. Moreover in Berlin no one seems to judge you on the base of your provenience or social position. While in Italy she felt under pressure growing up in Fossalta di Piave, a small town near Venice, because the people around her were always judging each other's behaviour. Arianna's sense of empathy with Berlin is to what she attributes to her new environment, when compared with her previous personal story, because the city for her represents the opposite of what she voluntarily left behind in Italy.

A similar case is the experience of Eva, a 25 years old woman from Formello, a small town within the Rome metropolitan area, who after a six months Erasmus stay in Dresden in 2012, moved to Berlin, where she declares she is able to get in touch with the "chaotic" part of herself. Eva feels that Berlin is giving her the chance to know herself better. While she was exploring the city she was also exploring parts of her that she was unable to see and express in Italy. The Berlin multicultural and cosmopolitan environment helps her to discover "who she really is". The argument of Berlin's tolerance comes back also here: the fact that people coexist pacifically seems to foster a certain attitude, through which migrants take the time they need to know themselves, which is something that is apparently missing in Italy. What is interesting in Arianna's and Eva's cases, is how they used

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their agency to disentangle themselves from certain structures in Italy, mostly beliefs and behaviours, and re-create in Berlin the condition to live the life they want.

The perceived emotional connection with Berlin is directly related to three main considerations that the interviewee underlined: first, people have duties toward civic matters, second the work

environments of Berlin are meritocratic and, third, the role of the state and it's reassuring presence in case of economic necessity.

Berlin's people civic attitude convinced Elettra, a thirty years old woman coming from Agrate Brianza, a small town of 15.000 people near Monza, that Berlin was the right place for her when she witnessed the following concatenation of events: after the closing of an historical bakery next to where she lived, neighbourhood residents organized public meetings and talks with the municipality in order to understand why the bakery closed and what they could concretely do to help to re-open the shop. Even if Elettra was not directly involved, she considered the involvement of the

neighbourhood as a sign of civil society awareness. Federico S. had a similar impression when he first arrived in Berlin from Rome: he was astonished by the fact that people from the same line of work environment as his provided contacts and suggestions of potential employment, without demanding or pretending anything in return. " The first thing that I have experienced in Berlin” Federico S said “is cooperation, the idea that I could meet people, really increased my appreciation of the city and the decision to pursue my future here" (12:55). Also Federico Q, who arrived in Berlin in 2011 after having attained his master's degree certificate in Milan and after an exhausting research of jobs in Italy, felt immediately integrated in Berlin:

" I was lucky because I met through internet and social events people with whom I felt immediately comfortable with, the availability that people showed towards me was exceptional; it is hard to find something to complain about during my first period in Berlin."

The narratives on how liveable is the city tend to reflect some stereotypical vision of the city, as a place where everyone can realize dreams and aspirations, or where everyone can afford to conduct

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any lifestyle. These myths and legends about Berlin- such as Berlin is a the city where everything is possible, it is not required that you speak German, any lifestyle is accepted- reflect a way of

framing the city that is far from reality. Stazio argues that these narratives are instrumentally promoted by institutional and commercial actors in order to attract human and financial capital. By making an instrumental use of these narratives, institutional actors embrace the so-called place branding strategies to promote Berlin. These institutional strategies are set up through widespread communication activities that generally involve all the city’s media system (Stazio, 2017, 53). Nonetheless the considerations on the empathic feeling of well-being by Italian immigrants in Berlin remain a fundamental factor in explaining their choices.

6) The Italian context

From the analysis of the data, we can affirm how the formation of the aspiration to migrate occurs in a space in-between reality and desires. One of the most interesting things emerged during the analysis of the data, is how migrants tend to create subjective patterns through which contextualize the why and the how their aspiration has been formed. In relation to the formation of the aspiration to migrate, three main area-topics emerged from the analysis of the data.

1) The negative perceptions of the interviewee on both Italian civil society and the state effective capacity to modify current paths.

2) The problem of living in a social context considered provincial, which entangle young people in a context characterized by dynamics of social obligations; social pressures; and social support.

3) The role of education in shaping aspirations, in particular: the possibility enhanced by the Erasmus program.

The graph below shows name, age, arrival in Berlin and provenience of the group of Italians that I interviewed.

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Federico Q 28 September 2011 Pietrasanta (LU)

Liliana N 26 January 2012 Napoli

Sebastaian 27 August 2016 Roma

Giovanni 25 August 2015 Palermo

Leonardo 25 September 2015 Fiesole (FI)

Arianna 24 September 2016 Fossalta di Piave

(VE)

Giorgio 23 October 2016 Verona

Benedetta 26 September 2016 Roma

Andrea L 30 January 2016 Pordenone

Eva 25 September 2016 Formello (RM)

Francesca 25 August 2016 Roma

Federico S 27 August 2016 Roma

Nicolò 28 September 2014 Milano

Elettra 30 August 2016 Agrate Brianza

Andrea D 29 October 2012 Bari

It is important to note how the large majority of the Italians interviewed arrived in Berlin less than 15 months before our encounter. Some of the migrants interviewed are therefore only going through an exploration period, which entails the possibility that they could move again to another

destination or go back to Italy.

6a) The role of civil society

The analysis of "civil society" deals with how the young Italians that I interviewed perceive and react to the socio-economic situation in Italy. Throughout the interviews I had the chance to discuss the problems related to the Italian civil society, whose centrality was recognized by all. It was on the one hand a somehow abstract and very general topic, on the other hand a topic that migrants have used to concretize and give an empirical base to what they considered the main limitations of living in Italy. What emerged was that the issues related to civil society represent in the opinion of almost everyone I interviewed as the most serious threat to Italy's future.

As we have previously seen, the effect of the 2008 economic crisis in Italy dragged the country in a spiral of socio economic problems, in a situation that was already problematic two decades before the stock market crash. As the graph above shows, the majority of the people I interviewed arrived

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in Berlin between 2014 and 2016, which means that they were still in Italy1when the crisis erupted. The cohort of individuals interviewed did not however suffer from any kind substantial deprivation due to the crisis, probably thanks to the support furnished by their parents: the access to

infrastructures such as universities was guaranteed, basic necessities were always available and in general those who had a certain lifestyle were not forced to abandon it. However, everyone witnessed a shrinking in personal purchasing power.

The concept of relative-deprivation helps us to frame the material situation in which young people found themselves in Italy. In a status of relative-deprivation people are enclosed in a gap between what they perceive as legitimate for their future in projection and the reality. The idea of relative deprivation according to Stazio (2017, 44) together with structural flaws, is what has shaped the aspiration to leave of young Italians. Which is what Schaefer defines as: "the conscious experience of a negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities" (Stazio, 2017, 44).

The first empirical reality of a civil society perceived as problematic is related to employment of young people in Italy. I will bring the examples of Arianna, Sebastian and Liliana.

Arianna, after graduating in social sciences at the prestigious university of Padua was employed by a local journal of politics and international affairs. She was underpaid and exploited (which is considered somehow normal in Italy) and her main complaint did not refer to her economic

compensation but about the fact that her boss uses to make comments on her private life with other colleagues by watching daily her Facebook profile.

" When I realized they were mobbing me, I decided to leave...it was terrible... when they realized my intention to leave, the two bosses sat me at one extremity of the main table and started to attack me by saying they had invested on me, that I was unfair and dishonest and other insults and false accusations. As soon I left the office I started to cry..."

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The case of Sebastian is somehow similar. While he was working as a waiter in a restaurant the manager accidentally forgot to register the payment of all extra hours worked. Sebastian recounted how, if he had not involved his father, who had threatened the manager to recur to legal means in order to solve the issue, he would probably have not received correct amount of money that he had earned. Not very different is the story of Liliana, who was still waiting to be paid for a job done in the summer of 2015 in Italy. Sebastian and Arianna argued how the proof that they had learned the lesson was leaving Italy and its rotten system, while Liliana, said that leaving Italy was one of the best choice that she had made in her life.

Those cases reflect a general widespread attitude of exploitation of young people that is at the root of frustration for individuals, in particular of the most fragile, who aspire to have an honest way to pursue a future in Italy. Negative experiences such as the ones described above have the power to reduce the capacity of people to believe in themselves and in their country, while making the goals they would like to achieve somehow unreachable. The discrepancy between aspiration and reality in Italy is a social construction and the reduction or the enlargement of this discrepancy depends on the capacity of individuals to react morally and legally, considering themselves as part of a community of equal citizens. The capacity of the state of being an example of conduct is fundamental in supporting the active participation of civil society.

6b) Provincialism

It was not easy, even though I am Italian, understanding what exactly was the meaning of provincial mentality, as used by the interviewee. "Provincialismo" is defined by the Italian Treccani dictionary as "limited interest due to scarce contacts with more updated and universal cultural

environment"(Treccani, 2017), but, I have reached the conclusion that a provincial dimension (where provincial mentality grew) is also intended as a limited social environment, in which

interactions always take place among the same actors. In other words, provincialism is also a social behaviour, in which narratives of solidarity or antagonism are created among people that have close