-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Susan J. Terrio, Migrants in Translation. Caring and the Logics of Difference in Contemporary Italy, Christiana Giordano, Migration Studies, Volume 4, Issue 3, November 2016, Pages 447–448, https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnw011
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
This book is an original and important contribution to our understanding of the politics of humanitarianism, citizenship, and cultural difference in contemporary Italy. In the context of an influx of non-European migrants, the only option for those seeking legal status under current Italian immigration law is to qualify as a refugee or victim of human trafficking. Rather than a chronicle of the migratory journey, the book focuses on the reception and categorization of trafficking victims from Eastern Europe and Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa that occurs within Italian immigration offices, police stations, courts, clinics, and migrant shelters. Combining a sophisticated use of post-structuralist theory with rich ethnographic data, Giordano demonstrates how institutional interventions and discursive formations seek to remake the complex histories and lives of migrant women, transforming them from former prostitutes or sex workers to worthy victims who can be rehabilitated, emancipated, and integrated within Italian society. Giordano moves skillfully from in-depth analyses of the power deployed by state bureaucrats—from cultural mediators and social workers to Catholic nuns—to the ways migrant women enact their own identities, pursue financial independence, seek emotional attachment, and attempt to resist the state program of moral redemption imposed on them.
