One (Slender) Tree, Many (Social) Roots: Revisiting Immigrant Associations Through a Case Study on Ecuadorians in Italy

Abstract

Immigrant associations are often assumed to be social phenomena already 'out there', while their developmental trajectories and social roots are relatively understudied. Much literature has explored their contribution to the socio-political integration of newcomers, lumping together all of their non-political activities as 'co-ethnic sociability'. However, their micro-social roots deserve more attention, and the identity and symbolic dimensions of their initiatives are worth investigating further. Based on a literature review and an ethnography of a group of Ecuadorians living in Northern Italy, we revisit the factors affecting the development of immigrant associations as well as their primary fields of activity. While these associations are expressive of immigrants' cultural backgrounds and basically deal with informal sociability, they also have an implicitly political dimension, as they mirror immigrants' struggle for public visibility and recognition. A better appreciation of the political significance of immigrant associations (despite their shortcomings and political marginality), and of their evolving roots, is necessary to understand why, and how, newcomers such as the Ecuadorians in our case study may (or may not) join them.

Political Rights Regulation by Deferral: Obstacles to External Voting in Uruguay

“…Most South American migrant communities exhibit intermittent and fragmented social and political mobilization, ambivalent attitudes toward politics, low organizational capacity, formal and informal forms of political participation, and low turnout in electoral contests (e.g., Bermudez 2010;Boccagni and Pilati 2015;Margheritis 2017b). In Uruguay, scattered studies document a high level of diaspora mobilization around EV at an early stage of the debate (Moraes Mena 2009), especially for the community residing in neighboring Argentina (Merenson 2016a(Merenson , 2013.…”