The other Eurostars: lifestyle migration, class and race among vocationally trained Italians

Abstract

Please provide missing city for the reference "Recchi et al. 2019" references list entry.Response: Bristol CM1 : Please add the following Acknowledgements after the Conclusion: I wish to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their constructive comments and Berenice Scandone for the helpful feedback on an earlier version. Thanks also to the Leverhulme Trust for funding the research.

In Search of a Good Life in a Southern European Country: The New Italian Migration to Athens and Valencia.

“…Secondly, we could build a well-integrated and stable typology of the new Italian migrants. Finally, in the same line of Varriale (2021)…”

“…As shown by many scholars, most migrants have a higher education and/or high professional skills and migrate to European capitals such as London, Berlin and Paris (Dubucs et al, 2017;King et al, 2016;Valisena, 2016;Varriale, 2021) searching for job opportunities or to move ahead their career. This highly skilled migration makes sense for the current debates on "brain drain" or "brain escape" (Avveduto et al, 2004;Beltrame, 2007;Tintori & Romei, 2017), which are becoming popular in the media.…”

“…Drawing basically on conventional theories on labour market and mobility, this literature focuses on what is perceived as the most important migration flows -those concerning working-age people. According to these scholars, the scarcity of quality and well-paid jobs, due to the Italian economic crisis, drives young highly skilled people to leave the country (Recchi & Salamónska, 2015;Varriale, 2021). This outflow is not balanced by a corresponding inflow, because of the declining conditions of the Italian economy in the medium-long term.…”

“…In some case, Erasmus or tourist experience have likely facilitated the first contact and the rising of the idea that a better life is possible thanks to some distinguish features of a destination country not so far from Italy. The sample we analysed is considerably different from the "prototype" of young high skilled or high qualified people, such as the Eurostars depicted by Favell (2008) searching for adventure and cosmopolitanism in an economically and culturally vibrant metropolis such as London (Varriale, 2021).…”

Migrants’ transnational social positioning strategies in the middle classes

“…Thus, they are actively engaged in ‘place making’ (Neal et al., 2015; van Riemsdijk, 2014), where place is understood as an ongoing production based on a particular constellation of social relations that people are enmeshed in and participate actively to give shape to (Massey, 1991). The extent to which they are able to adapt to the new surroundings may well determine on how well people are able to insert themselves into ‘new’ middle‐class habitus in their country of destination (Erel & Ryan, 2018; Varriale, 2021). Here, the convertibility of their own social and cultural resources mediates to a large extent in how far migrants’ former middle‐class status and habitus is recognized by others in the country of destination and thus possible to be maintained (Erel, 2010; Waters, 2012).…”