AEMI

FEDERICA MORETTI
‘Coming back to Italy means -
in my field means - to accept a job
that it is not really your dream job.
If you are lucky, it gets close to it.
[...] I don’t want to exclude the possibility,
but if I should think about
my future, I wouldn’t think to come
back. [...] For me, Italy is the top for
vacations. For my working future
it would be extremely difficult and
counter-productive to go to Italy’.
(Marco)
183
The Internet is crowded with magazines,
blogs and social networks on young Italians.
They often cover the same topic,
namely the fuga dei cervelli – i.e. the
brain drain. 2 The above quote of the Italian
Prime Minister is a clear-cut example.
On the contrary, the Italian second
and third generations are often left aside
from the debates.
Interested in capturing the movement
of people, and in unfolding what triggers
their (im)mobility – both physical
and mental – I engaged into an ethnographic
research framed by the theoretical
concept of imaginaries. The
investigation started indeed driven by a
will to delve into the above mentioned
fuga dei cervelli, to understand the positions
vis-à-vis the debate of the young
Italians directly involved into the process
of leaving Italy. However, what I
was particularly keen on uncovering was
‘the return’ addressed in the aforesaid
quotes both by the Italian Prime Minister
and Marco, as well as by Gloria,
the daughter of an Italian emigrant who
shared with me her desire to look for a
job in Italy.
To this extent, the investigation was
guided by the following research question:
how do the meta- and empirical
worlds of people interact and set in motion?
More precisely, the query was analysed
following three sub-questions: For
the purposes of the present paper the
focus shall be on the first – how is Italy
imagined? – and on the third – how do
imaginaries open up to various courses
of action?.
Therefore, the hereby paper addresses
some aspects of the processes of envisaging
and reviving Italy as emerged
throughout the fieldwork and especially
the interviews conducted in Leuven –
Belgium – among the Italian new first
and second/third generation of master
and PhD students following programmes
at the KU Leuven. 3
The research, analyzing how people
envisage Italy and how imaginaries influence
actions, allows to shed light on
the informants’ stances towards an attainable
physical return to the country.
In the following pages I shall, first,
briefly introduce the size of the current
Italian population residing in Belgium.
I shall then concisely elaborate on the
underlying theoretical framework enclosing
the investigation. Finally, I shall
delve into the practical insights collected
throughout the fieldwork to give an answer
to the two above-raised questions.
Setting the Context: Italians in
Belgium
The words of the Italian Prime Minister
opening the hereby introduction
might be an appropriate way to begin
a paper on young Italians abroad. This
is even more true if one considers that
the data on the current Italian emigration
describe the recent outbound flow
as composed by highly educated people