AEMI

188 AEMI JOURNAL 2015 2016
his conception of the country, however,
gradually changed as soon as he moved
to Belgium. He realized the immense
cultural substratum of the country; he
became aware of Italy’s fascinating cultural
traits; and his newly shaped image
guided him to plan to live a life out of
it. He decided to make ‘the Italian culture’
his life-job. So, as he explained to
me, his job at the university represents a
means to increase his understanding of
the country, and ‘to do something’about
Italy’s culture.
In his accounts, Sidney draws some
remarkable reflections, which I could
not but feel as intriguingly contradicting
the Urrian idea that that too much
involvement with the past can reduce
the vitality of the present (Urry, 1992).
Indeed, the past is for Sidney a means
to understand the present. Thus, past,
present and future are deeply tied in
Sidney’s narrative. The latter temporal
dimension, however, is what I need to
briefly pause the discussion on. Notwithstanding
his ‘hope’ that Italy could
be ‘his future’ – and not only his past
–, while elaborating on his future plans,
Sidney does not really appear incline to
move back to his home country. As he
said, “for the time being, I feel really
good here [in Belgium]. I have absolutely
no projects to go back living in
Italy. Maybe in a far future… I don’t
know, you never know. But, for now, I
see my life here. However, I do have this
dedicated interest for my country, my
culture that I consider to be the Italian
one [...]”.
Evidently, Sidney has made his
choice. He does not want to go back.
Not now, at least. What is more, however,
that Sidney also took a second lifechoice
based on his imaginary. In fact,
he chose to pursue a career into culture,
to develop and foster his knowledge
about his home country. Therefore,
Sidney’s ‘return’ is, at least for now,
pursued through his engagement with
his work of study and research on the
Italian culture. Hence, Italy’s imaginary
has pushed him to come back home, although
not physically.
The feeling of being torn between
hopes and fears, wishes and disenchantments,
is recurring in the participants’
stories. Often, in fact, the imaginary of
Italy twistedly influences the informants’
choices about their futures: pushing
them both towards and away from
Italy. This particularly materializes in
the working and career plans. In short,
as Marco said, the problem is usually
phrased as: ‘coming back to Italy means
accepting a job that it is not really your
dream job’.
Yet, as already said, whilst living in
Italy may not be seen as ‘a bed of roses’,
it is neither felt as insurmountably arduous.
Feelings are torn between wishes
and disenchantments, and future plans
are always accordingly twisted between
resolutions to come back and to stay
abroad. The pleasant images of Italy and
the appealing idea of going back home
are indeed only one side of the coin. On
the other, there is often melancholia and
disenchantment. Neither side is overarching
vis-à-vis the other. They are both
quintessentially intertwined with life
choices and decisions.
What, then, are the lessons to be
drawn from the stories? How do the imaginaries
influence life choices? I think
there are at least a couple of points to be
made. First, the participants’ relation-