. Uremate Routes

Work In Progress

Being Eritrean in Milan 1

Anna Arnone

Sussex University

This research concerns the Eritrean community resident in Milan where

it originated at least forty years ago. In this paper, I reflect on how to

work on the Eritrean perceptions of the self as a community away from

their native country; on the views on differences and similarities

between each other and those considered to be outside this community

;

and on the memories of the past of people with different personal and

social histories, and loyalties. Moreover, since this research relates to the

formation of identities and perceptions of the self among a migrant com-

munity, all the relevant issues are being collected and analysed with the

awareness that movement, dislocation, and re-location have great impact

on the perceptions of "home" and of the self in cultural, historical and

social terms. I'm looking not only at individuals and their experiences

and how they relate to the past, present and future, but I'm also searching

for the wider forces that constitute their present identities. Memory, soci-

etal structures, transnational links, daily practices and discourses are

seen as forces to be elaborated in this research. However, greater atten-

tion is devoted to issues arising around how categories of "us" and

"them" are shaped, away from the sending context, which has been fur-

thermore a conflicting one due to the wars with Ethiopia. To understand

the shape of the formation of categories. I not only focus on Eritreans

themselves but also on Milanese citizens and other migrants with whom
they share the city. The attention on identity formation always presents

dangers in notions of its authenticity and underlines the relevancy of

considering the contextual and historical complexities that involve indi-

viduals in a creative negotiation with the surrounding contexts. There-

fore it is useful to explain the proccssual formation of identity through

concepts of multipositionality and of ambivalence between discourses

and practices.

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Chemins Altertiatifs

The anthropology of identity has had a long history from the colonial

description of the "tribe" to the modem studies on "ethnicity". As a disci-
pline, anthropology tends to study the "other". Although not all anthro-

pological studies focus specifically on identity formation, there is often

an attention to social categories and an analysis of their constitution. By

focusing on the "anthropos", the human being, the spotlight on catego-

ries is practically intrinsic in the type of gaze itself. Generally, anthro-

pology is a type of analysis which tends to describe, shape and often

create typologies of cultures and societies. The creation of papers and

scripts does not only concern linguistic descriptions and theoretical anal-

yses; the study of society often has wider impacts and becomes incorpo-

rated in social defmitions of otherness and difference. The example of

the latter statement can be broadly seen in the anthropology of the colo-

nial period, which often supported the colonial apparatus in controlling

and in ruling their subjects by dividing them into different "tribes".

Anthropologists have thus had, and still have, the power to shape the

other and to theorise about people's lives, socialising norms and prac-

tices (this power however must not be overestimated, as I will argue

later). It is because of their participation in the constitution of social dis-

courses that anthropologists need to be reflexive and cautious in collect-

ing data, reporting and transcribing it into literature. This underlying

awareness has been brought out especially by the last decade's turns and

trends such as postmodernism and feminism, which have upset anthro-

pology and many other disciplines, and have inspired deeper discussions

on research methodologies as well as on their outcomes. Through this

latter analysis on the implications of anthropological studies on society,

there has also been a greater application of all forms of reflexivity during

fieldwork and in all the other stages of the research. This paper therefore

points to the need to reflect even before fieldwork itself. My aim here is
not only to reflect on my work in progress and the ways in which I
approach the field and the data, but also to understand the ways in which

identities have changed form and meaning in anthropological literature

and in the social domain of discourses and practices.

Thus, the research unfolds as a description of a work in progress with

its theoretical and epistemological concerns and methodologies. The the-

oretical background is divided into four parts and deals with four differ-

ent aspects of the epistemology. The first part elaborates the constitution

of identity through history. Here I describe the change and development

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of concepts such as race, ethnicity and nationalism, through the history

of the Horn of Africa and its colonial relations with Italy and Ethiopia.

Furthermore I emphasise the importance that the concepts of ethnicity

and nationalism have nowadays in relation to the conflict with Ethiopia

and the outcomes in loyalties and individual positioning. The historical

development of concepts of difference will also be a useful background

in mv future elaboration on how ideas of race and bounded cultures are
still inscribed in the ways Italians perceive the other. The structure that

Eritreans have left behind by migrating to Italy is still present in their

lives nearly as much as the receiving context. In fact the second part

deals with the politics of identity where both the individuals and the

structures come into play. By having its own politics of identity, such as

policies of inclusion and exclusion and the rights to citizenship, every

nation-state forces individuals to act and negotiate through its structures.

Introducing the core anthropological concern on discourses and prac-

tices, the following part looks into identity formation through which I

appreciate transnationalism. memories, loyalties and the embodiment of

culture. The two forces, the mnemonic one and the structural one, which

shape the constitution of identity, should be looked at not only in the

ways people talk about them but how they embody ideas of the self

through practices. Here identity is observed in its networks, in the ways

people shape communities and loyalties, and therefore, the ways in

which they constitute the self in relation to others. Through three spe-

cific sections I investigate the different forces that are affecting identity

constitution among Eritreans in Milan. Methodology is discussed

through the appreciation of the "field". This last part of the paper is

related to the previous theoretical sections, expanding on issues previ-

ously raised and explaining the ways through which I'm exploring the

field. Identity here is explored through some hypotheses on consumption

of space and of meaningful objects. The focus is cast on the relation

between culture and the body, the embodiment of identity.

Identity and the development ofconcepts ofethnicity and nationalism

through time and space

Migration is such a loaded aspect of society that it not only becomes vis-

ible in policy making, in the jurisdictional, political and economic sec-

tors, but also it is very widely discussed in the media and in main other

social contexts. This anthropological research on identity formation

22 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

through migratory experiences specifically wants to contextualise the

formation of social categories; by deconstructing them it intends to iden-

tify' the implications that these have on individuals. Here. I reflect on cat-

egories constructed under the Italian colonisation and the ways in which

they still continue under other guises. Through a preliminary analysis of

their conceptualisation, race, ethnicity and nationalism are understood

not as given natures of peoples but as social constructs. Specifically, in

present times ethnicity often becomes instrumental to those who have

interests in extorting memories and advancing conflicts in the name of a

symbolised identity.

History and imagined communities

Historical contingencies here are connected to questions of memory and

self-identity. Disruption is thus often related to the difficult history start-

ing from the period of Italian colonialism (1889-1942). After the Italian

defeat in 1942 there was a period of transition in which a British man-

date was initially installed; following the decision by the League of

Nations, Eritrea became a federation in the Ethiopian nation state in

1952. The subsequent annexation in 1962 of the Eritrean territory into

Haile Selassies empire brought about complex reactions and fragmented

discursive nationalistic rhetoric in Eritrea. At this time, there were many

attempts to constitute what it meant to be Eritrean. First, there was an

Islamic movement opposed to the Ethiopian imposition not only of

Amharic2 as the official language but most of all to the Orthodox

Church3 as the national faith. After the organisation of the ELF (Eritrean
Liberation Front), the EPLF (Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front) was
born with its ideology insisting instead on a multiethnic Eritrean nation.

There was however another contemporary' movement, which fought for

the continuation of unity with Ethiopia. In the following years there was

organised guerrilla warfare between these three different factions and

after some years the EPLF gained the majority's consent. It was at this
time between the seventies and the nineties that Eritreanness was consti-

tuted as the founding ideology for an independent Eritrean nation-state

(officially achieved only in 1993) and its long-lasting conflict with Ethi-

opia.

The description of colonial history allows an analysis of the constitu-

tion of perceptions of the self, in relation to "the other" on both sides, the

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. I liemate Routes

Italian and the Eritrean one. Thus, the period of the Italian colonisation

of Eritrea can be identified as the beginning of the differentiation of Eri-

treanncss from Ethiopianness, hence the rise of such ideas of identities

as uniform wholes. Before the Italian invasion and the contemporary

scramble for Africa by the European super powers, identity was most

likely perceived in other terms. During the 19
th century the territories of

present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia were composed of different chiefdoms,

which had trading relations between each other and with people along

the Red Sea and other neighbours (Selassie 1980). We can imagine that
there were similarities and differences between and within groups, and

that views of the "other" were often perceived in terms of religion and/or

geographic location and/or language, but probably not bounded into

nationalities or ethnicities, nor essentialised and naturalised in the ways

they tend to be now. It has been argued many times that the idea of

homogeneity according to religion, culture and language within a

defined territory is in fact a recent one.

The constitution of ideas as a whole, identified with a nation, is rec-

ognisable in the West as an outcome of the rise of capitalism and the use

of the press for mass consumption from the nineteenth century (Gellner

1983, Hobsbawm 1983 and Anderson 1991). In the African context it

can instead be understood as a post-colonial symptom. Yet different

identities were shaped in the same period as in the West, not in the order

of nation building as in Europe, but as categories imposed by the colo-

nial administration. During colonialism the super powers acted as sover-

eign nations with specific boundaries, while at the same time they

"regionalised" and "tribalised" their subjects in the colonies. These clas-

sification systems fixed previously unbounded notions of culture and

religion in the same ways as nation building proceeded in the West.

Though they were contrarily used to differentiate into tribes and clans, to

divide rather than unify their subjects, favouring some and neglecting

others, ranking peoples through dichotomies based on notions of race,

civilization, and religion. This colonial surgery has had a huge impact on

the ways in which African liberation movements have imagined their

nations and have competed for political power since independence.

24 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

Italian colonialism and "la questione della razza
'

The premises for the analysis of the Italian colonial period in Eritrea

arise from the fact that at the time when the Italian government decided

on its politics of expansion Italy itself was a newly bom nation-state.
Most of the citizens did not yet know what it meant to be Italian and to

belong to a nation-state. Moreover, the state itself was not mature in its

structures. Since Italy did not provide sufficient facilities in all its terri-

tory, an enormous number of emigrants were moving abroad in search

for work. Consequently, the decision to colonise was not due to the quest

for primary resources abroad or to expand a saturated economy, which

was the motivation for British or French colonialism. Italy still needed to

constitute itself as a nation in all its internal structures and ideologies.

Thus colonialism was a reaction to the lack of consent and nationalistic

feelings and to achieve hegemonic power in Italy. It has been recounted

that the Italian civilians in the Eritrean colony in the early years ridicu-

lously numbered fewer than twenty people (Rainero 2001). Nonetheless,

although it failed to colonise in the same organised and economically

effective way as other superpowers, it cannot be argued, as often hap-

pens, that Italian colonisation had no impact and, therefore, that histori-

cal memory can be dismissed simply with an embarrassed smile. In

present days, the issues around the lack of post-colonial reflection needs

to be thoroughly dealt with. This premise to an analysis of Italian colo-

nialism needs to be spelled out in order to understand the context, which

spooned the obsession in defining bounded categories of racially, cultur-

ally and religiously differentiated subjects in the colony.

The first period was characterised by a stance identifiable with the

patriotic ideal of an Italian "civilising" mission towards the "primitive"

Eritrean population. Ethnographers such as Alberto Pollera were hired to

facilitate an understanding of the subjects and, therefore, to achieve

more means of control. Ethnography was, at this time (1985-1920 circa),

used to sustain the customary law through which the administration of

the colony was supported. Ethnography was thus combined with the

employment of local chiefs, the manipulation of customs, and the map-

ping of the territory. The Italian colonial period before the arrival of Fas-

cism had already, in many ways, fixed ideas of an Eritrean territory not

only with defined boundaries, but also with internal differentiations and

divisions, often in terms of '"grades" of civilisation of the subjects. Dur-

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ing the second period with the Fascist colonialism, there was no such

contact with the native population. The two periods differ drastically in

their rhetoric, linguistic meanings and discourses, and in the formulation

of policies and laws. With the rise of Fascism the previous interpreta-

tions of difference, which not only related to a biological definition, but

also to a social and historical understanding, disappeared. With the

Empire, the civilising mission was over and replaced by a sort of apart-

heid in limited terms of race. Although the level of racial components of

the Eritrean population was recognised as superior to that of other

"Negroes" (Biasutti 1941), still the Fascist racial classification system

created not only a legitimised climax of terror and violence, but also dis-

criminations between the various groups. The change, however, did not

happen suddenly; it was instead a slow process in which old colonial

administrators were moved from one position to another, with the final

intent of getting rid of them and substituting them with the newly

recruited colonial officers, trained with the ideology of the Fascist

regime. This trend is revealed in the biography of Alberto Pollera, colo-

nial administrator and ethnographer during the first period of Italian

colonialism and who was slowly but meaningfully rejected during Fas-

cism (Sorgoni, 2001).

The ethnographic attention that was building up in the first period

followed particular lines of enquiry such as that found in Polleras work.

The terms of classification and categorisation of administrative units by

which research was carried out certainly determined the answers that

referred to essentialised, uniform and bounded groups. Though, as Far-

don (2000) briefly argues, this is due to the fact that those ethnographers

were also administrators for the same colonial administration that was

posing the questions of enquiry. The following Fascist attention to the

"qucstione della razza", the race issue, was not applied through ethno-

graphic enquiry but through bio-measurements and descriptions of

typologies of physical connotations among different grades of racially

defined groups. Ethnographers at this point were a hindrance for the new

regime of truth since they were questioning the differences between

human beings through attentions to variables other than bone structures.

Anthropology in main ways supported the dominant discourse during

the first "civilising" period. Though, as was argued by Sorgoni, it was

appreciated more for its provision of maps and brief and easily under-

standable descriptions of tribes and clans in the appendices. Pollera.

26 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

however, not only focused on those dominant issues. He was also

describing processes by which groups shape certain customs rather than

others in more complex terms than the ones quoted by the administra-

tion. It is true, therefore, that he never stood up to explain that his work

should be read in its complexities.

Here arises the question concerning the power of anthropology. The

interpretations of anthropological work, by those commissioning it, cer-

tainly determined more than what the ethnographer actually wrote. This

does not mean that the way in which people were described should be

acceptable in modern anthropological debates, but that the analysis car-

ried out by Pollera was at that time probably groundbreaking in many-

aspects. Moreover, as Kuper (1995) argues, anthropology was often not

listened to and even mocked. Ethnographic work was rarely commis-

sioned from professional anthropologists, but rather from those who

were amateurs of the discipline while being, career-wise, colonial

administrators. The problem therefore resides not so much in how the
ethnography of the colonial period, such as Polleras, produced and re-

produced those static identities but how this intellectual work was used

by the colonial administration at that time and by liberation movements

later.

Liberation andNationalism

"Did Africans swallow ethnicisation wholesale simply by adopting the

European gaze and without projects of their own?'" (Fardon, 2000: 146).

Obviously the answer is no. The recurrent argument of the influences of

European colonisation on ideas of the self is often overemphasised in

terms of a passivity of the African subjects. It has now been confirmed

by many scholars that the European gaze shaped ways of defining the

African self, but that "modern" ethnicity that has grown since colonial-

ism has more complex character than that of being a simple clone of

European ideologies. This passage by Turton clearly explains the spirit

of ethnicisation in the contemporary scramble for power:

First there is the extreme fear and hatred that ethnic differ-

ence is capable of arousing in people who formerly lived

together as neighbours. Second, there is the use of ethnicity

by political leaders to mobilise their followers and manipu-

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late the international community, a strategy which is not

only deliberate but also cynical, because it requires at least

some degree of detachment from the collective emotions it

plays upon. Third, there is the use of electronic media for

the global dissemination of images of grief, suffering and

destruction brought about by the ethnic enemy. Fourth,

there is the territorial imperative of ethnic nationalism: the

appeal to a selective remembered and invented past to jus-

tify current claims to territory. And finally, [...] the charac-

teristic readiness of nationalist leaders everywhere to

sacrifice the lives of their followers, supposedly to advance

the cause of that abstract entity, the nation, but in reality to

extend and consolidate their own hold on political power

(1997:1).

In Turton's passage, the fourth and the final points are especially con-

nected with the previous argumentation around colonialism and anthro-

pology and they are, moreover, useful for the discussion of how the

contemporary form of Eritrean national identity was constituted. The

"territorial imperative" and its combination with the imagination of an

historical justification are very relevant in the case of Eritrean liberation

movements. The sacrifice of lives in order to pursue nation building is

another extremely important issue to have in mind since millions have

died and this has really soaked into the memories of Eritreans. In both

issues, it is the strategy of the political, nationalist leaders that needs to

be understood in this section, since in many ways they have channelled

the whole of Eritrea into a nation built with bloodshed. As has been

argued by Araya (1997), before 1974 the imagining of Eritrea was frag-

mented and contentious. The liberation movements had so many con-

flicting views of what to fight for that they ended up in guerrilla warfare.

From 1974 onwards it was the EPLF who incorporated mam fighters
under the same name, thus building a strategic ideology which was

bound to work in moving the civilians into the struggle for liberation.

The fight against Ethiopia was often quoted by the EPLF leaders as the

unifying issue which increasingly constituted the national identity : the

ideology of nationalism was constituted more by the hatred for the Ethi-

opian enemy than by the love for Eritrean similarities and shared past.

28 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

Therefore, the selected history chosen by the nationalists was based on

the Eritrean "colonised past", not so much the Italian but more the Ethio-

pian one (Minority Rights Group 1983).

To a large extent, intellectual work contributed to the selection of the

history and symbols incorporated in the memory of the Eritrean nation.

Gramsci, in his work, often emphasises the role of intellectuals in build-

ing ideologies to be thereafter applied not only in the constitution of

political parties, but also to be incorporated in civil society as motors for

revolution. Intellectuals have largely, though sometimes even unwill-

ingly, brought their influences to bear on issues of ethnicity and nation-

alism. The work of historical reconstruction and political activism from

abroad, by Eritrean refugees and emigres, has certainly been deliberate.

Nationalists have often manoeuvred previous histories and ethnogra-

phies in order to support their theses. Even the work by Westerners inter-

ested in determining the nature of ethnicity and nationalism has had its

impact. Talking about identities in one way or another often ends up
being a resource for political rhetoric. Political activists, on their part,

not only maintain and construct ideologies through symbolic tokens and

memories to support their activities, but also to move civil society.

Those leaders, as emphasised above by Turton, are ready '"to sacrifice

the lives of their followers, supposedly to advance the cause of that

abstract entity, the nation, but in reality to extend and consolidate their

own hold on political power" (ibid). This can clearly be seen in Eritrean

history through those moments in which the EPLF literally eliminated
entire opposition groups (Minority Rights Group, 1983) that were divert-

ing the liberation movement through their focus on class-consciousness

rather than on ethnicity and regionalism, as the EPLF was doing. The
shift that MENKAE, for example, would have furthered was an analysis
of the weakness of the EPLF as an elitist movement, pretending to be
populist (Araya 1997).

Through this description of the historical path to the present, I do not

want to assess the truth of those historical memories that are the funda-

mentals for nationalism. Contrarily. like Anderson (1991), I wish to

understand the ways in which this identity has been imagined and prac-

tised. Anthropologically, this latter task can only be followed through

peoples discourses and daily practices. The pursuit of this type of data

collection and its intrinsic epistemological and philosophical signifi-

cance is explained in the third part of this paper. Here, I am concerned

Volume 19, 2003 29



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with the political and intellectual constitution of loyalties and, therefore,

of idioms explaining history and naturalising political ideologies. In the

light of the political games nationalists have played, I have included this

analvsis of the ideological constitution of Eritrean nationalism because it

introduces the mnemonic force through which to look at "Eritreanness"

in Milan. Eritrean refugees in Italy were highly organised during the sev-

enties with annual meeting in Bologna and Rome. These took place at

the time when the discourses of the EPLF started to have relevancy in

Eritrea. Migrants and refugees were to large extent the minds and the

sponsors of this political activism. Thus, many people have lived abroad

intensely hoping and fighting for, and believing in, one ideology or

another. Consequently a politically loaded past is affecting the constitu-

tion of different memories among the Eritrean community in Milan.

Structure andpolitics ofidentity

The previous part contained an analysis of the history of Eritrea and its

implications for the constitution of identity. In describing the various

ways in which identity has been imagined and used, I encountered the

instrumental use of identity by elites and nationalists. This type of histor-

ical analysis helps me to understand the political value of the memories

of people who have migrated to Italy, or who have applied for political

asylum. In continuing on this background analysis, I discuss the institu-

tional influences of the structures in which individuals live now and how

these affect the formation of identity. I consider the role of the nation

state and its policies and institutional order. This part is positioned after

the previous one not only for theoretical reasons but also for the chrono-

logical succession of events, from the formation of the nation state of

Italy first and of Eritrea later, to the present consolidation of power and

application of nationalism within civil society. While the first part

focused on the invention and imagination of the nation, this part hinges

on the politics reinforcing and reproducing the rhetoric of being a nation

and on polices of inclusion and of exclusion which consolidate the imag-

ined community. In this background reconstruction, the discussion leads

to an analysis of current policies and rules by which my informants are
constrained and enabled and with which they arc negotiating through

official or unofficial paths.

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Integration and the nation-state
The nation state is an entity that defines and shapes individuals within. It

presumes a model of homogeneity. The nation has an underlying need to

constitute a shared language, territory, history and culture, which are

perceived as natural and human. After 140 years, throughout the regions

of Italy, there is still a perceived difference between the various geo-

graphical areas (Pratt, 2002). But the nation has been successfully incor-

porated into the minds of the Italians who identify with this imagined
community when the need arises. In this way, the concept of Italy has

become a tool of identification, at times symbolising a need of society to

relate to a world that is outside the self-imaginary.

Hobsbawm (1990) thought that the nation was on its last legs. He
thought that with the spread of globalisation the nation-state would have

to shift to something different, more suitable for the times. Appadurai

(1990) and Featherstone (1990) instead argued that nationalism and glo-

balisation are two faces of the same process, trying to cannibalise one

another and, at the same time, feeding each other. Whatever the theories

say about the nature of this relation, the facts show that these two social

processes find it difficult to communicate and to stabilise with each

other. One example is directly related to migration. On the one hand, we
have a huge flow of people moving in the world often to other wealthier

or politically more liberal countries and the need of societies to open up

to the inputs arising from a globalising world. On the other hand, we
have a conservative idea of community (the nation-state) that does not

allow internal difference. The state, therefore, organises itself using con-

ceptual frameworks to explain the contradictions arising from the need

for economic overture and social and cultural closure. The nation state as

an organisation finds it difficult to merge inclusion and respect for dif-

ference and similarities. Thus, we need to understand the effects that dif-
ferent policies have on civil society and on the shape of ethnicity of both

the citizens of the nation, and the immigrants who are trying to settle,
who are briefly passing through, or who are staying for a short term.

Integration is an awkward mission in the nation state. If it's seen as a

coming together of parts into a whole (group, community, society,

nation), so as to render it organic and well organised (J. Foot, 1999:

160), it becomes an act of complex surgery inside civil as well as politi-

cal society'. The immediate outcomes might be painful and contradictory.

Volume 19, 2003 31



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Contrarily though society as a fluid entity could be appreciated as having

the ability to change and adapt to new social relations. In the specific

case of the impact of mass immigration, both the host society and the

migrants themselves change by interacting with one another. Integration,

as a political intervention, in this context becomes even more loaded

with constraints and contradictions.

Integration: the Italian style

Confronted with the more tangible and incumbent problems that migra-

tion unexpectedly brought to Italian society, the policies did not have the

means or the time (or were not receptive enough) to harmonise the flux

of newcomers and the residents. Problems like housing, health practices,

and illegal moonlighting (lavoro nero), have found Italian governments

unprepared and powerless to act. After twenty years the problem is still

unsolved and complex. Laws and policies have been approved without

successful results. Confusion and conflict end by ruling the tactics of the

state and policy making. But in the same way, as Favell (2002) argues, it

is because Italy is a chaotic society that this new emergence of peoples

might be integrated in a more elastic way than elsewhere. People find

their way through a system that is highly bureaucratic, but for this very
reason, they locate other means for organising themselves.

Italy, after all, has a different history of migration from that of other

European countries such as the UK and France. This diversity' is first of
all due to the relative novelty of foreign5 immigration in Italy, secondly

to its lack of colonial and post-colonial relations with the newcomers6
,

and finally to the deficiency of post colonial reflection in the Italian soci-

ety (Riccio 2000). As pointed out by Favell (2002), another peculiarity

that characterises the Italian situation is its economic sector and bureau-

cracy, which allow relatively easy initial and temporary access to

resources, providing low wages in exchange for labour (also Salih 2000).

Problems encountered by the Italian society, although very significant,

have been exaggerated by the media, where migrants have been pictured

as generally responsible for unemployment and involved in criminal

activities. Within Italy, there have been various political responses to

migration. Bossi. leader of the Lcga Lombarda. who demands a change
in the constitution in order to include the clandestine and illegal presence

32 Volume 19, 2003



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of migrants as prosecutable by law, represents the more common
approach.

The Bossi-Fini law is the new Act, which was officially accepted in

October, 2002. It intends to identify and expel illegal migrants and

deny access to those without a work contract. It paradoxically allows

people to stay in the country up to two years if possessing a long-term

contract of work, forcing employers to "legalise" their position and

that of employees. Moreover, and this is the weakest part of the law, it

intends to collect and record the fingerprints of all "legal** migrants.

This latter section has been highly criticised by mam politicians, intel-
lectuals and central exponents of the public scene. They have above all

advanced the accusation that the law would create discrimination and

criminalisation of the immigrants and, therefore, Italian citizens should

also have their fingerprints on identify cards. Radio Popolare, a left-

wing activist radio in Milan, has even collected fingerprints of

Milanese residents and immigrants, but rather than that of the index,

they asked people to donate the fingerprints of their extended middle

finger (!); these fingerprints have then been sent to the government.

Members of the Catholic Church have openly discussed the xenopho-

bic character of this law. Many organisations such as Caritas and some

churches have even announced that they will continue to shelter "ille-

gal migrants'* regardless of the law. The UNHCR7 has accused this law
of denying all rights to asylum seekers and ignoring the entire issue of

political asylum.

As the Bossi-Fini law shows, the issues of population movement,

legitimacy of movement and asylum seeking are highly sensitive, con-

tested and loaded. It reveals the extent to which ideas of difference are

sharply emphasised by the present right-wing government, escalating

discrimination and fear. Furthermore, it demonstrates lack of reflection

on the social dimensions. The multicultural element has never even

been approached; there has been no concern about what type of inte-

gration to allow; no interest on the migrants* social status in the Italian

society; nor has there been any analysis of the impacts of this kind of

discourse on society itself. This law has passed, but hasn't shown itself

fully enacted. This instability- is greatly affecting the lives of many Eri-

treans in Milan, especially those who have recently arrived asking for
political asylum. Moreover, the stereotypical categories arising from

Volume 19, 2003 33



Alternate Routes

this kind of political debate themselves become strong forces in the con-

stitution of the Eritrean self.

Practices ofIdentity-

Great attention has been placed in the social sciences on the issue of the

relationship between individual agency and the forces of the structure's

s> sternness. In anthropology, this constituted the initial motor for ethno-

graphic research. In Malinowskis (esp. 1922), for example, we can find

the origins of mam other anthropological and sociological approaches to
the issue. In the functionalist and structuralist analyses of individual

agency and social structure, however, the mechanical character of, and

the concentration on social stability divert attention to something not

empirically applicable (e.g. Parsons, 1951 and Giddens. 1984). Experi-

ence through fieldwork is what is needed to understand the dynamics

that occur between the institutional organizations and their practitioners,

and the people using the facilities, who are therefore "integrated" within

society. It is not the question of rules and regulations which most con-

cerns the research. The focus on agency must be applied through looking

at the "little politics of daily life". After discussing the politics of iden-

tity in the Italian structural context and investigating the dynamics of

integration in the nation-state, it is thus necessary to elaborate on the

ways in which individuals live the proprieties of modem society. Indi-
viduals in this structural formation have to interact within its rules, and

negotiate in order to be included. The structure is not something

detached from the individual, since the former does not exist without the

latter. Individual and collective actions and discourses are thus produc-

ing and reproducing the structure in which they live. The dynamic

between structure and agency is therefore a fundamental issue in this

research and it is dealt with through an analysis of discourse and prac-

tice.

Plurinational subjects and tvansnationahsm
In the transnational context which my research examines, individuals are
engaged with more than one of these structures. In migratory experi-

ences individuals often find themselves duelling not only with the host-

ing society, but also with the sending nation. The ways in which

individuals live in transnational contexts constitute them as "plurina-

tional subjects" (Salih. 2000). By the term plurinational subjects. Salih

34 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

explicitly emphasises the fact that people living in more than one struc-

ture will need to negotiate with the rules and regulations of both societ-

ies: the sending and the receiving one. With this term she intends to

describe those new citizens who move to Italy but, nonetheless, want to

keep their citizenship in their home country. To do this, these people

need to engage with the structures of both nation-states, becoming not

only participants in both societies, but also subject to their systems.

Transnational patterns are found in those practices occurring beyond

the boundaries of a nation. There has been great attention to the ways in

which migrants and refugees live their lives across nations, the sending

and the receiving one. This has been called transnationalism and has

been widely discussed across disciplines (Vertovec, 1999; Basch et al.,

1994; and Al-Ali et al., 2001a). Transnationalism has been widely exam-

ined in its relation with nation building. As has been brief!} noted in the

historical analysis, the states and liberation movements have promoted

transnationalism as a means for nation building. Transnational activities

are therefore not a novelty, but have increased their visibility in recent

times through the development of media, international communication

and the movement not only of ideas but also of material products and

money. Different groups and individuals, however, do not experience

transnationalism in the same way. Transnational activities need to be

understood in their single cases and in their changes.

The Eritrean state has devoted considerable attention to its diaspora.

Efforts have been made - by the EPLF before liberation (in Minority

Rights Group, 1983 and in Al Ali et al., 2001a,b) and by the PFDJ (Peo-

ples Front for Democracy and Justice), the present ruling party in the

government - to keep Eritreans abroad active in helping their homeland.

The government demands payment, as the liberation movement previ-

ously did, of two per cent of wages earned abroad. During the last war

with Ethiopia (1998-2001) the percentage increased. In 1993, during the

election for the independence of Eritrea as a nation, all those abroad

were given the rights to vote. The Eritrean state and embassies also often

organise events, such as conferences and music festivals and so on,

encouraging Eritreans abroad to identify with a transnational community

always in contact with the sending nation-state. Al-Ali et al. (2001a.b)

have noticed that in Germany and the UK the social pressure to respect
these dynamics was so high that donations were publicly shown on

boards stating the names and the amounts paid. Other remittances, such

Volume 19, 2003 35



. 1 1remote Routes

as family responsibilities and bureaucratic affairs have been described as

forms of "forced transnationalism", leading refugees and migrants to an

evident involvement with the sending context.

In the milieu of Eritrean communities in Germany and in the UK, Al-

Ali. Koser and Black have noticed the visible difference between the

"culture of remittances" (2001a.b) and transnational links before the last

conflict and how peoples are experiencing their relation with the home-

land in present times. Some have been caught in the rhetoric of Eritrea

"as the victim of more populous, more powerful and internationally-sup-

ported neighbour bent on recolonisation" (2001a: 595) and, therefore,

supported the nation in stronger ways. Many, however, are now disen-

chanted with the politics of the PFDJ which has monopolised political

power and has engaged Eritrea in the recent conflict with Ethiopia, cost-

ing thousands of lives and great suffering, but also bringing the country

to an economic situation even worse than the previous one. Therefore,

the consent that was previously more or less widespread among the Eri-

trean diaspora has now changed. It is therefore very interesting to under-

stand the impact which recent events have left on the transnational

practices linked with the state and with kin ties.

Jlie constitution ofthe homeland

Transnational practices, however, are not limited to those described

above. The transnational levels at which my research looks, are not only
related to the movement of money or goods through remittances from

the host country to Eritrea. On the contrary, I am engaged above all with
the opposite dynamic, that of the movement of goods, ideas and so on

from Eritrea to Italy. In this research, the daily practices are followed in

their multiplicity of layers and positions. Loyalties are recorded not so

much in relation to people's involvement in the reconstruction of Eritrea

but more in relation with their lives in Milan. Transnationalism is there-

fore a concept leading to the elaboration of ideas of "home", "commu-

nity'* and the constitution of the self abroad.

Malkki's ethnography of displacement clearly shows how the experi-
enced dctcrritorialisation often affects refugees in shaping "attachments

to specific territories and links between people, polity and territory"

(1995: 1). Furthermore, her research demonstrates that there are strug-

gles over history and truth coming into play. The comparative nature of

36 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

her fieldwork revealed different "communities of memory" (Malkki,

1997) that have arisen in two different contexts. The research focused on

Hutu refugees in Tanzania who were displaced after the genocides in

Burundi and Rwanda between 1993 and 1994. Malkki carried out field-

work in a refugee camp and among town refugees. The different shapes

of identity that the researcher has noticed are striking. Refugees in the

camp were describing a primordial social harmony among the original

Hutu nation. They saw themselves as a "nation in exile
7
' (Malkki, 1995:

3). The town refugees were instead seeking ways of assimilating multi-

ple and shifting identities. "In the course of the everyday, those in town

were creating not a heroized national identity', but rather a lively cosmo-

politanism - a worldliness that led the camp refugees to see them as an

impure, problematic element in the "total community* of the Hutu refu-

gees heroized as people in exile*" (ibid). The contrast between the histor-

ical-national identity of the camp refugees and the cosmopolitan one of

the Hutu living in the town shows the multiplicity of "communities of

memory**, which arise among displaced people in different contexts.

Povrzanovics fieldwork among the Croatian diaspora in Sweden

shows another type of differentiation in the imagination of the home-

land. In this research the author has noted that there is no unified "Croat-

ian Diaspora"", since it entails an ensemble of different homeland

experiences, different positions in the countries of residence and genera-

tional differences. People with diverse experiences are however often

involved in the creation and re-creation of diasporic discourses and poli-

tics. The celebration of national symbols constitutes a high emotional

significance which is also opposed to the prohibitions under the previous

Yugoslav communist regime. Povrzanovic, therefore noticed the sym-

bolisms that unified many Croatians under the dream of the homeland.

The dream though was privately experienced in many different ways by

different peoples. The wish to return was alive for some and was com-

pletely absent for others who contrarily lived the idea of return with fear

and pain. The different perceptions of the homeland and emotions linked

with it depended on the individual experiences which had led to their

exile and on the positions they hold in the host society (Povrzanovic,

1999).

The insight in these two researches demonstrates to what extent refu-

geeness, displacement and diaspora need to be understood in their plu-

ralities and multiplicity of voices. Moreover the issues of

Volume 19, 2003 37



Alternate Routes

transnationalism in contexts where individuals are duelling with pain

and violence become more complex in their significance and percep-

tions. The peculiarities of individual experiences conflate with the lack

of comprehension often present among the host community. The anxi-

eties and insecurities with which main transnational people live are aug-

mented by the policies not always allowing inclusion and by the lack of

understanding and historical memory of the mainstream of the Italian

society. These dynamics are now included during fieldwork through a

focus on discourse and practice and through an analysis of the relation

between the large scale of Italian society and the small scale of social

life in Milan. Thus, identity is present through this search for the forces

within people's practices and discourses.

Discourse, practice and embodiment

Discourse and practice are the realms of the anthropological debate.

Both the historical and the structural-institutional contexts are to be

understood as important milieus. They provide great insight into the

heart of the issues relevant to this research and they are basilar for an

understanding of exegesis and day-to-day practices among Eritrean com-

munities in Milan. Thus, since the research wants to go beyond structure

and mnemonics, the epistemology supporting the fieldwork needs to be

spelled in order to introduce the methodology which will be dealt with in

the next section.

Discourse is in itself a multi-faceted concept intrinsically linked with

the linguistic formation through which people explain their perception of

reality. In recent debates, though, discourse has been conceptualised as

the production and reproduction of social understandings. The Foucaul-

dian analysis has been widely applied to streams of debates included in

the post-modem turn. The ideological concern, prevalent in Marxist

analysis, has been further developed through discourse analysis. Ideol-

ogy, with its (Marxist) implicit idea of alienation, has been expanded in

a theoretical appreciation of individual production and re-production of

discourses. Discourse is therefore a concept used to explain those topical

formations of reality in which even individual is involved. Although the

formation of discursive explanations do not constrain themselves solely

to a linguistic reality, in Foucaults analysis, discourse is a regime of

truth which pervades practice as well as language. In many ways dis-

38 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

course is like an ideology not produced by the powerful elite which

alienates the working class to keep the means of production. Discourse is

not something over which someone has the power of manipulation (Fou-

cault, 1980). Every individual is, in fact, subjected to it and at the same

time empowers it by re-producing it. It is a snake with no head and no

tail.

Practice has instead been the focus of the phenomenological trend

(starting from Bourdieu and continuing through M. Jackson and H.

Moore) privileging an attention to performance rather than linguistic

exegesis. In this approach, there is a conceptualisation of praxis as some-

thing that comprehends the dialectics occurring between structure and

agency, and between the material and symbolic domains, away from lin-

guistic interpretations. Experience becomes the concern through which

the relation between the self and the other is understood. The attention to

practical engagement shifts away the structuralist concern about the indi-

vidual's act of following predefined social rules and norms. The phe-

nomenological and experiential focus also reduces the importance of the

social structure by explaining symbolic and ritual practices as concrete

bodily engagements, rather than as abstractions depending on the social

structures themselves.

In the same way as the Foucauldian analyses do, phenomenological

approaches have developed a theory in which the individual participates

in social processes rather than being passively adapted to a-priori rules

and meanings. What thus links the two trends is the fact that the individ-

ual is not a passive nor alienated being who reproduces something resid-
ing outside. Neither does the involvement of the individual imply that s/

he is independent and, therefore, may completely detach her/himself

from shared meanings. Moreover, the concept which links but at the

same time differentiates the two trends is that of embodiment. In Fou-

cault's analysis of institutions such as the clinic (1973) and the prison

(1977), language and categorisation shape the bodies of individuals. The

gaze, through which discourse is imprinted, is an embodiment of the lin-

guistic formation of reality; but at the same time, by applying categories

on the body, it produces embodiment. There is, therefore, a relation

between language and practice in Foucault but it is the former which

shapes the latter. In the analysis by Bourdieu (1977), the experience of

the body itself is the motor for embodiment. In his analysis, cognition is

not a state of the mind, its a process occurring in the body; he is thus not

Volume 19, 2003 39



Alternate Routes

talking about knowledge but about embodiment. Social incorporation is

not simply a sterile reproduction of symbolic frameworks but a process

of acquisition. He identifies embodiment through communication; the
learning of how to act is achieved through the body, creating memory,

posture and feelings. Thus social incorporation is achieved through

experience. The linguistic exegesis most of the time does not achieve

logical explanations of action; it is action itself which shows the mean-

ings. Action therefore is the meaning itself. These two stances differ in

their focuses. In the first it is discourse which produces and reproduces

regimes of truth, and in the latter, it is practice which shows social incor-

porations. The two stances, one leaning to language, the other to prac-

tice, are asking different questions.

The Foucauldian discourse analysis has, in fact, opened the path

towards an understanding of the force that linguistic explanations have

on reality. I apply this perspective to understand the Italian policies and

their discursive influence on people's ideas of the other. Moreover, this

view leads to the questions on the implications of the discursive forma-

tions on individuals. I am thus looking for the ways in which the catego-
ries formed by the Italian mainstream affect the ways Eritreans act, and

embodying the gaze which is defining them. At the same time I am inter-
ested in the ways in which discourses of identity are produced and repro-

duced among the Eritrean communities in Milan. The work by
Povrzanovic has shown how people may be reproducing symbologies
and sharing unified ideologies, while in their day-to-day practices and in

their dreams they interpret discourses in different ways through their

personal experiences and their specific positions in society.

Practice and experience are very useful conceptual tools to under-

stand what I call the "politics of little things". Questions around the

embodiment of social practices are thus dealt with through a particular

attention to the body and consumption. There is also an interest in under-

standing the religious experiences of Coptic Orthodox Eritreans in

Milan, focusing not on the doctrinal nature of religion but on the process

of acquisition of belief and ritual meanings. The phenomcnological

approach is also interesting as a methodology for research. The experi-

ential scope is needed to understand the field in its humanity, through the

eyes of a human being. Moore (1999) and Jackson (1989) have
explained that it is important to look not only into the particularities of

the field of study and its local exegesis but also into the link that the

to Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

peculiarities of even- social field have with each other. The general

focus on what they like to call human experience is important to surpass

the relativistic approach which would arise out of the sole attention to

specificity and difference. On the other hand, the Foucauldian discourse

analysis leads the researcher to reflect on his/her own words and re-pro-

ductions of existing discourses and power dynamics, and forces the

anthropological gaze to be aware of its impacts and interpretations. Both

approaches are therefore useful for the research.

Methodology and Fieldwork

Tlie site

Eritrean discourses and practices are looked at specifically from the con-

text of an extended and complex city such as Milan where there is room

for a variety of perceptions of the self, networks allowing transnational

social economic and symbolic activities - affecting identity, narratives

and practices of cultural negotiation, and different spheres of resistance

to social and economic marginalisation, and subjection to the nation-

state. The field is one of the focal Italian Eritrean locations in which the

Eritrean community began with the first arrival of immigrants in the six-

ties. As receiving milieu, Milan has a long past with articulated concep-

tions beginning with the arrival of people from southern Italy throughout

the twentieth century and before. In Milan, the ""other" was previously

branded with the southern migrant workers, and then switched to the

recent foreign arrivals, thus continuing to use similar discourses of intru-

sion, invasion and criminalisation. As J. Foot (1999) argues, the

Milanese site is remarkable in its experiences of migration. Additionally,

the focus on the Eritrean case in Milan is significant because its history

stretches across almost half a century. Eritreans, therefore, not only

experience the present political environment, but also some of them have

encountered various periods of Italian political culture. They have been

dealing with issues of citizenship and difference through time in differ-

ent ways. The newly arrived asylum seekers are negotiating with the sys-

tem in yet other ways.

The area in Milan where the first Eritrean migrants moved in the six-

ties is still the social area where Eritrean restaurants, bars and clubs are

located today. Porta Venezia has now become a central area of the city.

Corso Buenos Aires is a sort of high street swarming with shops, com-

mercial businesses and street sellers, with some organised little market

Volume 19, 2003 41



Alternate Routes

stalls cutting through the middle of the area. On both sides of Corso Bue-

nos Aires the Eritrean community is found. It was one of the first foreign

migrant neighbourhood to form in Milan. But now they are a small

minority among the various foreign communities that share this space in

Porta Venezia. In fact, not only Eritreans are found there, but also Ethio-

pians and people from other countries. Here, there are Eritrean bars, res-

taurants and clubs. There are also phone shops and Internet cafes which

serve the purpose of continuing transnational ties; these are run by dif-

ferent peoples and only one of these is Eritrean. In the same area, one

might notice that there are different businesses run by Italians, for exam-

ple old ironmongers, who have remained small and humble. Contrarily,

some shops have followed the "ethnic" fashion and sell African objects

and hand-made crafts sophisticated!} Europeanised, and sold at high

prices. Although this area of Milan is characterised by the presence of

people from Eritrea, now it has moved on to be a mixture of many peo-
ples. Porta Venezia remains a socialising context although not all Eritre-

ans are actually living there; in fact, since housing is very difficult to

find, people have spread into more peripheral areas. The various reli-

gious communities, the Eritrean Coptic Church, the Catholic Eritrean

Church and the Mosques are situated in other areas of the city.

In Porta Venezia I am collecting data on the politics of identity hap-
pening within the Eritrean community, where a conflict has been noticed

between the "new ones" who have arrived asking for asylum, and those
participating with the official side of the previously constituted commu-

nity. The latter are instigating a strong form of nationalism that points to

the young arrivals as deserters and, therefore, as opposing to the political

line of the PFDJ. Instead, the new ones are struggling with the slow

enactment of the Bossi-Fini act and are sharing memories of years of

limbo in the territories that divide Eritrea from Italy. Here, communities

of memories show themselves through performances and visual imagi-

nary about the home country and Eritrean culture.
The second site where I am slowly entering is one of the council

estates where main Eritreans live. Here I wish to understand the daily

life of people of different generations, memories and experiences. While

Porta Venezia is a socialising terrain the latter is more of a mixture of

daily encounters. Here, it is the marginality and the inequality of the

people living in these forgotten corners of the city that must be looked at.

Through an understanding of living conditions shared by many people of

42 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

poor backgrounds, integration is analysed in its multiple realities. To

collect data in this context I am working for a community project run by

a few coordinators, the secretary (me), the president and most of all uni-

versity students who are volunteers. It is a bottom-up committee which

provides political, cultural, and social spaces for the tenants of three

council estates. This role is enabling me to look into the daily life from

very close; here, I wish to collect data not only on the Eritrean commu-

nity but also on their integration in this Italian context, through an under-

standing of the various structures and institutions, and through an

attention to the linguistic formations among the tenants, and also among

the people involved in this community project.

Participant observation

There is the need to cany out fieldwork in a multiplicity- of levels. The

socialising areas illustrated above is a place to "hang around"; the Coptic

Churches is part of a specific case study; the personal and family envi-

ronment is dealt through the collection of life histories, and through indi-

vidual and group interviews and informal relationships. The Italian field

of discourses and practices will be followed in non-governmental organ-

isations and institutions. Specifically, I'm working, thus participating

and observing, in the community project mentioned above which deals

with life quality in a council estate area where many Eritreans live. I'm

also achieving access to governmental and non-governmental organisa-

tions for refugees and migrants. It's important to understand how the

"mediazione culturale", cultural mediation, is taught to teachers and

alums in the educational system and in other institutions. Above all I'm

very interested in observing how and where the new Bossi-Fini law is

being applied. Throughout the many sites, I'm collecting data on prac-

tices of negotiation and resistance and not only on reproduction of soci-

etal norms. The multisided-ness of the fieldwork is fundamental to

understand the multipositionality of individuals. As in even thing, the

butterfly effect is present and active in more sites than those specifically

involved with the matter. Although the insight into multisited fieldwork

has been firstly approached through an analysis of globalising effects on

society (Marcus 1995 and Gupta and Ferguson 1997), the need for this

type of research stems from the porous nature of society not solely in

present times.

Volume 19, 2003 43



Alternate Routes

In the wideness of the context in which I need to look, there is a spe-

cific and more focused attention to three fields of study. The first is on

ideas of collectivity and community ties and is generally dealt through-

out the fieldwork in this multisitedness, but more specifically in Porta

Venezia and in the community project in which I collaborate. The sec-

ond is topical and followed through two case studies, one focusing on a

place and community -the Coptic Church-, the other looking into the

consumption of Imnet. the sacred earth, which is a commodity arriving

from Eritrea. The third is focusing on the individual and personal

responses, negotiation and perceptions and is being carried out through

intensive collection of life histories and the participation in family

reunions and intimate contexts. Through these three levels of interaction

and experiences I wish to understand the multiplicities of identity, the

pluralities of sites in which these are shaped, the ways in which they flu-

idly change according to situations, time and space and how discourses

may be sometimes ambiguously framed not always in accordance to
practice.

TJie Church

The study of the Eritrean Orthodox Coptic Church is very important

given that main studies on migrant communities in Italy have focused

on Mosques and Islamic belief (Carter 1999, Riccio 2000, and Salih

2000). Italian society is pervaded with Catholic rhetoric and discourses

flowing especially in the encounters with the "other" - more and more

identified with Islamic people. This classification, however, becomes

generalised to often include migrants from different backgrounds and

religions. The "other" becomes identified not only with the foreigner but

also with people of different religions. The focus on a Christian commu-
nity is interesting since it entails an attention to its recognitions (or lack

of recognition) of relatedness but yet of otherness. On the other hand,
some kind of classification and differentiation is constituted among

Copts who have had conflicting moments with the Muslim branch of the
liberation movement, and with the Catholic followers (often linked to

Italian colonial officials and missionaries). The Church is a context in

which categories of "us" and "them" arc shaped and performed.

The relationship with Catholic Church organisations is growing since

some religious members arc active in their opposition to the present state

of political debates and practices around migration. In Milan especially.

44 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

the activity of Cardinal Martini, who has just retired in the summer of

the year 2002, has been posing interesting frames for understanding the

hardship that the Bossi-Fini law and similar rhetoric have in relation to

the occurring social change. He has stated that it would be detrimental, if

not anachronistic and impossible to revert the social process of overture

and pluralism which is taking place in Milan through recent migratory

processes. Caritas and many other Catholic organisations -as already

stated above- have started an opposition movement, which does not only

publicly deny consent to the present government, but which moreover

has become a site of political and social asylum for those that the state

wants to reject. There are interesting developments of resistance against

the present politics of identity and of exclusion which are moreover led

by some branches of the Catholic Church. 9 It's therefore very motivating

to look at the development of relations between the various religious

communities and their struggles.

The Church often plays an organisational role; the outcome and expe-

rience of migratory processes frequently depends upon and is closely

related to the religious institutions in the host country (Riccio 2000).

Thus I'm looking at this aspect of the Coptic Church in its transnational

links and its role of mediator for people arriving from Eritrea. This posi-

tion and responsibility of the Church most probably influences the con-

stitution of discursive frames of reference and practices. Questions

around this issue regard the ways in which the Church becomes a force

in the constitution of identities and of loyalties. The Church often ends

up being a site where people escape from the outside world (Block 1992)

through its moral guidance. Contemporary it also becomes a context in

which there is not only one fixed and applied shape of identity; there are

negotiations. Thus religion is a field to be looked at in the ways in which

people also contest and oppose discourses around authenticity, tradition

and modernity' (Salih 2000). Politics of identity occur in diverse contexts

and are not one-way projects; they are shaped by discourse and practices

which entail individual involvement and experiences in creating the

field.

The Sacred Earth

The religious practices are followed in the Church even- Sunday and in

every other occasion and they are also analysed through a related case

study entailing another gaze and point of view. There is a focus on the

Volume 19, 2003 45



Alternate Routes

sacredness of objects. Sanctified substances, generally called Tsabel,

will be linked with theories on consumption -regarded as and compared

with commodities holding special roles and meanings- and the body and

embodiment. Out of all the religious goods, such as holy water, bread,

crosses.
1 "

it is the sanctified earth. Imnet. that has called for special

attention. The earth comes from Coptic Monasteries in Ethiopia and Eri-

trea; it is sanctified by the Monk and then used as a medicine by inges-
tion or application on the skin. During my preliminary fieldwork in
November 2001 some informants told me about its use in Milan. Kin
members in Eritrea send it to them when needed. There appears to be a

transnational movement of this substance, which remains still in small

scale and without a highly developed consumerist element.

Some insight may be achieved from an Appadurais analysis of
exchange and value, which allows a description of Imnet as a commod-

ity of some kind. Its cultural criteria must be understood in context refer-

ring to destination, metamorphosis and diversion. The journey from

production to consumption is a great insight to elaborate on its meanings

and values. This quote from Marx defines the relation between value and

exchange in the nature of commodities: "to become a commodity a prod-

uct must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use-value, by
means of an exchange"" (Marx 1971: 48 in Appadurai 1986: 8). The pro-

cess through which a product becomes a commodity is very interesting

in its power dynamics and knowledge definitions. To follow up the polit-

ical dimension of consumption there must be awareness around pro-

cesses of enclavement and diversion, which specifically show the power

struggles over goods by elites and between the various agents engaged in

its commoditisation. "It is in the interests of those in power to com-

pletely freeze the flow of commodities, by creating a closed universe of

commodities and a rigid set of regulations about how they are to move.
Yet the very nature of contests between those in power (or those who

aspire to greater power) tends to invite a loosening of these rules and an

expansion of the pool of commodities" (Appadurai 1986: 57). In the case

of Imnet it is the Coptic Church that has the role of elite whose power is

to enclave its consumption. At the same time though there are other

agents engaged in the production of knowledge and the diversion from

its closed predestined path. The constitution of mythologies is how

Appadurai explains the knowledge relations between the various agents:

46 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

(1) Mythologies produced by traders and speculators who
are largely indifferent to both the production origins and the

consumption destination of commodities, except insofar as

they affect fluctuation price. [...] (2) Mythologies produced

by consumers (or potential consumers) alienated from the

production and distribution process of key commodities.

[...] And (3) mythologies produced by workers in the pro-
duction process who are completely divorced from the dis-
tribution and consumption logics of the commodities they

produce. (Ibid: 48)

Although his description applies to goods that have entered a structured

system of production, it may apply to Imnet in the division of roles and
knowledge. Those who he calls traders might be kin members in Eritrea
or people practicing transnational links. It might even be that the earth

has become a commodity in the same tenns and that therefore there are
traders who export it to Milan. Consumers will be members of the Eri-
trean community in Milan. The workers, in Appadurais analysis, will be
the Monks of the Coptic Monasteries in Eritrean. Although it seems
inconceivable to analyse the commoditisation of Imnet in these terms, it

might be interesting to understand the various games occurring around

the creation and re-creation of value of the earth in terms of specialised

knowledge. Primary technical knowledge in fact combines technological

and cosmological layers in the production discourse and include the

three contexts of interaction: market, consumer, and destination. Knowl-

edge thus is not only related to the appropriate ways to consume the

commodity, there is a distribution of knowledge at various points of the

exchange process.

Moreover "the social history of things and their cultural biography

are not entirely separate matters, for it is the social history of things, over

the large periods of time and at large social levels, that constrains the

form, meaning, and structure of more short-term, specific, and intimate

trajectories" (ibid: 36). Simmel recalls value through this statement,

which is interesting in relation to Imnet: "We call those objects valuable
that resist our desire to possess them" (Simmel 1957: 73 quoted in Appa-

durai 1986: 3). Imnet from this point of view certainly has more value:

Volume 19, 2003 47



Alternate Routes

the distance and difficult trajectories, which the earth has to go through,

resist in mam ways its consumption and therefore increase its value
when possessed. Distance though may not only affect value but also
meaning, "as commodities travel greater distances (institutional, spatial,

temporal), knowledge about them tends to become partial, contradictory,

and differentiated" (ibid: 56).

The other theoretical approach, which can be interestingly applied, is

that of the analysis of the social and cultural significance of the practice

of consumption. Geissler (2000) has studied the practice of geophagy

among the Luo in Kenya. He explains earth eating as a practice creating
social distinctions not in terms of ethnicity but according to age, gender

and class. The discursive formation around the consumption of the earth

is related to status. Women and children are the only ones who are
allowed to consume the earth; the status of geophagy is low. Pregnant

women are the single category who can eat earth without any social con-
sequence, though normally women may practice geophagy but might be
mocked. Children may consume it, but when they reach adulthood they
have to stop. Men found in the act of earth eating are dishonoured and
shamed. Moreover the quality of the earth is at stake. Women know
where to find the best, tastiest earth -normally close to a termites nest-

and children learn when collecting it for their mothers. Wealthy women,

however, buy "clean" earth from the market and serve it on special occa-

sions. Issues around the differentiation according to the status of the var-

ious age sets and genders, and to the quality (purity) of the earth

according to status, allowed Geissler to understand how the consumption
of earth and its role of commodity shape and re-produce social distinc-

tions in the same way Bourdieu (1984) has argued. The type of social

distinction occurring through the consumption of Imnet might be differ-

ent but it may also be closely associated. Distinctions might be related to
religious affiliations, ethnicity and modernity but they may also allow

insights into age and generational and gender differences.

The questions that follow this case study are many and relate to core
anthropological domains of enquiry. Social distinction, consumption,

belief are all analytical focuses which arc dealt with in regards to iden-

tity formation and transnational movements. Its symbologics and mean-

ings are looked at through its related practices and experiences. The

relevant discourses on the knowledge of the body, health, religion and

the motherland inspire the focus on individual and collective percep-

ts Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

tions. Especially the focus on the ways to experience and talk about the

motherland must be one of the major issues since there certainly is a

very close link with the ingestion of Imnet and the fact that it comes

from "home". Imnet is not only a symbolic motherland earth but it is in

its actual material substance. Here symbol and matter conflate in the act

of swallowing.

Life histories

Biographical data collection will be included in the research. Life history

is seen here as both a method and a site. Since every site and every

method provide insights into a variety of issues, the collection of biogra-

phies of individuals, their family and people closely related to them

opens up a different type of analysis from the ones encountered in partic-

ipant observation and case studies. The peculiarity of life histories is

related to the focus on the individual subject, the diachronic nature of the

data, the world of emotions permeating personal memories and experi-

ences, and, above all, the close relationship and dialectics occurring

between the researcher and the researched.

In the specific case of this research in Italy the use of life histories is

very significant because of its centrality as a method in social and histor-

ical research among Italian intellectuals. In Italy, life history as a meth-

odology for research has been widely used, in many contexts, disciplines

and for different purposes. Rammstedt (1995) describes in detail the

peculiarity of biographical research in Italy in its multiplicities. The

objectives connected to the collection of life histories are primarily

linked to the desire to let marginalized groups have a chance to speak,

giving them a space in the history in which they were denied a voice.

Life histories, "storie di vita'', have been collected since the 1940s,

although they had no place in academia until the 60s. They were at times

used to fill the gaps in topical and thematic data. Anthropology and soci-

ology used them in a complementary function added to other methodolo-

gies of research, providing further insight for theoretical frameworks and

hypothesis. Later, life histories in the 70s, also presented the possibility

for interdisciplinary research. Moreover biographies in Italy gave

insights into context, the past through memories, and present through the

description of the circumstances in which interviews were carried out.

For some the narrative event was important in its linguistic significance;

the narratological axis was for them the analytic framework. Others

Volume 19, 2003 49



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focused on the dialectical procedure of interaction, between the

researcher and the researched, but also between the micro and the macro

level. There was also an attention to the self of the researcher; the

description of life histories included a self-narration. The political moti-

vation behind the collection of life history is above all significant in

Italy. Marxist scholars started to do biographical research to achieve a

description of "popular culture", emphasising the importance of voices

from the working class never heard before: peasants and those who were

absent in the mainstream production of history. They thought of them-

selves as doing advocacy, empowering their researched and trying to

give them equal status.

Although biographical research in Italy has a longer past than in most

other Western European countries, similar issues are at stake today in the

work of all those who focus on life histories (e.g. Capian, 1997, Miller
2000 and Plummer, 2001). There are, however, different ways to use the

material collected, as has been argued above through the Italian cases.

My research will not produce only accounts of individual lives but will
engage with these in order to achieve further insight in the particular

themes and issues dealt with in the previous sections. The conceptualisa-

tion of life history as method and field of inquiry is important since it

allows insight into those domains of identity difficult to investigate

through collective sites. An individual's experiences, looked through the
time span of a life, provide the site for an analysis of individual and

social change, and life cycles. The narratological event is mostly inter-

esting since the act of describing oneself encompasses the sole depiction

of the history of a life. The discursive and the mnemonic formation link

together mixing with personal and collective narratives. So. in the analy-

sis of life histories, the multiplicity of voices must be included also with

the researchers one. While collecting the biographical data I keep a per-

sonal diary, so to record my own voice. When transcribing the inter-
views I want to include the subjects and try to cooperate with them to

gain further access into the linguistic and experiential side of the narra-

tion. I include interviews with members of the household. I visit kin and

friends in order to have a wider range of data. Finally given that, within

the context of the whole research, life histories have specific roles,

themes and provide specific insight, they must be included and com-

pared with the data collected through other sites and therefore analysed

in their collective as well as individual dimension.

50 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Altematifs

Access

Access is a practicality which must not be underestimated. Life histories

allow access into the intimacy of the household and of personal lives and

vice versa. The learning of Tigrigna is being done through exchanges. In

the past few months I have been learning with people who want to learn

either Italian or English and therefore we exchange language skills. This,

added to the life histories collection, gives me the personal level of com-
munication which allows an understanding of key issues about commu-

nity dynamics and to access public spaces, through some kind of

snowball effect. Tigrigna learning in one-to-one meetings throughout a

prolonged time span also allows access into the hidden domains of lan-

guage, the field of the meaningful unsaid, and the tacit forms of commu-

nication (Pratt, 1989). Fieldwork is being carried out with the reflection

on my double status of insider in the Milanese population, to which also
my informants belong, and initially of outsider to their communities.
Nevertheless, I try to gain as much access as possible in order to feel and

be felt as an insider in many ways. The shift to the insider rather than the

outsider status enters into those domains in which anthropologists in

present times have diverted from the classical ideas of fieldwork among

the "other", through "detached"' participant observation. Reflexivity is

thus crucial since not only do I need to keep track of my actions as well
as my informants, but also I need to reflect on my own experiences of
being a "migrant" in the UK where I study. To understand the implica-
tions of displacement and movement of my informants I must draw
attention to the ways in which I have perceived "home" and myself

while abroad. During the fieldwork it is usual that people want to know

me through my own life experiences, often looking for similarities with
their own. Reflexivity therefore is not only a politically correct practice

but also it becomes a way to get to know people, to gain trust and to
achieve creative relationships with informants.

Ethics

With the rise in tension around the status of immigrants in Italy and their

"legality", this research needs to take into consideration the ethical

dimension. Issues of movement and asylum seeking have become very

politicised and dangerous in many ways. Many of my informants are in a
fragile position in regards to the Bossi-Fini act and to the internal fric-

tions within the Eritrean community. Therefore not only do I need to

Volume 19, 2003 51



Alternate Routes

achieve access through trust but also I must always explain to them the

work in progress, its risks and empowering effects in order to receive a

fully informed consent. The information that I gather is conceived as

possession of my informants and therefore it's a duty to ask for permis-
sion to use it in my work. Especially in the case of life histories the ethi-
cal issues arising are higher because of the detailed and in depth nature

of the information. There will be a close cooperation while transcribing

the data and therefore there will be the chance to choose together

whether to omit information which might end up hanning my informants
or me. The emotional side of this type of research needs attention since

the relation with memory and pain is disrupting in most cases and for
that reason it needs care and understanding. Especially in the collection

of life histories there has to be a continuation of the relationship when

needed, since the existence of emotional disturbance cannot be simply

dismissed. The Belmont report states that the primary ethical issue is to

carry out research without harming anyone. This aim is the primary con-

cern not only in legal and political terms of but also in terms of an

awareness of the human encounter with emotions and of the importance

of reciprocity in the research.

Summary
There are many levels in which the research gains legitimacy and signif-

icance. Anthropologically, issues of identity and perceptions of the self

in relation to "communities of memory7 "' (Malkki 1997) are here in the

spotlight. After the turn in "writing against culture"" (Abu Lughod 1992)

and the reflexive scope of the discipline itself which previously was

over-categorising communities and homogenising cultures, this research

leads to a discussion of the multiplicity of voices and actions. This

anthropological gaze consents to look not only at similarities but also at

differences in identity formation among the same community. The con-

cept of communities of memory is important since it allows an aware-

ness of the impact of different experiences in the formation of identity.

Theoretically, with the stress on agency, this research engages in the dis-

cussion around the relationship between structure and agency, which

raises fundamental issues in the social sciences. In the Italian context, on

the one hand the insight into historical memory and post-colonial reflec-

tion is useful to start a debate which has been delayed for many years.

On the other hand, migration and asylum seeking arc urgent issues to be

52 Volume 19, 2003



Chemins Alternatifs

dealt with, through an insight not into the negative impacts of this phe-

nomenon on the Italian society, but more in terms of social change. The

focus on a foreign migrant community with one of the longest histories

in Milan raises first of all issues around the different cultures of politics

which Eritreans have experienced in Italy and in Milan. Secondly it

inspires the research to look into the different communities that have

been forming throughout time and to analyse the contemporary' ones

which may have diverse loyalties. For my informants and the Eritrean
community in Milan there is also an empowering side to the research for

there is space for their voices to be finally heard. Moreover my infor-
mants advise are most appreciated and cooperation is part of the method-

ology for fieldwork itself. Through the reflexive scope, the research

should also be an account of an ethnography in which the author is

actively participating with all her strengths and weaknesses.

Notes

l.This is a revisited version of an MSc thesis in research methods. The paper proposes an
insight inside a research in progress, these are my first few months of fieldwork:. In Sep-
tember 2002 I started learning the Tigrinya language and gaining preliminary data and

access, and since January of 2003 I have started doing multisided participant observation.

2.Amharic is the official language in Ethiopia, in Eritrea the languages most often used are

Tigrigna and Arabic.

3.1n Eritrea nearly half of the population follows the Christian churches, slightly more than

half are Muslims and other indigenous religions also exist.

4.The race issue

5.Though not internal migrations

6.Eritrea and Ethiopia are exceptions and this is also why this research is important.

7.In"LaRepubblica" 12-07-2002

8.The PFDJ is the political party which developed from the previous EPLF liberation

movement.

9.Not all branches of it: some Cardinals, like Biffi, have been stating the incommensurabil-

ity of religions and cultures and therefore they have been prone to deny access to those

"different" people.

lO.The Coptic Crosses are different from the Catholic ones and are very often worn, espe-

cially by women, on the body or tattooed on the forehead and on arms.

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