11 - Blackness over Europe: Meditations on Culture and Belonging

Summary

Newcomers from every corner of the globe now share the everyday rhythm of life in many European cities. The contours of their lives are of necessity lived shuttling between nation states, cultural worlds and more often than not generations – generations that are growing up in this new context or are coming to terms with it having grown up elsewhere under very different circumstances. For the ethnographer or anthropologist this unfolding world provides a window into the lives of people struggling to survive today's global economic crisis and weathering the storms of public opinion and government policies that accommodate or inhibit legal population flows. As an anthropologist I have been increasingly concerned with the presence of people of the African diaspora, their trials and accomplishments, and the manner in which they have begun to craft a new subjectivity while living a decidedly transnational existence. Contemporary anthropologists working in Italy have recently documented the changing nature of Italian society, particularly the dramatic demographic transformations leading to a tendency towards smaller family units. They have also given attention to the reception of newcomers in the wake of devastating economic shifts as traditional communities deal with less than transparent government practices, double-digit unemployment and the increasing demands of a globalising world. A portrait of the new residents of Europe emerges for me from intensive observation, conversations and participation in the communities of Senegalese and others who work as welders, food service workers in agriculture and as caretakers of the elderly in Italy.