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Migration and the ‘Miracle’ at Milan. The Neighbourhoods of Baggio, Barona, Bovisa and Comasina in the 1950s and 1960s
Author(s) -
Foot John
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6443.00036
Subject(s) - miracle , context (archaeology) , work (physics) , isolation (microbiology) , sociology , economy , political science , history , law , engineering , economics , archaeology , mechanical engineering , microbiology and biotechnology , biology
The issue of internal migration during Italy's ‘economic miracle’ was much studied during the 1960s. Since then, little work has been done on the subject. This article examines the issues of migration and integration in two key areas of everyday life—work and housing. The author concludes that there were different kinds of integration—‘radical’ and ‘conservative’—and that one kind could preclude the other. Housing provided a form of integration but also led to extreme forms of isolation. Work could integrate the migrant either as a willing and proud participant in the ‘miracle’, or as a combative member of an angry working class. But these forms of integration were also riddled with contradictions which are highlighted in the article. Migrants could be integrated at the work place and alienated in the ‘big city’, and vice versa. Historical, sociological and cultural trends determined the patterning of these outcomes, which are studied here in the context of four different peripheral neighborhoods in the key industrial and financial city of Milan.