Migranti, vecchi e nuovi. Reti linguistiche e reti sociali di ricercatori e manager italiani nella Svizzera tedesca e in Francia

Abstract

Italian history has always been a history of migration. In the 19th and 20th century, millions of Italians left their country, heading for a better future. During former waves of migration within Europe mostly unskilled labour forces moved from Italy to countries such as Germany, France, Switzerland etc. The most recent migration wave, which increased after 2008 with the economic crisis, is instead characterized by a large amount of educated and highly skilled people. The aim of this paper is to describe how this new kind of Italian emigrant construes social networks and how he/she uses the languages within these networks. We have chosen two of the countries in which Italian migration has increased considerably in the last years: the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and France.