Abstract
Gaoheng Zhang’s book deals with Chinese migration to Italy as it was represented in the Italian media and in the Italy-based Chinese media between 1992 and 2012. It shows how journalists, businesspeople and politicians adopted one narrative rather than another about the Chinese migration to Italy, what sources they were based on, what narrative strategies they used, why they chose certain topics rather than others and how they debated publicly on this topic. Lastly, it analyses the legacy of this debate in contemporary Italian culture.
The book is solidly backed by data and materials (including a large number of texts and audio-visual materials in Italian and Chinese), on the basis of which the author succeeds in formulating, by means of critical and interpretative tools typical of a variety of disciplines, broader observations on the evolution of contemporary Italian culture. The book’s motivating idea is that Chinese migration to Italy at the turn of the new millennium triggered Italy’s first significant cultural response to the challenges of globalization that at that time began to make headway throughout the world.
As the author recalls, in the 1940s, about a thousand Chinese already lived permanently in Italy, making the Chinese the first ‘non-white’ population to reside steadily in 20th-century Italy. However, the remarkable growth of the stable Chinese population in Italy at the turn of the millennium coincided with (and was closely linked to) both the historical moment in which Italy found itself for the first time having to integrate a large number of foreign migrants, shifting from a country of emigration to one of immigration, and the effects of globalization, in which China’s economic rise has played such a prominent role. As the author states, these two phenomena, closely linked to each other and more widely connected to contemporary global socio-economic dynamics, materialized clearly in the media debate on Chinese migration in Italy between 1992 and 2012.
Gaoheng Zhang’s work therefore examines how contemporary Italian culture is elaborating its encounter with economic globalization and the cultural negotiation that it involves. He observes that it was precisely in those years that, for the first time in Italy’s history, the view of the Chinese, instead of being based on testimonies of travellers to China, could be formed on first-hand observations of the ever more numerous Chinese population on Italian soil. This new situation, while it suffices to explain the initial media interest in the migration phenomenon, does not explain the insistence of the media’s continued debate on this issue, once the informational aspects were clarified. What the author suggests is that Chinese migration to Italy ended up representing, in the public discourse, Italy’s encounter with globalization.
According to Gaoheng Zhang’s interpretation, since Chinese immigration to Italy did not have the kind of long and complex history that immigration from Eastern Europe or Africa did, it allowed the Italian media to construct around Chinese immigrants an example of cultural incompatibility. In turn, this example was used as a model of conflict, with new external threats to Italy at both the cultural level (invasion and distortion of the intangible value of the brand ‘made in Italy’) and the economic level (unfair competition). It presumably served this purpose well in portraying the Chinese in Italy as, culturally, the immigrant group that was most alien and problematic vis-a-vis Italians. Hence, through the typical mechanisms of orientalist discourse, the Chinese were often construed in the media debate of those years as being opposed to Italians, and their uncontrolled growth was presented as an example of the tragic consequences of globalization and responsible for extinguishing the values of the ‘made in Italy’ brand. The author shows how, in discussing Chinese migration, the Italian media did not just limit themselves to the neutral facts of this migration, but symbolically discussed, first, Italy’s place in the new global economic order (exemplified by the conflict between typical Italian and Chinese cultural values extensively reported in the Italian media) and, second, the new migratory waves that for the first time in modern history were affecting Italy as a host country.
The book consists of seven chapters: in Chapter 1 the author, after illustrating the basis of his work, theorizes the existence of a cultural repertoire of Chinese migration in Italy constructed by the Italian and Chinese media on this topic. In Chapter 2, he analyses one of the crucial elements of this repertoire, the ‘Chinese mafia’, a term used by the Italian media to refer indifferently to any criminal phenomenon related to Chinese migration to Italy, discussing how (and why) this was constructed by the Italian media and then disputed by their Chinese counterparts. In the following chapters, the book deals with specific case studies. In Chapters 3 and 4, the author analyses an event in the history of Chinese migration in Italy that took place in 2007 in Milan, when in the city’s so-called Chinatown the police intervened in response to unrest between the Chinese immigrant population and residents concerning the use by Chinese immigrants of shopping carts to move goods in public spaces. The police intervention triggered what was later called a Chinese migrant riot, which strongly impacted both the Italian and local Chinese press. The author analyses how the same event was reported in the Italian (Chapter 2) and the Chinese (Chapter 3) media. Chapters 5 and 6 analyse the debate on Chinese-run manufacturing activities in the city of Prato. In this Tuscan city, known for its long manufacturing tradition, since the 1990s a great number of Chinese immigrants have settled and over the years taken over an important sector of the local production market. In the media treatment of this phenomenon, the author focuses on how the news was related concerning the numerous police inspection raids on Chinese factories during the period analysed, and then on the ‘made in Italy’ debate, discussing how this idea in the local press and political language was used as a bulwark against Chinese globalization. In Chapter 5, these concepts are analysed as how they were presented in the local press, while Chapter 6 shows how the conflict between ‘made in Italy’ and ‘made in China’ was being addressed in the international media. Lastly, Chapter 7 centres on an incident that took place in Rome in 2012: the murder of a Chinese immigrant and his daughter during a robbery, and the much-attended public demonstration that took place over this sad event. Gaoheng Zhang analyses the extremely compassionate treatment that both the Italian and Chinese media gave this double murder, suggesting that it reveals a narrative of victimhood against organized crime that is common to both Italian and Chinese journalism.
The book is both informative and illuminating. The author’s direct access to the materials in their original languages (Italian and Chinese), and his deep knowledge of Italian culture gained from his Italian studies, enable him to build his case on a solid familiarity with the context he examines. In addition, he analyses his materials from an interdisciplinary approach, using analytical tools of media study, and conducting an in-depth study of the rhetoric used in both the Italian and Chinese media; but he also exploits sociological interpretative frameworks, as well as concepts related to film and cultural studies. The latter is one of the book’s most innovative elements, since it is the first work that extensively covers Chinese migration in Italy from a cultural point of view, conducting not just a sociological or economic analysis, but also a humanistic one.
Gaoheng Zhang’s study is scientifically solid and innovative, and can be useful to anyone interested in various levels of Europe-China relations, media studies, migration and ethnic studies, Italian or Chinese studies and cultural studies in general. His work paves the way for other studies that analyse migration from a distinctly cultural viewpoint, and is a milestone in this genre.