Italian or American? The second generation in conflict.

The present study examines baptism godparenthood, the Italian spiritual kinship system (known as comparatico) among people originating from rural areas of Calabria, southern Italy, who migrated to Adelaide, South Australia, in the 1950s and 1960s. The study specifically investigates the transmission of norms and the widespread observance of duties associated with the practice of comparatico among participants. Social relations among allied families produce social capital by generating high levels of obligations and expectations. Participants have maintained and reinforced spiritual kinship with non-kin, often originating from the same Calabrian village. The study reveals how the comparatico system evolves into an extended network influencing everyday practices. Non-consanguineous informants, after becoming compari (family allies), are bound by obligations and/or privileges involving both their private and socioeconomic lives.

Family Alliances and Comparatico among a Group of Calabrian-Australian Families in Adelaide, South Australia

The paper provides a discussion on the concept of “double absence” and its legacy among participants originating from Calabria, Italy. It illustrates the impact of such an embodied affectiv...

Ethnic identity and race: the “double absence” and its legacy across generations among Australians of Southern Italian origin. Operationalizing institutional positionality.

Connectedness to cultural heritage among generations of Abruzzese Italian from Griffith NSW

Forty-one years on from Huber’s study exploring the assimilation of Italian-Australians, an increasing trend towards ethnic revival can be observed among the third generation of immigrants. Drawing...

Thrown into the world: The shift between pavlova and pasta in the ethnic identity of Australians originating from Italy:

The paper examines the cultural identity of a group of tertiary students of Italian ancestry in Australia through an analysis of their past personal narratives. It is argued that such narratives are privileged sites for the investigation of cultural identity defined as a form of conscious, reflexive and evaluative self-understanding pertaining to that facet of the self which knowingly commits itself to the shared values and practices of a particular cultural group (Gone, Miller & Rappaport 1999). In their personal narratives, the participants comment on their past and present experiences with respect to their Italian culture maintenance efforts and their attitudes toward Italian cultural values. The study follows in the humanistic sociological tradition, which seeks to understand the relationship between structure and agency through an analysis of both the activation of cultural values and their evaluation by active and reflective social agents. Four cultural identity orientations are proposed resulting from the analysis of the narratives: Secure Bicultural, Ideational Monocultural, Insecure Bicultural and Secure (Assimilated) Monocultural. The cultural evaluations expressed through the narratives point to the unstable and dynamic nature of identity construction and negotiation, which varies over time and place. It is evident that certain themes such as family values, cultural practices, social categorisation, stereotyping of physical characteristics and intergroup rivalry cut across the narratives of all four identity orientations. The differences in self-identification between the sub-groups appear to be the result of the process of subjective interpretation through which individual participants rationalise their life choices. Past personal narratives, more than other forms of data gathering, provide a rich insight into the reflexive and evaluative self-understanding of cultural identity.

Giancarlo Chiro

Papers

Evaluations of cultural identity in the personal narratives of a group of Tertiary students of Italian ancestry in Australia