Department of Italian
Italian Immigrant Communities in the UK:
The Case of Bedford
Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies (igrs.sas.ac.uk), London, 20 November 2009
Description
This represents the first of a series of conferences to investigate the social history, culture and language of Italian immigrants in the UK. In this first conference, the principal emphasis will be placed on the Italian immigrant community living in and around Bedford and will attempt to address various issues relating to the community's development since early investigations in the 1970s. In particular, academic papers from acknowledged experts in the field (such as professors Nicola De Blasi, Russell King, Rosanna Sornicola, Lucio Sponza, Arturo Tosi), including both those who worked with/ on the community in the 1970s as well as those currently undertaking research in the area, together with interviews of key representatives of each of the three principal generations of the Italian immigrant community, will serve to throw light on how questions of Italian identity and regional Italian identities within the immigrant community have changed over the course of the last thirty years. These identities, in the main, will be explored in relation to their manifestation in such areas as i) bilingualism (which although widespread across the first and second generations is now apparently declining in the third generation); ii) the changing relationship between, and status of, Italian, dialects and English as community languages; iii) demographic trends, including marriage inside and outside of the community; iv) maintenance of contacts (familial, legal and professional) with Italy; v) robustness and continued relevance of original regional provenance (e.g. Agrigento, Molise, Avellino, Caserta, Cosenza) in determining internal splits among the community; and vi) the phenomenon of immigrati di ritorno and their continued contact with, and influence on, the UK community.
Programme
Click here for details of the programme and directions to the venue.Organising Committee
Adam Ledgeway (Cambridge)
Laura Lepschy (UCL)
Rosanna Sornicola (Naples)
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