“Migration is an inevitable element of the evolution of society.” This is the central theme of Movimenti di popolazione by Professor Alfonso Giordano, republished by LUISS University Press in its series of Piccole introduzioni.
“Migration is as old as mankind,” explains Professor Giordano. “There is no doubt that more often than not, human beings have been in movement. Sedentary moments are the exception. The movement of populations has allowed the diffusion of the human race across continents; life of man on Earth has been characterized by various phases of relocation.”
This ancient process has seen an increase in the number and moreover in the types of people involved due to globalization, reduced travel costs, and modern communication technology. “Since 1989, population movement has had to face an evolving scenario. The bipolar world has collapsed, colonialism has come to an end and the economy has expanded to a global scale, with new countries emerging as both points of departure and destination. Furthermore, new categories of immigrants such as women and skilled laborers are affecting national policy agendas.”
The book proposes an easy-to-grasp classification of migrants using three macro-categories: space (geographic coordinates), time (historic period), and will (a migrant’s degree of necessity to undertake a journey). “Currently, there is a lot of confusion surrounding terms such as migrant worker, illegal or undocumented immigrant, refugee, asylum-seeker, and second generation immigrant. The uncertainty of statistics underline the multitude of forms and the complexity of the process. One must not give in to the temptation to box all migrants into the same category, or more importantly, to believe it is stable throughout time. The same person can not only belong to more than one of the aforementioned categories but can also be classified in different ways depending on when his or her situation is analyzed.”
Another classification system instead looks at population movement based on its historical function: “populating, that created countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand; economic, connected to the development of countries based on the recruitment of a foreign workforce; and humanitarian, which refers to attempts to protect migrants in dangerous conditions, as we are currently experiencing on the coasts of the Mediterranean. “
Movement across the Mediterranean and more specifically, the expansion of the European Union and subsequent creation of a borderless area are some of the most sensitive questions of contemporary debates, on which Professor Giordano advises careful reflection. “The Schengen Agreement has changed the political geography of migration and has had important political, social and legal implications for states both inside and outside of the European Union. On one hand, its creation marked the first supernational border in the history of the Old Continent; on the other hand it obliged a small group of countries (those bordering non-EU countries) to guard the new border and repatriate illegal migrants from third countries. The point is that EU states did not follow Treaty or Convention provisions that include a package of compensatory measures to prevent a borderless land from becoming a prime destination for illegal traffic of goods and people.”
In this context, Italy has become key in the management of Europe-bound migration despite its lack of preparation for such a role. “Our country has, as we very well know but tend to forget, a long tradition of emigration. Only from the 1970s and in particular, the 1980s and 1990s, has Italy been a destination for migrants. Therefore, Italy has underestimated the importance of migration policy. Today, Italy clearly has a migrant emergency strongly related to the country’s position as an EU border state. However, if we compare the number of stable immigrants in Italy (just over 5.5 million people, making up 9.5% of the Italian population, the majority of which are legal immigrants), with the populations of other large European countries (less than 12.4% in the United Kingdom, 11.9% in Germany, 11.6% in France, and 13.8% in Spain), the Italian average is in line, or actually lower.”
The book will also be the course book for next semester’s Political Geography course, during which Professor Giordano will teach alongside Professor Jared Diamond. The Pulitzer Prize winner will discuss themes from his most recent publication Da te solo a tutto il mondo, the result of a series of seminars given at LUISS in Spring 2014. Professor Giordano will use a multidisciplinary approach to bring together the variety of aspects that affect the delicate balance between man and territory. “Population movements involve a variety of aspects of human life as well as a range of vantage points for analysis. Migration is such an innate and structured process that it is easily trivialized by the media and exploited by populists. At the same time, it provides opportunities and challenges that we must not underestimate or defer as they require accurate information and careful, in-depth analysis to develop a concrete, humane vision of the country that we have and the country that we would like to be.”