Escaping the Crisis, Seeking a Better Future, Living Global Lives: Recent Italians Migrants in Athens, Madrid and Bogota

Current literature on international migration has focused mainly on flows from the South to the North of the global system. Recently, however, flows from more developed countries have also gained scholarly attention. In this context, the recent wave of migration from Italy may be of particular interest for several reasons. Research already conducted on these issues has shown that the recent upswing in Italian emigration is not solely due to and a sign of the growing integration of Italian society into the global system. It is also one of the consequences of a series of important social and cultural transformations, ranging from Italy’s changing position in the international division of labor to the individual search for a better quality of life. In this article, we will draw on the results of some research on Italian emigrants in three major urban centers – Athens, Madrid and Bogota – to identify the factors and mechanisms that trigger these new migration paths. Although each of the research works was conducted independently, using qualitative techniques of social analysis, particularly through semi-structured interviews, we believe that a comparison of the results obtained in these three research experiences may be useful in clarifying the rapidly evolving picture of the new Italian emigration.