Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the issue of identity and citizenship in a European border zone, as challenged by and negotiated through recent migratory fluxes from Northern Africa. Ethnographic research examines local practices and politics among local Sicilians and Tunisian immigrants in Western Sicily.

Paper long abstract:

The present paper focuses on the issue of identity and citizenship on a European border zone, as challenged by and negotiated through recent migratory fluxes from Northern Africa. Ethnographic research carried out in Western Sicily examined local practices and politics among local Sicilians and Tunisian immigrants in the city of Mazara del Vallo.

Mazara is a town located on the Western coast of Sicily facing Tunisian shores. The city has been experiencing a massive immigration from Tunisia since the late 1960 as a consequence of the consistent growth of local fish industry. Mazara may be defined a border city from different points of view. It is located between land and sea, Italy and Tunisia, Europe and Africa, becoming to embody a liminal space where memberships and identities blur and fade into each other. Mazara is not simply on the physical edge of the "most Southern" area of Italy, but also on the symbolic edge between the West and the Third World.

The constitution of Europe as a political and economic institution has contributed to the identification of Mazara as one of the Southern extreme borders of EU. According to a picture which portrays Europe as an entity based on centre/periphery relations among member states, Southern Italy reconfirms itself as a marginal area, posed on the last edge of the continent. However an historical perspective depicts differently this scenario. Opposed to contemporary representations as a peripheral zone, Sicily was in the past the heart of the Mediterranean basin, becoming the core of an intense net of exchanges among Northern and Southern shores. This role of important crossroad - economically, military but also culturally - had large repercussions on the destiny of the island. Sicily was a preferential target for conquest by many kingdoms and empires, which not only ruled it politically but also moulded it culturally. An interesting aspect is represented by the fact that for more than two centuries (827-1091) Sicily, as much of the Mediterranean basin, was part of the Arab Empire. Arab domination left an indelible imprint on Sicilian cultural practices and traditions, which still today maintain traces of that far past.

Curiously today Sicily has experienced again invasion from the Muslim world, but under completely different conditions. Today people from Northern Africa try desperately to enter Europe through reaching Sicilian shores, giving place to what an Italian anthropologist referred to as an unhappy return.

Sicilian scenario reminds in many ways a similar situation on the Spanish Moroccan border , where Arabic past of Spain clashes with contemporary migration from Morocco.

In the study case at the base of this paper Tunisian immigration in Western Sicily is examined in relation to identity-making processes among Tunisians and locals. If historically the line between Sicilian identity and Tunisian identity has always been blurred, in contemporary Mazara local notions of identity stress differences rather than similarities. Italian membership to the EU emphasises affiliation with Northerner cultural traits. Local history is selectively appropriated, discarding for instance Arab roots in favour of Norman heritage. Local practices and discourses stimulate the creation of a European identity in opposition to a more Africa-oriented identity, disregarding the fact that contemporary Sicilian cultural physiognomy has also been moulded by ongoing Northern African influences.

At the level of national political discourse, a strong claim for Italian identity, as directly traced by an alleged European identity, is claimed by various parties. Christian roots are claimed to be the origin of Europe, in opposition to the Muslim world, which is portrayed as the Other par excellence. What in the past was a channel, the Mediterranean Sea, which put in contact people and countries overlooking on its shores, it is today a divide between two worlds. Thus the border is crucial in moulding practices and discourses on identity, and it is at the same time moulded and reconstructed by recent migration.

The study case in Western Sicily shows a idiosyncrasy between official political discourse, which emphasises the border as a divide, and historical heritage, which on the contrary shows its fluidity and ambiguity in separating but also connecting. This idiosyncrasy plays a crucial role in the negotiation of local notions of identity.