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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the connections between intimacy, identity and belonging among young Romanians in Rome, Italy, focusing on how coming of age transnationally influences their self-perceptions, future aspirations and intimate choices and desires, whether they migrated as children or young adults.

Paper long abstract:

There are over one million Romanians currently living in Italy, a large portion of which are under 35 years old. Some of them have migrated as children or young adults in order to join their parents, while others migrated on their own as young workers or students after Romania's entry in the EU. What sets the members of this generation apart from their older counterparts is the fact that transnationalism and globalization have become a part of their identity in a way that was inconceivable for those growing up during state-socialism.

On the one hand, coming of age in the late 1990s and 2000s in an increasingly globalized world, where material goods, cultural products and people were constantly crossing frontiers, they have internalized transnational information and mobility as a part of their identity. They were also exposed to "modern" and "Western" ideals regarding intimate relationships to which previous generations did not have access. On the other hand, the identities of mobile youth, which include their cultural belonging to either Romania, Italy or both countries, are oftentimes reflected back onto their intimate pursuits. Young migrants may either become attached to a shared cultural background or they may actively reject their fellow Romanians as possible partners, a choice which mirrors their transnational experience, future aspirations and ultimately their personal ideals regarding love and sexuality.

This paper explores the connections between intimacy, identity, belonging and growing up in an increasingly hyperconnected and hypermobile world among young Romanian transnational migrants in Rome, Italy