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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses how using the Italian passports they “inherit” from their ancestors thanks to jus sanguinis, Chileans and Argentinians of Italian descent are able to bypass European restrictive migratory rules, entering Italy as nationals and Europe as citizens.

Paper long abstract:

The European approach to mobility is dominated by restrictive migration policies preventing immigration coming from extra-European countries. Italy, in particular, has adopted prohibiting migration legislations based on the closure of its frontiers. Though, thousands of Latin American citizens have found a way to bypass these policies, using the passports they can “inherit” from their Italian ancestors, to enter Italy as nationals and Europe as citizens. Indeed, thanks to jus sanguinis, Italian nationality law allows emigrants’ descendants to maintain or acquire nationality without generation limits. Promulged in 1992 to foster the right for Italians living overseas to vote, this law generated massive immigration from Latin America to Italy as an expected outcome. Yet, this migration is mostly invisible in the public sphere, as it has an unquestioned juridical legitimacy, which inscribes it in a favoured regime of mobility.

Based on a fieldwork I carried out with Argentinian and Chilean citizens of Italian descent in Northern Italy, this paper aims at assessing how they use the Italian passport they “inherit” from their ancestors in order to get around EU restrictive migratory rules. Along with passports, a migratory capital, encompassing knowledge of the legislations and public aid available, is passed on from one generation to the next within these families of emigrant descent, who use their “right to mobility” as a resource. This paper will examine how access to and uses of Italian passports vary according to emigrant descendants’ generations, which type of mobilities they entail, and which is their relationship with belonging.