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Historical Outline

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Italians in Australia

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Migration History ((PSMH))

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Abstract

This chapter provides a historical summary supported by demographic data. The first part of the chapter focuses on the broader history of Italian mass migration. This section is structured around three historical coordinates: the first is the persistence of Italian migratory strategies, paths, and networks over many centuries. The second is the quasi-colonial nature of Italy’s unification, and the persisting political and economic imbalance between North and South. And the third coordinate is the specificity of Italian mass migration in the period between the 1870s and the late 1960s. The second part of the chapter focuses on Italian migration to Australia, emphasising the socio-economic and geopolitical factors that influenced the different waves of migration, and the centrality of the postwar period in the development of a large Italian community in Australia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See for instance the essays in the first part of the first volume of Storia dell’emigrazione italiana (Bevilacqua et al. 2001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Francesco Ricatti

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  1. Francesco Ricatti
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Ricatti, F. (2018). Historical Outline. In: Italians in Australia. Palgrave Studies in Migration History. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78873-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78873-9_2

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