Migrants in Translation: Caring and the Logics of Difference in Contemporary Italy

Cristiana Giordano

Published by University of California Press 2014

Migrants in Translation

Caring and the Logics of Difference in Contemporary Italy

Cristiana Giordano

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520958869

Overview
Contents

About this book

Migrants in Translation is an ethnographic reflection on foreign migration, mental health, and cultural translation in Italy. Its larger context is Europe and the rapid shifts in cultural and political identities that are negotiated between cultural affinity and a multicultural, multiracial Europe. The issue of migration and cultural difference figures as central in the process of forming diverse yet unified European identities. In this context, legal and illegal foreigners—mostly from Eastern Europe and Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa—are often portrayed as a threat to national and supranational identities, security, cultural foundations, and religious values.

This book addresses the legal, therapeutic, and moral techniques of recognition and cultural translation that emerge in response to these social uncertainties. In particular, Migrants in Translation focuses on Italian ethno-psychiatry as an emerging technique that provides culturally appropriate therapeutic services exclusively to migrants, political refugees, and victims of torture and trafficking. Cristiana Giordano argues that ethno-psychiatry’s focus on cultural identifications as therapeutic—inasmuch as it complies with current political desires for diversity and multiculturalism—also provides a radical critique of psychiatric, legal, and moral categories of inclusion, and allows for a rethinking of the politics of recognition.

Author / Editor information

Giordano Cristiana :

Cristiana Giordano is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UC Davis.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART ONE. ENTERING THE SCENE: THE WALLS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
PART TWO. ENTERING THE SCENE: THE IMMIGRATION OFFICE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
PART THREE. ENTERING THE SCENE: THE POLICE STATION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
PART FOUR. ENTERING THE SCENE: THE SHELTER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
PART FIVE. REENTERING THE SCENE: THE CENTRO Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Epilogue: Other Scenes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 302

eBook

Published: May 16, 2014
ISBN: 9780520958869