This book offers a novel and comprehensive reappraisal of current relations between Italy and Australia. For the first time, it expands the scope of analysis by encompassing and critically reviewing research avenues that have been understudied so far. In order to pursue this objective, it provides innovative analyses on bilateral history, reciprocal migration, socio-cultural ties, international relations and trade, comparative politics, and scientific cooperation. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this book makes a significant contribution to multiple disciplinary literatures, benefitting social science scholars, policymakers, and professionals working in a number of fields. Mindful of the wide scope and multidisciplinary nature of this innovative research, the editors oversee a careful balance of different theories, methodologies, sources, and data, in accordance with the conventions of each discipline employed in this volume. As a result, this book encourages a broader and more nuanced understanding of Italian-Australian relations in the 21st century.

This 2003 book brings to life the important story of the Italo-Australian community.

"Long before the advent of modern tourism, Australians travelled to live in Italy, or undertook extensive visits there. Indeed they continue to do so in increasing numbers, as women and men find Italian partners; as business people with European interests settle there; as retirees in their thousands seek 'the good life' that Italy - in Ros Pesman's words, this 'culturally endowed place of rebirth' - seems to promise .... This collection seeks to map the past and present of the Australian love affair with Italy, and yields rich insights into its causes, motivations and transformations." -- About page.

This book provides a concise and innovative history of Italian migration to Australia over the past 150 years. It focuses on crucial aspects of the migratory experience, including work and socio-economic mobility, disorientation and reorientation, gender and sexual identities, racism, sexism, family life, aged care, language, religion, politics, and ethnic media. The history of Italians in Australia is re-framed through key theoretical concepts, including transculturation, transnationalism, decoloniality, and intersectionality. This book challenges common assumptions about the Italian-Australian community, including the idea that migrants are ‘stuck’ in the past, and the tendency to assess migrants’ worth according to their socio-economic success and their alleged contribution to the Nation. It focuses instead on the complex, intense, inventive, dynamic, and resilient strategies developed by migrants within complex transcultural and transnational contexts. In doing so, this book provides a new way of rethinking and remembering the history of Italians in Australia.

Questions of Authority investigates Italian–Australian literary travel exchanges throughout the long nineteenth century. The 1800s witnessed major transformations in Australian overseas travel: it gradually evolved from a replica of the Continental Grand Tour of the British, to a more idiosyncratic cosmopolitan experience, either touristic or professional. Moreover, it was during the second half of this century that both Italy and Australia underwent crucial political upheavals; these resulted in shifts from colonial and subjugated status, to self-government and ultimately independence. This volume connects these geographical, political and sociocultural contexts of Italy and Australia by considering their interlaced odeporic library, produced at a significant time in history. Additionally, this book analyses key texts compiled by Italians in Australia, and Australians in Italy: these chiefly consist of voyage accounts, but also include the records of explorers, missionaries, scientists and migrants coming from the Italian peninsula. These primary sources include unpublished travel diaries compiled by the first Victorian women visitors to the Bel Paese, which have been largely neglected by scholarship thus far. This examination pinpoints the enduring significance of Italy in travel-related terms, showing how this destination was adapted from the map of eighteenth-century British Grand Tourists, to that of nineteenth-century Australian holiday makers. Most critically, Questions of Authority argues Italian–Australian peripatetic connections entail issues of authority, that emerge in the ways in which Italian and Australian travel writers displayed their authorship, cultural capital and national identification in relation to the other country. Finally, it demonstrates how these are highly regulated by, and yet simultaneously challenge, British colonial hegemony.

..".the essays assembled in this volume edited by my old friend and first student, Gianfranco Cresciani, and by Bruno Mascitelli of Swinburne University in Melbourne. All the essays are in some sense focused on what some contemporaries might think is 'old fashioned political history'; there is no mention of emotions, food or dance. The themes are significant. The research is serious. Archives have been probed and detail from them is made available that was not public before. Australia and Italy may be quite a long way apart in 2013 and the gap between them may be increasing. Nonetheless they share quite a bit of history. Important aspects of it are recovered in this collection of essays. It is as much a part of Australian history as is more familiar tales about 'resistance' on the frontier, the growth of mining or the spread of 'Meals on Wheels' across the nation." -- Professor Richard Bosworth

Collection of autobiographical interviews relating the migrant experience. Over 200 residents of a village in north eastern Italy emigrated to Perth between 1900 and 1997.Related are stories of visits home to Italy. Their stories have the themes of homesickness, farewells and reunions. Explores the sense of homelessness experienced and looks at the relationships between immigrants and their homelands and between place and identity. Concludes that visits home are central to the identity of immigrants and their children. Appendices provide migration charts, genealogies, and data on visits. Includes glossary, notes, bibliography and index. Author is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia.