Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Finally, before analysing the interviews with the Romany, specific characteristics
of the Romany cultures should be taken into consideration.
Traditionally, critics of oral history relate the oral narration of the interview
form to the broader cultural patrimony of the interviewee, which
is often transmitted, as is well known, by means of texts and research
written earlier. The Roma cultures, however, exist as a plurality of languages,
groups, religions, behaviours, self-representations and mainly oral
cultural attitudes, all of which have complicated our interpretations of the
interviews. Further, the Romany written language is still “under construction”
(Friedman, 1985), and it is difficult to identify which written texts
published by Kosovar Romany should be used in such an analysis. During
their testimonies however, the Romany have identified themselves as
members of one of two groups: the Gurbeti, meaning the speakers of
Romane, and the Askalije, who use Albanian as their language.
The North
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
The interviews from northern Italy were mostly gathered in the provinces
of Turin and Milan by Giuseppe De Sario. He described the process thus:
With the exception of Ilir, whom I met in Turin where he has lived since
the end of 1998, the other people I interviewed were from two different
areas, one near Ivrea in the province of Turin, and the second, which consisted
of Lecco and the surrounding area in Lombardia. The first area,
despite having experienced significant industrial downscaling (Olivetti,
Italy’s biggest information technology company, once had its headquarters
there), has maintained a considerably industrial base, now sustained by the
establishment of new mobile telephone and communication companies.
The area of Lecco, on the other hand, has seen significant economic development,
because of the “miracle surge” of small and medium sized industries
that affected the northern plains of the Pô river, at the centre of Italy.
These economic changes did not dominate the refugees’ accounts, however,
but rather gave a particular slant to both the reception and integration
of the immigrants into the local social fabric.
“Full employment” and an urban landscape composed of small and
medium-sized towns, with, in its most developed areas, a very active and
solidarity-conscious civil society, together made rapid integration in Ivrea
and in the Canavese area possible for dozens of people from Kosovo, and,
before that, for people from other regions and republics of former
Yugoslavia. Previously, and beginning in the 1990s, more than 500
Kosovar Albanians had settled in or passed through the Lecco area, as did
some Kosovar Serbs and Romany after the spring of 1999.
151