Citizens and Non-Citizens: The Relevance of Citizenship Status in Labour Migration within Italy and to Germany from the 1950s to 1970s

In: Journal of contemporary history, Volume 49, Issue 1, p. 28-53

Abstract

From the 1950s to 1970s large numbers of workers migrated not only from the south of Italy to the industrial areas in the north of the country but also to West Germany. Whereas the former movement was an internal migration within a nation state, the latter can be defined as transnational migration. Both migration movements had similar characteristics, however there was one major difference regarding the legal status of the labour migrants: while they were citizens in Northern Italy, they were non-citizens in Germany. This article discusses what relevance the formal qualification of citizenship, with the codification of civil, political and social rights, had for the labour migrants in everyday life. On the one hand the changing supranational regulations that extended the range of citizenship status are scrutinized, on the other the background of the Italian labour migrants in marginal areas of the country that limited their possibilities of exerting citizenship is taken into consideration. By assessing what impact the dissimilar legal status had on the labour migrants' opportunities within both receiving societies the article contributes to the recently opened research agenda of a combined study of internal and transnational migrations.