Conclusion: Attachment to Places in the Materiality of Things 146

This chapter addressed the sense of attachment towards Italy from the perspective of older Italian migrants I worked with. The findings of this chapter are summarized in the diagram below.

Figure 7 Focus on Place Attachment to the country of provenience (Italy): findings

Hence, place attachment to the country of provenience is expressed by: mobility toward places in different period of the year; investment - emotionally and financially

amongst others – agency in creating places in Italy (i.e. private dwelling to be able to move at some point in life, etc.); furnishing or decorating the private dwelling in the UK in order to resemble as much as possible the place in the country of provenience. In the first section, participants articulated how their movements across nations revealed the subjective meanings associated with places. The data presented helped understand how their mobility across countries and transnational lifestyles was shaped by affective bonds with places. These data revealed that the experiences of ageing across countries through circular or a transnational lifestyle relate in part to social and physical aspects of the environment. As such, there is a shared belief about Italy’s positive impacts on their health and well-being in later life (‘a place for spiritual refreshment’ in Alfredo’s example; ‘dancing and food’ for Christine; perceived well-being ‘with the air and seaside [my wife] will recover soon’ for Manuel; and outdoor activities ‘going out and dance’ in Riccardo’s case). Therefore, a notion of ageing that derives from the possibility of enjoying places, is a consequence of their transnational lifestyle and mobility across countries. This is in line with previous studies on migration. Fortier, for example, suggests exploring the formation of Italian migrants’ belonging in Britain, both in their attachments to culture and movements across places of origin (Fortier, 2000). Despite having identified their ‘home’ in the UK, these participants demonstrated how older people after retirement wish to maintain transnational ties in Italy. These places acquire important meanings in later life, considering that some within this group of people have invested in building homes in the Italy before they retired.

In this respect, my data is in line with other scholars concerned with how older age intersects with migration. For example, Zontini (2015) who conducted a study with older Italian migrants in the UK, explored how ageing does not necessarily effect a decline in transnational ways of being, but rather can lead to the opposite. Hence, she highlighted that older Italian migrants manifest a desire to re-affirm their own cultural roots. In line with her study, I argue that this is manifested in my population through transnationalism.

In addition, these examples can also reveal how transnationalism reinforces a sense of belonging to an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1991). This might explain how a dual sense of affective bonds with places is articulated over time and across generations. In fact, the examples reported have also shown how some ageing

Italians experience multiple senses of attachment to places. Therefore, mobility across countries and attachment to them, should not be viewed as opposite and mutually exclusive phenomena from the perspective of the older Italian migrants I worked with.

A further analytical insight, highlighted by Phillipson (2015), is that movements across nations and the maintenance of transnational ties, are important to take into consideration when studying an older migrant population, as constituting diversity within ageing migrants. Hence, in the second section of this chapter, I illustrated that a sense of attachment to and identification with places is not always determined by engaging in mobility across countries. To explore this point better, I focused on the attachment to Italy from the perspective of those who are less mobile. Some participants, despite not having a transnational lifestyle, remain much attached to Italy (i.e. Domenico, who has not lost his Italian identity and Miranda who has made her 'Italy in the UK').

It has been shown that amongst some older Italian migrants, the home sustained the process of cultural identification in later life. This data highlighted how the re-creation of landscapes left in the context of migration played a role in sustaining participants’ sense of identity. This was provided by the role of objects in the domestic sphere and everyday embodied practices: (Lucia’s example of switching the language into Italian when indoors; Tina and Teresa’s possessions; Angela’s house). In line with the research of previous scholars on migration (Tolia-­‐Kelly, 2004; Walsh, 2006; Basu and Coleman, 2008; Vilar Rosales, 2009; Giorgi and Fasulo, 2013), furnishing the house with elements of the country of origin was found to sustain participants’ identification with the cultural and geography of places. Moreover, my data adds to this existing literature that some amongst this group of people identified a transnational border between counties by material and symbolic aspects of the home.

In fact, in all the cases presented in this chapter, the people I worked with manifested an attachment to the places inhabited prior migration through material culture. Material possessions provided a physical and symbolic ‘sense of home’ (Dant, 1999; Miller, 2002), which helps to narrate personal biographies, opening up narration about the self and their own migration history – or their ancestors. However, despite similarities in the practice of collecting and furnishing their English houses with

representation of Italy, meanings attributed to these objects differed amongst participants. Some, use these objects to display a sense of belonging often linked to family bonds (especially for third-generation Italian migrants); for some, these strengthen identities and attachment to the places left; and finally, for other participants, material culture in later life helps re-establish an emotional bond with places inhabited after migration. This emerged by looking at material culture that creates a representation of familiar landscape through artefacts re-produced in the context of migration. This is one of the significant insights in my study on ageing and migration, since it enables reflection on the importance of material possessions that are not merely those carried from the places left, but that can be re-invented creatively using available resources. In fact, from these examples, it emerged that some participants identified practices through which to foster their cultural identity in the places they inhabited in later life. These practices enable the house to be identified as an 'Italian home'. This helps to show how the older Italian migrant I worked with, interpret the concept of place identity as constituted by memories, feelings and ideas about specific physical settings. They show how they create new spaces of belonging by organizing their personal space to maintain and sustain a coherent image of themselves. Moreover, this place identity has been socially constructed during the time of the research encounters between us, and amongst themselves in a nuanced way.

In the light of this, I argue for the importance of material culture in studies on ageing at the intersection with migration, as it as it reveals the attachment people hold to places and their expectation of ageing related to places. In fact, by looking at how familiar landscapes in the context of migration are re-created by older Italian migrants, insight emerges as to what is ‘home’ and what is ‘abroad’ in the context of migration. Hence, these objects are not merely revealing the attachment to the context left pre-migration, but also the will to establish emotional connections to the places inhabited in later life – by reproducing the aesthetics of the places left.

In conclusion, through everyday domestic practices, the private domains of the house become a key central place where to inscribe and express cultural identity –

language, tradition, values, and beliefs. As illustrated in Chapter 2, according to contributions at the intersection between material culture and migration studies, private dwellings – as embodied practices – should be addressed as meaningful and expressive sites for understanding processes of negotiation and reconstruction of

place-ties. Thus, these examples provide insights into the meaning and significance of ‘home’ through ‘home-making practices’, from the perspective of an older Italian migrant population. The findings presented here explained one of the objective of the research that relates to the contribution of material culture to transnational identities of older Italians in Newcastle. In the following, Chapter 6, I unpack the conditions for a sense of attachment to places in the UK.

Pictures of objects mentioned in Chapter 5

Figure 8 Ancient map of the village where the participant’s family come from.

Figure 10 Accordion and poster of the summer folklore celebration in Italy.

Figure 11 Participants’ house in Italy

Figure 13 Statuetta di Capodimonte

Chapter 6. The Best Stage of Life