Urbanities: Grecanici Migration to the City of Reggio Calabria, South Italy

Abstract

This paper discusses degrees of urbanity or urbanities using ethnographic data from research conducted among the Grecanici communities in the city of Reggio Calabria, south Italy. Urbanization in south Italy is usually associated with social and territorial mobility, education and natural disasters. It is further discussed in terms of a rural/urban duality that masks rather than reveals possible diversities concerning the social life in the city and the links between rural and urban which in the urban environment follow different trajectories. Following the premise that the effects of urbanization cannot be homogenously felt by the actors, I follow the Grecanici migration to the city of Reggio Calabria in the decade of the 1950s in order to argue that urbanities are directly informed by factors such as kinship, neighbourhood identification, education and socio-economic status.