From Laowai to China Street: the Construction of Seclusion in Collective Values, Imaginary and Practices of Chinese Diaspora in Prato, Italy.

The story of Chinese migration to Italy has attracted considerable scholarly attention over the past three decades. Research has examined migration histories, labour regimes, the mobility of children across borders, and the identities young Italo-Chinese recognise in their lives. Within this broader literature, Prato occupies a distinctive position. With the increasing demands of the global supply chain, more and more immigrant workers were integrated into the local productive system, especially those from China. Prato has thus demonstrated heterogeneity, cultural diversity and neoliberal reconfiguration in an urban area called “Macrolotto Zero”. The organisation of migrant households is structured by the capitalist production practices and adopts reproductive arrangements leveraging available resources. Drawing on two-year ethnographic research and focus groups coupled with a child-centred approach, this dissertation examines the socialisation processes of children of Chinese migrants in transnational households through the lens of seclusion. The longitudinal design enables an observation of developmental trajectories on temporal and spatial dimensions. The research sheds light on the complex life experiences of these children who embody the interplay of sophisticated childcare strategies, negotiation of identities and sense of belonging in family relations, differentiated education trajectories, peer relations and social participation reshaped by multilevel mobilities between China and Italy. Research findings also reveal that the challenges faced by children of Chinese migrants in Prato are not just an isolated phenomenon in Italy, but rather a continuation of a structural dilemma related to rural education systems and labour regimes in China. The national, ethnic, socio-cultural, familial and interpersonal changes brought about by migration intensify the pre-existing vulnerabilities for children of migrants, complicating their transnational life experiences in both countries.