The other “Bangla-Town”: Marginality in the centre of Rome

Francesca Piazzoni
Additional contact information
Francesca Piazzoni: University of Liverpool, School of Architecture, United Kingdom.

Migration Letters, 2021, vol. 18, issue 1, 73-83

Abstract: Poor immigrants in cities across the world challenge exclusion by appropriating and transforming urban spaces. Scholars have tended to explore these migrant urbanisms by focusing on low-income, “marginal” districts that remain separate from prime spaces like historic downtowns. This paper widens such a focus by analysing how Bangladeshi immigrants inhabit the touristic centre of Rome, an iconic space designed to normalise—and capitalise upon—dominant constructions of who belongs to the Italian city. Roughly 2,000 immigrants eke out a living in Rome’s centre by selling trinkets to tourists. Drawing from observations and interviews, I detail how diverse vendors emplace their own Rome by working, hiding, praying, and relaxing in its iconic landscapes. Contingent, and yet persistent, the urbanisms enacted by the vendors destabilise normative logics of identity and call attention to prime spaces as potential arenas of insurgency.

Keywords: Migrant urbanisms; street vendors; Bangladeshi immigrants; public space; heritage; Rome (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.tplondon.com/ml/workflow/index/1053/5 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mig:journl:v:18:y:2021:i:1:p:73-83

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://migrationletters.com/

DOI: 10.33182/ml.v18i1.1053

Access Statistics for this article

Migration Letters is currently edited by Kittisak Jermsittiparsert

More articles in Migration Letters from Migration Letters
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ML ().