The Continuing Mobility of Migrants in Italy: Shifting between Places and Statuses

In this paper, which is based on fieldwork carried out in Italy in 2001–02, I consider migrants as mobile actors, people who make choices about where they go and under what title, but people whose choices are limited by a range of factors including migration regimes, social networks and social and economic capital. The key questions considered relate to ‘status’ mobility—how and why migrants move across categories such as documented/undocumented migrant, labour migrant, family member, asylum-seeker or refugee; and geographic mobility—which factors cause some migrants to move and move again, from one country to another and within countries. Finally, the manner in which these two questions are related and how they affect ongoing processes of migration, settlement and community formation are considered.