Wednesday, March 19, 2025
4.30 pm, Room 1G
Venice International University, San Servolo Island
Francesco Goglia, Professor at University of Exeter
Francesco Della Puppa, Associate Professor at Ca’ Foscari
Giulia Ferro, Research Fellow at Ca’ Foscari
Valeria Tonioli, Research Fellow at Ca’ Foscari
Today, Italy is one of the most important destinations of the Bangladeshi diaspora in the West, with Rome hosting the second largest Bangladeshi community in Europe, after London, and Venice hosting the second largest Bangladeshi community in Italy, after Rome, along with Milan. Although the Bangladeshi community has only become established in the country in the last thirty years, it has grown with unprecedented speed and intensity. This is the result of the intertwining of the social changes that Italy has undergone within the context of Mediterranean Europe and the profound political and economic transformations of post-independence Bangladesh, which has become a protagonist on the world stage. This VIULecture deals with Bangladeshi migration to Italy. It will analyze the class composition and aspirations of Bangladeshi migrants, the familiarization process of this migration in Italy, which, through the process of family reunification, increased the number of women and so-called “second generations” in the country. Finally, it will analyse the impact of the economic crisis on the social, family and migratory trajectories of Bangladeshi migrants in Italy, many of whom have become Italian citizens in the meantime, acquiring European passports and, in increasing numbers, relocating to the UK and London.
In an era shaped by migration, as people move and evolve, linguistic repertoires also undergo significant change. Since the late 1980s, the Bangladeshi community in Italy has grown exponentially, now comprising newcomers, reunited families, as well as second and third-generation individuals, forming a highly diverse and dynamic community. The contexts, reasons for migration, desires, motivations, and linguistic backgrounds vary greatly. In this research, the lecturers have interviewed individuals from different generations, genders, and social statuses. While Italian and Bangla are the primary languages, the work with interviewees also revealed plurilingual and pluricultural repertoires, including English, Arabic, and Hindi, which serve to create broader transnational connections. Attitudes and motivations toward these languages differ within the bi- and plurilingual community. For the first generation, Italian is a second language, often accompanied by challenges and limited opportunities in the learning process. In contrast, Bangla is gradually being "eroded" in the second and third generations, yet it is still viewed as a vital part of their heritage, with specific schools catering to children of Bangladeshi origin. English, meanwhile, is seen as a prestigious language that fosters opportunities and strengthens transnational ties.
Today, there are more than 8,000 people of Bangladeshi origin in the Venice area, with at least 2,000 of them being minors. In recent years, the number of minors and women has risen significantly due to an increase in the arrival of Bangladeshi families and family reunifications, particularly involving women and children. In August 2023, 33% of newborns in local hospitals were of Bangladeshi descent. The growing number of minors in schools has led to some misunderstandings between families and teachers, as well as between families and local social services. These misunderstandings appear to stem from differences in representations, needs, and expectations between families and institutions such as schools and social services. The lecture will focus specifically on presenting data regarding the differing educational and linguistic practices between home and school for families with children aged 3 to 6 years.
This presentation examines language use and maintenance within the Italian-Bangladeshi community in London, focusing particularly on how onward migration has reshaped their linguistic repertoire. Drawing on focus groups and interviews with children from Italian-Bangladeshi families, the findings reveal that Italian is primarily maintained through communication with same-age peers and siblings. Older siblings play a central role in preserving Italian, having spent several years in Italy and attended school there. In London, many participants continue formal education in Italian, reflecting its perceived value, while Bengali is not studied formally due to a lack of literacy in the language. English is regarded as the most important language, and along with a British education, serves as a key driver for onward migration, offering better future prospects for the second generation. Bengali, spoken by parents among themselves, is understood receptively by children. Both Bengali and Italian serve as important markers of identity for the Italian-Bangladeshi community, distinguishing them from the larger Sylheti-speaking British-Bangladeshi population.
Registration required (both online and in-presence attendance). Attendees can also register in person before the event.
Francesco Della Puppa is Associate Professor in Sociology at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari University, Italy. He carries out teaching and research activities relating to international migration, migrant families and family reunification, migrant masculinities, onward migration, migrant labour and digital labour, Bangladeshi diaspora. He has published widely in books and journals. He is working on social sciences in comics, ethnographic novels and comic based research, and in establishing academic, scientific, social, human relations with Cuba.
Giulia Ferro is a Research Fellow at Ca' Foscari University. She obtained a Master's degree in Asian and North African Languages and Civilisations, Indian Subcontinent curriculum in 2020. She has been working for several years in linguistic-cultural mediation and interpreting, for Hindi and Urdu languages, and in sociolinguistics. As part of the Changes NPRR CREST project, she is specialising in Bangladesh, the Bangla language and the linguistic peculiarities of Bangladeshi migrant communities in Venice. Her main research interests concern the linguistic repertoires of people with a migration background, attitudes towards languages and the phenomena that arise in language contact through migration. I have a particular interest in the status of women in the countries of the Indian Subcontinent, intersecting social and linguistic problems. Within the Changes NPRR CREST project, she is also focusing on the co-participation of migrant communities in city's heritage fruition from both social and linguistic perspectives.
Valeria Tonioli is currently a Research Fellow at the Ca' Foscari University, where she is working on the Changes NPRR CREST project on cultural, linguistic and educational practices in Bangladeshi migrant families living in Venice. She holds a joint PhD from the same university in Educational Linguistics and from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies. Her research interests include intercultural communication, language and cultural mediation, Bangladeshi diaspora and migration, language education of students with migrant background. Her previous research has focused on Bangladeshi transnational families living in Italy, particularly in Venice.
Francesco Goglia is Associate Professor of Migration and Multilingualism at the University of Exeter. His research interests include multilingualism and language contact in immigrant communities, code-switching, language maintenance and shift, Italian and Italo-Romance dialects abroad. He has published chapters and articles on multilingualism among immigrant and diasporic communities in Italy, Portugal, UK and Australia. In the last years, he has published extensively on the topic of onward migration and sociolinguistic issues. His research on this topic was supported by the Leverhulme Research Fellowship project ‘Onward migration from Italy to the UK: sociolinguistic implications’ (2019-2021). This semester he is teaching at Venice International University.
