Las raíces en los barcos Cittadinanza, immaginari e narrazioni della comunità italo-discendente in Uruguay

The relationship between Uruguay and Italy has deep historical roots, shaped by the major waves of migration that began in the mid-nineteenth century and continued through the post–Second World War period, bringing a substantial Italian population to the small South American country. Today, Montevideo hosts a vibrant community of tanos – the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those migrants – many of whom claim Italian citizenship through ius sanguinis. This research is an ethnographic study of the memory of Italian migration to Uruguay, focusing on Italian citizenship both as an object of inquiry and as an analytical lens. The topic of citizenship enables an ongoing dialogue between personal, intimate experiences and wider historical and social contexts. The primary aim is to understand what remains of the legacy of Italian migration to Uruguay – especially in the everyday practices and relationships of Italian descendants – and to explore the meanings ascribed to ancestry, to identity (hybrid and shifting), and to memory (or post-memory) as arenas of negotiation. Far from being a merely legal-administrative status, citizenship emerges as a complex and fluid field in which affective, symbolic, historical, social, and political dimensions intersect, and in which time resists linearity, revealing instead a more circular, organic nature. By examining the social uses of Italian citizenship across different contexts, this study highlights how individuals redefine belonging in order to navigate an increasingly globalized and complex world. Within this framework, as Aihwa Ong argues, people develop flexible understandings of citizenship as a form of symbolic and practical capital, strategically mobilized to secure mobility, prestige, and protection. The memory and inheritance of ancestors – embodied in citizenship – thus become both symbolic and tangible resources that descendants activate to act in the present and to envision their future, opening up a horizon of multiple possibilities.