Summer Research in Italy

Over the summer of 2007, Heather Merrill began a new research project on
African Diasporic politics in Italy. The study compares Moroccan,
Senegalese, Ghanaian, and Somalian immigrant politics in the northern
industrial city of Torino and the central area in and around Bologna.
Professor Merrill has found that these migrants maintain continual
transnational relationships with people in their countries of origin and
other parts of the world, and they practice a number of religions of varying
importance to their politics, but they are increasingly recognized as
part of the new Italian working class. Many migrants are actively
involved in Italian trade unions as members and delegates. Over the
summer, Professor Merrill's ethnographic research led her to connect an
African migrant woman whose factory was operating under highly unsafe
conditions in violation of trade union agreements with an African trade
union delegate. A work slow down was organized, and the company owners
agreed to improve the conditions that had been compromising worker health
and safety.