Ricerc@Sapienza

Over the course of the previous century several European countries
absorbed substantial flows of fellow countrymen that had been driven
out of the colonies, generally in the wake of dramatic events. Their
residential integration in the mother country was characterized by complex
processes that the scientific literature has thus far only partially
addressed. An emblematic case is that of Italians expelled en-masse
from Libya in the 1960s. The process of expulsion, concentrated mainly
in the years 1967-70, involved Italians of different religious faiths:
Catholics (arriving between 1968-1970), and Jews (arriving in 1967).
The objective of the present study was to determine whether in Rome
– one of the major destinations of this exodus – different patterns of
residential settlement exist corresponding to these two subgroups of
returnees. A household-based analysis of residential segregation was
performed for the two subgroups, revealing considerable differences
between their respective settlement patterns. The settlement geography
of Jewish returnees showed a high level of segregation. Essentially
concentrated in few areas, mostly in the city centre, Italian Jews from
Libya tended to settle in the areas traditionally inhabited by Rome’s
Jews since long before the Libyan exodus. In contrast, Catholic households
exhibited a moderate degree of segregation and tended to settle
in peripheral areas. The availability, to Jewish households, of a solid
support network in the city may have contributed to this outcome.