Social exchange, reciprocity and amoral familism: Aspects of Italian chain migration to Australia

Abstract

This paper examines new evidence on Italian chain migration to Australia. General theories stressing social and cultural differences between Northern and Southern Italians are challenged. The argument is in two parts. The first involves a critique of the idea of Southern Italian amoral familism, based on evidence of convergence between Northern and Southern patterns of chain migration and settlement. This finding is corrosive both of Banfield's work on Southern Italian family structure, and Putnam's more recent representation of Southerners as inescapably locked into cultural structures that militate against mutual aid and trust. In the second part of the argument an attempt is made to locate patterns of social exchange evident in the chain migration process. Models of reciprocity are rejected in favour of notions of sponsorship as a non-reciprocal gift among family, friends and paesani.