The community and communication: an ethnography of immigration in Milan

Abstract

Community has often been used impressionistically as a tool for concealing a lack of theorising in analytical concepts. As a result, its operationalization in empirical social research gave rise to reified descriptions as is quite often the case with studies on ethnicity and international migration. Drawing upon recent developments in systems theory, second order cybernetics, and organizational theory an alternative conceptualization is suggested which brings together notions of place, time and the idea of memory as an including/excluding device. Understanding community in terms of communication enables not only to fully exploit both an ethnographic approach and network analysis, but also to work out more sensitive tools for policy-making. In this perspective, the concept has been used in an ethnography of migration in Milan (Italy), and its results evaluated.