Abstract
Gossip is often considered to have negative and exclusionary social consequences within migrant communities and multi-ethnic settings. In contrast, the current research examines whether gossip can contribute to including and integrating people with different ethnic and migration backgrounds into a local community. The empirical study is based on 11 Months of fieldwork research in Riace, a small town in Southern Italy that has hosted refugees and migrants for over 20 years. We focused on the local functions of gossip as it occurs in everyday life and is embedded in the local social context. Findings demonstrate that much of the local gossip is inter-ethnic and facilitates strong community relationships by sustaining local norms and promoting trust relationships and shared narratives. It is concluded that local gossip does not only have to be divisive but also can have inclusive and integrative implications for multi-ethnic local settings.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 591-613 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Ethnic and Racial Studies |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 16 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 5 Sept 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by Collegio dei Fiamminghi. We would like to thank the members of the Collegio dei Fiamminghi in Bologna for the PhD Scholarship which sponsored the first phase of the collection of data. Ethnographic fieldwork data such as fieldnotes are stored at Utrecht University’s safe storage and can be viewed upon reasonable request. The first 6 Months of data collection were sponsored by a PhD Research Scholarship of Collegio dei Fiamminghi. For details on eligibility for author listing, please see the journal’s authorship policy, the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section. Statement Human Research Participants : This ethnographic study includes human research participants. Requirement for ethical approval was waived by the Chair of the Faculty Ethics Review Board (FERB) of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University: the data collection for the current study started in 2015 and ethical approval of research by the FERB became a requirement on July 1, 2019. However, the study was conducted in line with the ethical guidelines of Utrecht University’s Cultural Anthropology (CA), including transparency about the researcher’s role and aim, the secure storage of data and fieldnotes, the anonymity of participants, and obtaining (verbal) informed consent beforehand or retroactively, e.g. in cases of participant observation in groups.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Funding
This work was supported by Collegio dei Fiamminghi. We would like to thank the members of the Collegio dei Fiamminghi in Bologna for the PhD Scholarship which sponsored the first phase of the collection of data. Ethnographic fieldwork data such as fieldnotes are stored at Utrecht University’s safe storage and can be viewed upon reasonable request. The first 6 Months of data collection were sponsored by a PhD Research Scholarship of Collegio dei Fiamminghi. For details on eligibility for author listing, please see the journal’s authorship policy, the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section. Statement Human Research Participants : This ethnographic study includes human research participants. Requirement for ethical approval was waived by the Chair of the Faculty Ethics Review Board (FERB) of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University: the data collection for the current study started in 2015 and ethical approval of research by the FERB became a requirement on July 1, 2019. However, the study was conducted in line with the ethical guidelines of Utrecht University’s Cultural Anthropology (CA), including transparency about the researcher’s role and aim, the secure storage of data and fieldnotes, the anonymity of participants, and obtaining (verbal) informed consent beforehand or retroactively, e.g. in cases of participant observation in groups.
Keywords
- ethnography
- Gossip
- inclusion
- integration
- local community
- refugees
