Postcolonial Organising: An Oral History of the Eritrean Community in Milan

This thesis explores the politics of self-organising of the Eritrean community in Milan and investigates the interconnections between postcoloniality, migration, difference and organising. Postcoloniality is seen as a crucial time-space for contemporary forms of organising. I employ a postcolonial approach not only to understand the historical environment in which my research is placed but also to imagine new forms of organising that involve migrants in Europe. I approach the problem of organising by engaging with literature on diversity management and multiculturalism. Moving from a critique of these practices I look for alternative forms of organising – specifically inside social movements – and ask what the effects of bringing postcolonial critique to bear organisational practices are and what does it mean to organise in a postcolonial way. Oral history, the methodology I use, shares with postcolonial studies the attempt of deconstructing a homogenous approach to history, giving value instead to subjectivity and to radical conflicts around heterogeneity. I examine the history of the Eritrean community in Milan from the vantage point of the lives of Eritrean migrants and second generations and I argue that two interrelated activities shaped their politics: practices of self-organisation in everyday life and the diasporic organization when dealing with politics concerning Eritrea. An analysis of this interrelation brings me to discuss what self-organising looks like in postcoloniality and what is the role of difference in it. While difference has often been connected to identities, I argue that the experience of the Eritreans in Milan suggests looking at difference as defined by practices. Difference comes to be a constituent divergence that rejects relativism and comparison. By thinking the relationship between postcoloniality and organization the thesis aims to contribute to the imagination of new forms of organising among differences.