“Torna a Surriento”: Return Migration to Southern Italy from 1876 to Today Conference

Download call for papers here. 

Location: Taylor Institution Library, University of Oxford

Conference Date: 24-25 September 2025

Abstract Submission Deadline: 30 June 2025

In collaboration with Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford DiSSGeA, University of Padua MoHu – Mobility and Humanities Centre of Advanced Studies, DiSSGeA, University of Padua ISO – Italian Studies at Oxford, Migration Oxford 

As evidenced by the extensive and ever-growing body of literature, historians have persistently examined the various facets of the Italian “many diasporas”, which follow complex trajectories, including that of the return. During the Mass migration period (1876-1914), 14 million Italians emigrated from the country; a figure that subsequently increased to 26 million by 1976. After 1901, migration evolved into a predominantly Southern phenomenon, and the period following WWII signified the further meridionalizzazione of this trend. However, it is estimated that 50% of these 26 million migrants, disseminated across Europe, the United States, South America, but also to a lesser extent to Africa and Oceania, eventually returned to Italy; recent statistical analysis covering the period from 1902 to the present days confirm an aggregate return rate of 40%.

Return migration to Southern Italy is also a notable topic in works of literature, music, cinema, theatre and other forms of creative expression, which explore the practical and emotional complexities that surround the positive or negative experience of going back.

While international scholars are increasingly devoting their attention to the topic of return migration, the Italian case has only sporadically been addressed.

We are therefore organising a conference that aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of return migration to Southern Italy from 1876 to the present day, and we invite scholarly contributions from the fields of migration history, social history, economic history, literature, music, cinema, theatre and other forms of creative expression. Whereas the focus of the conference is specifically on returns to Southern Italy, where Naples (and Sorrento) are emblematic of the broader Southern cultural imagination and experience, we hope to collect contributions which have resonance with the experience of return from any country across the globe.

We hope to address the topic from multiple perspectives, and areas of interest include (but are not limited to):

- Nostalgia, homesickness, and desire to return

- Failed attempts and obstacles to the return

- Successful strategies of return

- Practical aspects of the return journey

- Traumatic experiences of return and alienation

- Return and transfer of knowledge

- Nationalistic, propagandistic, and political use of return

- Political engagement, persecution, exile, and return

- Returning soldiers and war experiences

- Colonial experiences, decolonisation, and repatriation

- Citizenship and the decision to return

- Generational change and return

- Financial strategies, remittances, and economic impact of return

- Questions of gender and the experience of return

- Waiting for those who return: “white widows” and family members

- Language barriers and return; the language of the returnees

Presentations can be both in Italian and English. All submissions must be sent via email in a single Word document to the email address tornaasurriento2025@gmail.com no later than 30 June 2025 and include the following items:

- an abstract (250 words max)

- a short bio (100 words max)

- full name, email address, and affiliation.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 20 July 2025.

Please feel free to contact the organisers Dr Fanny Clemente (frances.clemente@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) and Dr Alice Gussoni (alice.gussoni@unipd.it) for further information prior to submission.