Countryside Ghettoes? Segregation in Small Towns and Rural Areas in Italy.

Migrants' settlement trends in Italy have seen a major role of small towns and rural areas well before recent humanitarian flows. A mix of labour and housing market opportunities resulted in a significant share of non-metropolitan migration. Such trend was even reinforced in the last 5 years of so-called "migration crisis" in the Mediterranean basin -- due both to resettlement policies and to the inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees in the severely exploited labour force of the agrifood industry.

This presentation describes reasons and dynamics of migrants settlement patterns in Italy outside gateway cities in a comparative perspective, focussing expecially on the creation of concentration and segregation areas -- usually considered a typically urban-metropolitan pheonomen -- in micropolitan and rural areas in Italy. In particular, after a framing based on relevant literature, attention will be paid on some case studies from Central and Southern Italy, focussing on the link between concentration/segregation, radical social exclusion, and downward subordinate economic participation.

As a final discussion, this presentation debates on the inadequacy of usual segregation measures for countryside ghettoes, due to the limited availability of reliable data, and the coexistence of proximity and exclusion.