Migropessimists (when in settler colonialism): Lorenzo Veracini, Simone Battiston, Francesco Ricatti, ‘Migropessimism of the Intellect, Migro-Optimism of the Will: The Italian-Australian Experience’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Migropessimists (when in settler colonialism): Lorenzo Veracini, Simone Battiston, Francesco Ricatti, ‘Migropessimism of the Intellect, Migro-Optimism of the Will: The Italian-Australian Experience’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2025

30Nov25

Abstract: Focusing on the Italian-Australian experience, this article outlines its authors’ migropessimism and their subsequent migro-optimism. We initially focus on what we perceive as the migrant’s ‘ontological death’. We will then follow unsuccessful attempts to carve a political space and more successful attempts to pursue spaces of personal autonomy. The immigrants to a settler society like Australia witness a settler colonial sovereignty that is asserted and yet remains defective. Conversely, they face an Indigenous sovereignty that is denied and yet endures. This witnessing confirms that for migrants to settler colonial countries sovereignty is always someone else’s. For Indigenous peoples and for settlers, in their relational opposition, sovereignty is political life; for migrants, sovereignty is like the Epicurean death: they will never encounter it. If migrants are, then sovereignty is elsewhere, since they have already left. And if sovereignty is, then the migrants are no longer, since they have become settlers.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed