Residential segregation of the italian libjan population in Rome half a century after rapatriation.

Over the course of the previous century several European countries absorbed substantial flows of fellow countrymen that had been driven out of the colonies, generally in the wake of dramatic events. Their residential integration in the mother country was characterized by complex processes that the scientific literature has thus far only partially addressed. An emblematic case is that of Italians expelled en-masse from Libya in the 1960s. The process of expulsion, concentrated mainly in the years 1967-70, involved Italians of different religious faiths: Catholics (arriving between 1968-1970), and Jews (arriving in 1967). The objective of the present study was to determine whether in Rome – one of the major destinations of this exodus - different patterns of residential settlement exist corresponding to these two subgroups of returnees. A household-based analysis of residential segregation was performed for the two subgroups, revealing considerable differences between their respective settlement patterns. The settlement geography of Jewish returnees showed a high level of segregation. Essentially concentrated in few areas, mostly in the city centre, Italian Jews from Libya tended to settle in the areas traditionally inhabited by Rome’s Jews since long before the Libyan exodus. In contrast, Catholic households exhibited a moderate degree of segregation and tended to settle in peripheral areas. The availability, to Jewish households, of a solid support network in the city may have contributed to this outcome