"Life is resistance". Political agency and participation of people with a migrant background.

The following research thesis investigates the political agency and participation of people with a migrant background inside the specific context of some cities within the Italian North-East. Given the little presence of academic research on the topic of political participation of people with a migrant background, this research broadens the sociological analysis and orients towards new theoretical frameworks and empirical findings within the Italian academic context. Notably, most Italian research concentrates on conventional political participation; however, existing literature shows how if people with a migrant background are involved in politics, they mostly participate through unconventional channels (Cappiali, 2022). Therefore, the objectives of the following research thesis are the analysis of how political agency is formed alongside the alternative forms of political participation as acted by people with a migrant background. Another objective concentrates on what this research conceptualizes as “progressive whiteness paradox”, regarding the almost absence of people with a migrant background inside radical left political spaces within some cities of the north-eastern region. The hereby selected methodology is the one that uses an abductive approach, putting in continuous relation the emic with the etic. The use of 19 semi-structured interviews alongside ethnographic participant observation is what makes this research analytically and methodologically effective for the study of political participation of people with a migrant background. The sample is snowballed and stratified into three distinct theory-based groups: group 1 is composed of people with a migrant background that participate politically outside radical left spaces; group 2 of people with a migrant background inside radical left spaces; and lastly, group 3 is compounded of white Italian activists inside radical left spaces. The insertion of Italian activists aims at better capturing the “progressive whiteness paradox” and how access operates for political participation. The qualitative analysis reveals how political agency can be formed through and within conditions of powerlessness and marginalisation, where one racialized and stigmatized identity can be the source of political consciousness. Regarding the findings of political participation, people with a migrant background participate in their own terms, through photography, social media, informal conversations, awareness-raising and self-education, and through their families, friends, and community of belonging. The study also reveals how alternative forms of participation can overlap with infrapolitical resistance, the differentiation is made by the self-identification of the research participants themselves. Lastly, the “progressive whiteness paradox” is recognized by most interviewees, identified as the lack of Italian radical left spaces to recognize their white privilege, organisational whiteness as a credential, and uneven distribution of capitals for accessing informal organisational participation. The study shows the importance of how both political agency and participation are situated contingent processes, where their meanings should be distanced from dominant liberal conceptualisations as they depend on the meanings that the individual gives to his/her political acts. A final implication of this study is that a possible solution to the “progressive whiteness paradox” is the incorporation of an intercultural dialogue alongside open communication regarding organisational racial composition and the understanding that people with a migrant background are political agents and do participate, just maybe in their terms. Only through this it is possible to have a shared multicultural political fight.