Living Outside the Walls: The Chinese in Prato

Rebecca French · Russell Smyth

sij 2009. · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

O ovoj e-knjizi

Never before has research into the benefits and drawbacks of the Chinese migration to Prato in Tuscany been presented so comprehensively in English. The recent influx of Chinese to the longstanding textile manufacturing and wholesale businesses in Prato has stirred strong emotions in the host culture and among the new arrivals alike. The breadth of the coverage of this publication is demonstrated by the full range of perspectives focused on the economic and social dilemmas being experienced. A wide range of points of view are elucidated -- the concerns of the local commune, the factory labourers, the traders, economists, Italian nationalists, Italian bureaucrats, Chinese provincial government, demographers, urban planners, academics, community developers, industry analysts, cultural observers, labour market analysts, media commentators, social planners, students, and social geographers.

O autoru

GRAEME JOHANSON

As Director of the Centre for Community Networking Research (www.ccnr.net), Graeme has managed many practical projects at Monash University about the usefulness of ICTs for community improvement locally and internationally. Current projects deal with sharing literacy skills in South Africa by means of Digital Doorways; the power of mobile phones for poverty alleviation by improving women’s roles in micro-enterprises in India, China and South Africa; Chinese migrants and social inclusion in cities in Australian and northern Italy; improving networks between community-based organisations, home businesses, and local government; developing a knowledge management standard for community-based organizations; the formation of a National Non-profit ICT Coalition; prototyping an annotation system for capturing and sustaining indigenous oral culture; and developing protocols and guidelines for academic e-Research repositories, such as the Dataset Acquisition Accessibility and Annotation e-Research Technologies (DART).

RUSSELL SMYTH

Russell Smyth is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Monash University. Russell's research interests are law and economics, Chinese economic reform, Asian economies and applied time series econometrics. He is the Director of the Asian Business and Economics Research Unit and Deputy Head of department. He is Joint Editor of Economic Papers, the policy journal of the Economic Society of Australia, Associate Editor of the new B.E. Press journal, Asia Pacific Law and Economics Review and sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. He is a member of the Central Council of the Economic Society of Australia.

REBECCA FRENCH

Rebecca French completed her Masters of Information Management and Systems at Monash University in 2007, after working as a Psychologist for 10 years. She is currently working as a research assistant and tutor at Monash University, and as a Records and Information Management Consultant with non-profit organisations. Rebecca will undertake a PhD in 2009, focussing on information and knowledge management in welfare organisations.