Event

Chinese Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Italy's Coffee Bars: Demographic Transformation and Historical Contingency

12-1 pm

PSTC Seminar Room 205

Ting (Grazia) Deng, PSTC Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown University

The PSTC Colloquium Series will host Grazia Deng, PSTC Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown University. Her talk is titled "Chinese Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Italy’s Coffee Bars: Demographic Transformation and Historical Contingency" and will address the effects of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in the Italian coffee industry.

Deng’s research focuses on the intercultural dynamics resulting from migration. Her current book project, based on her Ph.D. dissertation, is concerned with the emerging phenomenon of coffee bars in Italy being taken over by Chinese migrants. It examines why and how two seemingly opposite and contradictory groups of people – migrants and locals- who are commonly thought to be uncooperative and mutually exclusive, if not outright hostile, are coming together and cooperating to perpetuate an existing form of local culture and an older way of life. She is also developing a new project on Chinese migrants’ everyday healthcare practices and encounters in Italy.