
“The image that Europeans have of the non-European world is based on a very limited set of references that serve a political purpose”
According to Diego, the best experiences in life are those lived and shared with others, which is why he believes that both Dante and Don Quixote both set out alone on their respective journeys through Hell and La Mancha, only to retrace their steps and decide to face them in company. Originally from Pereira, the capital of Colombia’s coffee-producing region, he has always had a passion for literature and writing that deepened by pursuing a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Humanities.
“In Latin America, the background is different, and a lot of study is required. From what I have seen, the level of education is higher up to the master’s degree”.
However, it is with the doctorate that there is a chance to hyper specialize. In Colombia, the lack of fundings in the university environment means that it is not the state that pays for the doctorate, but that students have to pay by themselves, and it costs a lot. “The rationale behind it is that with a doctorate, you have access to a privilege” and a better life path, which, however, only 1.5 percent of the population can aspire to. What’s more, international exchanges, which Diego says fortify and nurture the world of research, are impossible for students who, in order to pay for their doctorate, must simultaneously work. In South America, there is a different approach to literature and unlike Europe where there is an important philological tradition on the study of the classics, “we are particularly interested in modernity and the contemporary world”. During a seminar at his university, he got to know the one who is now his supervisor. An Italian researcher expert on migration to and from South America who offered him a research period in Italy that was then postponed for two years because of the pandemic.
“I have been working since I was eight years old, in South America it is normal. This is the first time in my life that I have the opportunity to just study.”
For a migrant person, adapting to and integrating into a new environment is not always easy and living in Milan did not seem to be simple. Fortunately, there was also the opportunity to work in Turin, whose slower pace matched his own. But here, he dealt with the complex Italian bureaucracy.
“The border has the ability to open up, and the bureaucratic system is part of its dispersion”.
A system that keeps you at the mercy of time and prevents you from managing your life as you would like to or to have access to public health care because of the cost. Diego decided to rely on private and less expensive insurance, aware that “I can’t get sick or go to the dentist, it’s not convenient for me”. However, while thinking about his migration experience, he reflects on others’ and feels fortunate. The academy is a space conducive to welcome and encounter, and it is easier to create community. Plus, “I am privileged, I can simply study”.
Through his research project, he aims to analyse and understand Latin American migration to Europe from 2000 to the present day, with a focus on Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. To do so, he uses a particular filter: novels and short stories that represent the migration experience of authors who, while narrating, are influenced by the space and reality they are experiencing. He has created a corpus of Latin American authors writing from European countries such as Germany, Italy, France and Spain. Analysing the characters in the novels, who are migrants themselves, and focusing on more recent migration flows allows him to understand the relationship between the latter’s personal and professional lives and the surrounding reality. Diego is particularly interested in analysing how the neoliberal European labour market is structured to exploit migrant workers. They often work without protections or respect for their rights and no investments in their well-being. Diego is also interested in analysing how migrants experience migration at various levels and the intersubjective relationships created with native people. He analyses also how it is to live in another language and the welcome ritual performed by long-standing community members, which fosters the migration experience itself. While he analyses this from a literary point of view, his colleagues do it from a historical, political and social perspective. What he particularly loves about his work – also because of his professional background – is the horizontal relationship he has established with his tutors and supervisor, who plays a key role for him. This is an aspect that he particularly appreciates also from a social and political perspective.
And Diego, though a PhD student, is often defined from the popular culture that frames migrant people in a very limited imaginary, and which is maintained to preserve the European vantage point. Something that reflects in the fields of research and creativity. In fact, presenting studies and analyses on European themes is difficult for Latin American researchers as there is an implicit restriction on their legitimacy because, “the European heritage is exclusive to European researchers”. But the opposite is possible. And, if one wants to have greater possibilities of publication in the European publishing market, then it is better to resort to the resources of magical realism or another type of narrative exoticism that reproduces and confirms the idea that in Europe one has of Latin America.
“When you talk about reality as reality, without referring to the exoticism you have in mind of Latin America, it is different”.
Different cultural and social aspects also make the adaptation process difficult. In Colombia, for example, music is everywhere. Dancing, and in general the daily rituals of physical and emotional contact, allow the creation of a different and less distant type of relationship. In Italy, however, it took him months to find his places and making friends was not easy. However, what he likes a lot is the ability to live simply. He is currently trying to establish collaborations between his research project and the doctoral programme in Colombia, and he will be truly happy when he will manage to bring a student to Italy to experience this perspective of the world. Diego believes that the dynamism and social energy typical of Latin American countries is connected to their relative youthfulness, stemming from their regained independence in the 1830s. Pereira is only about 210 years old – a very short time compared to Turin, for example – where the bicycle is the most democratic thing there is in his opinion. He now also cycles through the city and lives in the present, accompanied by the important people he has met along the way.