Living at the Esquilino: Representations and Self-Representations of a Multi-ethnic Central District in Rome

Abstract

The Esquiline district of Rome has gone through important changes over the last decades, due to the strong presence of immigrants, mainly from China and Bangladesh, whose shops and performative ethnicity have radically modified both the place experience and the relational tissue of this central area of the city, adjacent to the Termini railway station. Newspapers, TV programs and a number of websites depict the Esquiline as a symbol of urban and social decay, often associated with immigrants. Scientific research seems to support this rhetoric of decay, when speaking of the Esquiline as an example of how marginality, in the time of globalization, can no longer be ascribed to the centre-periphery pattern, but to different, contingent, and contextual forms. But according to historical inhabitants, gentrified residents, immigrants, stakeholders and institutional actors, how is living at the Esquiline? Is it really a place of degradation and “central marginality”? What perceptions, emotions, feelings, and opinions do local inhabitants and actors associate with the district? What makes the Esquiline an attractive space to inhabit or to carry out economic, cultural or social activities? This contribution provides the results of a research, whose aim was to answer those research questions by using semi-structured interviews.