Chapter 13
Chinese Migrant Entrepreneurship in Italy’s Food Services
In: Handbook of Chinese Migration to EuropeSearch for other papers by Grazia Ting Deng in
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Abstract
This chapter examines the historical transformation of Chinese food services in Italy in the context of Chinese mass migration. It employs both ethnocultural and structural perspectives to understand how the relatively new Chinese community in Italy has adapted and transformed this “traditional” business niche for overseas Chinese. The article sheds light on how Chinese migrants have constructed distinct niches in the food services sector, restructured the economic and urban landscape of food services, and contributed to taste diversification while also catering to specific local preferences in Italy. It further uses Chinese ownership of coffee bar businesses as an empirical case study to explain why some Chinese entrepreneurs have diversified away from ethnic restaurants and increasingly invested in Italy’s “traditional” forms of food consumption in the last two decades. This trend of Chinese entrepreneurship in Italy’s food service industry shows that Chinese migrants’ economic activities are deeply embedded not only in their dynamic migration trajectories and evolving ethnic/migrant communities, but also in the changing economic structures and social institutions of the local host society.