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The two phenomena are often overlapping. One of the most rapid effects of the policies developed
immediately after independence (obtained in 1956) was the liberalisation of the 'internal borders'.
These previously determined the obligation to reside in the places of birth, significantly restricting
movement. This liberalisation resulted in a high rate of mobility: first, towards the production
centres around the big cities; then, abroad. Already in the aftermath of independence, and then
even more rapidly in the 1960s, migration was encouraged both by the urbanisation process that
followed independence and by the precarious living and working conditions in the central and
southern areas of the country. The first Tunisian migratory contingents of a certain consistency
left for three different directions: the first and prevailing one headed towards France, the second
towards Libya, and, the third and lesser towards Algeria. The largest flow towards France was
based on bilateral pacts on the transfer of labour that established the conditions of employment
and residence.
The Tunisians who began to arrive in Italy were following two directions: one characterised
by routes concerning the centre-south, the other one characterised by routes concerning the centrenorth. In the first case, they arrived through Sicily following the Mahdia-Tunis-Trapani/Mazara
del Vallo axis and, in the second case, they arrived from the Ile de France following the ParisLyon-Turin-Milan-Bologna axis. Initially, only Tunisians from the North-East coast, mainly
fishermen, but also labourers with experience in construction and agricultural workers, headed
towards Mazara.

3. 1979 CENSIS INVESTIGATION
In order to retrace this history, we can use the material published in the 1979 Censis
Investigation. According to the authors of the study, the condition of isolation of immigrants, their
professional placement in sectors defined as “less guaranteed” (Censis, 1979, p. 11), and their low
participation in trade union structures determine the fact that
the perception of the dimensions and characteristics of the phenomenon is completely approximate,
insofar as it is linked on the one hand to official data that record, not even exactly, only 'regular'
immigration, and on the other hand to impressionistic and alarmist estimates that, upon initial
verification, seem equally unfounded (Censis, 1979, p. 14).

The Censis research also includes a section dedicated to seafarers in the fishing sector recruited
in Tunisia by shipowners from Mazara. This paragraph opens with a very harsh description of
their working conditions. The section on fishing closes with a detailed description of the
considerable mobility of Tunisians. This mobility could be defined as multilevel: between one
job and another, but also between one territory and another. For most of them fishing represented
only one of the possible occupations in the Trapani area during the 1970s.
The history of the Tunisians in the Trapani area from the end of the 1960s and for the following
decade is an essential reference point for all those who intend to deal with the development of
immigration in Italy from a historical perspective. As stated above, this concerns the beginning
of a migratory flow that has then undergone further and multiple developments. This flow has
developed and taken root in Western Sicily, an area that in the same historical phase was the
protagonist of other migratory movements, mainly outgoing, as it was happening in the rest of
Sicily and in Italy, too. Emigration, immigration, commuter mobility and internal migration
intertwine and mix with great frequency: this is a typical feature of many social and economic
contexts in the Mediterranean area, starting from the 1960s. Moreover, in this case, the
specialisation and the peculiarity of a flow originating from a mobile work par excellence, the
fishing one, emerge significantly.
But there are further elements of interest.
First of all – and this is a novelty in post-war Italy – the Tunisians’ case began as an active
recruitment of labour carried out by the shipowners of Mazara. This was part of a conscious
choice, even though it took place within a general legal framework that lacked an organic

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