Mind the map: charting unexplored territories of in-visible migrations from North Africa and the Middle East to Italy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Visibility and invisibility represent crucial categories of analysis in migration studies. However, the multiple manifestations of in-visibility can make it difficult to precisely define them. This article suggests reconsidering these categories not so much in terms of ‘what they are’ but rather ‘when they occur’. By encompassing the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of social interaction and analysis, in-visibility proves to be a viable category to explore the case of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish migrations to Milan, Italy–an area that still remains ‘uncharted territory’ for scholars of Sephardi and Mizrahi studies.