Cultural influences on the yards of Italian migrants’ houses built in Brisbane (Australia)

Abstract

Italian migrants, as well as diverse migrant groups, brought with them cultural practices and a way of life, which are nowadays part of the multicultural Australian built environment and society. This research study focuses on the external yards of domestic dwellings built in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Brisbane by the Italian migrants. Namely, it is argued that the external yards of migrants’ houses are embedded by cultural meanings. The research study is of a qualitative nature and, as primary sources of data, uses (1) semi-structured interviews, (2) photo-elicitation interviews and (3) focus group discussion, which were conducted both in Australia with 21st-generation Italian migrants, and in Italy with 10 informants indigenous to the Veneto region, where they built their homes. Visual data about the houses were collected with (4) photographs and drawings. This paper explores the activities occurring inside migrants’ houses in Brisbane, highlighting the meaning of the activities and the settings where these activities are performed. Through the study of these meanings, it is revealed that the various activities are expressions of the culture, as an accepted way of doing things and/or a way of life, of the country of origin of the respondents.