This article analyses a series of migrant mobilizations which took place in 2010 and 2011 throughout Italy: the unrest in Rosarno, the migrant general strikes on 1 March, the campaign and the strike against undeclared work in Nardò and the occupation of a construction crane in Brescia. Engin Isin's principles of investigating acts of citizenship provide a theoretical background for understanding them as a coherent, new cycle of struggles in the crisis of neoliberalism. As proved by those mobilizations, migrants can significantly contribute to open the boundaries of neoliberal citizenship, when they construct themselves as activist citizens. Moreover, the contestation of an exclusionary, racialized and competitive model of society can become a goal shared by migrants and nationals alike, opening up an alternative social model based on equal entitlements to rights, solidarity and real democracy. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Economic crisis Migrant struggles acts of citizenship Neoliberalism Migration policies Racism

immigration policy social exclusion social movement Italy popular protest neoliberalism Brescia citizenship ethnopolitics democracy racism immigrant population