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Ancestors can be a source, as well as the genealogical practice can be a tactical devise to obtain a passport, which enables people to move easier in a hierarchic global space. In the Argentinean case, on the one hand, the number of genealogical researches to apply for an Italian second citizenship raised up, on the other hand, the practice of the genealogy itself has become more popular, above all along the middle classes, whereas a basic genealogical knowledge has spread within the young generations. Using interviews, as well as bibliographical and statistic data, this paper aims to mark the complex connection, not only the instrumental one, between different genealogical practices produced by Argentineans of Italian descendant, Italian citizenship applications and the new Argentinean migration flows to Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of cultural anthropology, the study focuses on what position and structure the Italian kinship shows in different genealogical-kinship representations, produced by Argentinean descendants of the Italian immigrants. It also considers the differences and the connections between active and activable kinship networks, genealogical memory and genealogical practice. An ethnographical fieldwork was carried out to gather data in the South-eastern Province of Córdoba, one of the richest and most productive areas of Argentina, where Italian settlers arrived since the second half of xix century. Two case studies, based on interviews and graphical reconstructions of genealogies show diverse types of representations. One focuses on the contemporary time and includes the active kinship network. The other develops along the vertical axis of the time in search of past and ancestors, starting from such migrants that became the heroes of the pampa-colonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]