«Do You Remember What We Did?» Memories and Working-class Traces on the Outskirts of Milan (Italy)

This article intends to be a reflection on the socio-political construction of oral sources in the context of extensive field research, carried out in a post-industrial area of the city of Milan, known as Bicocca. It investigates the ethnographic encounters as heuristic tools aimed at the construction of specific anthropological knowledge. Today, the University of Milano-Bicocca, the Arcimboldi Theatre, CNR, and Siemens Italia, among others, occupy the site. However, until the 1980s, the same area hosted the Pirelli Industries, one of the largest plastic, tires, and cable manufacturing company from Italy. Even if the site was later transformed into a technology integrated area, it is still permeated with both material and immaterial historical traces of its industrial past. I consider here my ethnographic interviews with former unionists and workers of the Pirelli focusing on the accounts of the years 1968-1969, also known as the second “Red Biennium” (Biennio Rosso) or the “Hot Autumn” (Autunno Caldo). Reconsidering these ethnographic documents collected between 2008 and 2013, I describe the memories that emerged incisively in the relationship between the subjects involved in this ethnographic research and me.