Smartphones and outsidership in Prato’s small business community

The theories of outsidership and insidership, and of foreignness, create contested discourse about the globalization of businesses, large and small. This chapter reviews the relationships between businesses, Chinese migrants, and mobile telecommunications based on available published research and on two small constructivist studies undertaken in Prato, Italy in December 2015 and May 2016. The studies generated two fresh datasets that are analyzed in the chapter. Prior studies of Prato’s industrial district have been undertaken by economists, sociologists, political scientists, geographers, anthropologists, linguists, and media scholars (among others). This chapter focuses on overturning the usual representation of outsidership and foreignness in Prato. The chapter argues that many Wenzhounese outsiders (numerous hardworking micro businesspeople) insert their own portable insider networks and tight-knit practices in Prato. They thus marginalize the local textile manufacturers into the role of outsiders in their own territory. Many of the migrants from Wenzhou, China, along with their family businesses and self-selected virtual networks, tend to act independently with the assistance of smartphones. The trading conditions that they experience in Prato are similar to those in Wenzhou.