iI riso e l'acqua. Pratiche e performatività in un negoziato culturale tra sub-continente indiano e Australia

The present work aims at bridging the gap between practices and culture while exploring life trajectories of four transnational families with an Indian background, living in Sydney, Australia. The ethnographic methodology aimed at identifying, analyzing and interpreting processes of intercultural negotiation and conflict in the daily life. Fieldwork has been conducted from July 2009 to November 2010, shadowing the actors in the daily routine. The theoretical background lays on transnational studies as well as everyday multiculturalism, looking at the daily life as the arena of conflict resolution and negotiation. Observing bodies through the senses, we cast light on rituals where roles and hierarchical orders can be put aside, giving room to dialogue. Those forms of negotiation have been investigated following three main paths in the actor'?s situated interaction: the intercultural relation within the couple, the relation with the host culture, the relation with the culture of the motherland. Research population has been selected with the inclusive criteria of the involvement in entrepreneurial activities of one member of the couple. Another criteria has been represented by the Indian background of one partner. All of the four couples were part of a "?love marriage"?. Main findings are shading light on the links between the historical background of the Indian subcontinent and the daily life practices and negotiation rituals of the actors. We suggest that "?doing business"?, religion, and cultural consumption, are representing means to the actors bargaining options. On those resources they can build trajectories, feeding the imagination and orienting themselves in the host cultures and the relation with their motherland