Gathering around punk: Interethnic relations in Prato’s Chinatown

On 12 April 2016, a small historic event happened in Prato, home to Italy’s second largest Chinese community: thanks to local DIY collective/record label Santa Valvola, punk band Demerit was the first Chinese group to ever play Prato. The designated venue was in the Macrolotto Zero urban area, former industrial heart of the city, where the Chinese migrant community has settled in the 1990s, transforming the social structure of the neighbourhood. On that night, a punk concert was the occasion for putting together Prato’s alternative local scene and the Chinese audience, which rarely takes part in the city’s underground movements. It was a huge, unexpected success. This research aims to analyze the event against its social implications. The work is based upon my own observation of the concert, several interviews I carried with the concert’s promoters and sociohistorical literature.