L'integrazione come "pratica sociale": un'etnografia delle seconde generazioni a Modena

This research addresses the issue of the immigrant youth, in order to explore the guidelines that are emerging on the integration, the construction of social bonds and the formation of identity and belonging. The main objective is the study of identity processes implemented by foreign teenagers in the process of social integration in the city of Modena, through ethnographic analysis of the dynamics which are developed in their relationship with local society, to highlight the actual mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion of minorities in an urban setting. The investigated aspects concerned various dimensions of the integration: an institutional dimension, through the examination of the way to educational success of young migrants in the context of Modena; a relational dimension, through reflection on the influence of family networks, community, friendship and love in the definition of the integration process; a cultural dimension, through analysis of the nature and uses of cultural references in the daily life of foreign students; a social dimension with the observation of the forms of prejudice and discrimination, latent or otherwise, in the host society and, ultimately, an individual dimension through the declarations of research subjects on lifestyles and behaviors considered deviant from the adult world. The result is a reading of the intercultural relations and the supposed opening of the so-called “modello emiliano”, which allows to observe the dynamics of integrative processes as complex, multidimensional, but also deeply ambivalent.