The principal aim of this research project is to understand the evolution of legislative policies and legal practices on citizenship issues together with the social practices leading to an effective involvement and participation of immigrants, in particular of second generation, in the democratic space of their host societies. The notion of citizenship is meant in a double meaning. From a legal perspective, it is a formal status by virtue of which individuals are granted a set of substantive rights and privileges, and subject to certain obligations and allegiance. From a socio-anthropological point of view, citizenship has to be intended also as the ways in which a set of common values concerning family, health, social welfare, gender relations, and work and entrepreneurialism are elaborated in everyday lives.
The reform of the law of citizenship is an event that will radically change our approach to that problem, in particular for what concerns the second generation of immigrants, deprived of a family connection with the National community, but possessing solid factual links.
How to determine the appropriate connecting factors between the second generation immigrants and the National Community, that justify the acquisition of citizenship iure soli ? What lesson is to be drawn from a comparative analysis with other European Countries that have preceded Italy along a similar path?
The project will use a multidisciplinary approach aiming at examining the different aspects of the issue taking advantage of the competences developed in previous research on the topic by the team members. The research is highly innovative because it aims to merge a quali-quantitative approach, as it comes from the crossing of the anthropological and sociological methodology, with the juridical perspective.. It will try to produce a more exhaustive set of data and the construction of a model for a legal approach well grounded on those data.
An asset of the proposed project is its multidisciplinary approach, which allows for studying the issue of citizenship drawing on a variety of theoretical and research contributions developed in the recent years by social science scholars, with particular regard to lawyers, anthropologists and sociologists. The variety of perspectives and competences in the group may lead to research results and products that go beyond the state of the art, and which may be able to reach a broader audience.
The organisation in 3 work-packages will allow the research to progressively advance from the macro to the micro level of analysis. Far from being merely sequential steps, the packages will developed in an integrated manner, thanks to continuous exchanges among projects members.
These exchanges will be made possible by periodic meetings between the three research groups. Through them we will work on an integrated methodology, and therefore innovative with respect to current studies often confined to more limited disciplinary areas.
The sociological package, in particular, aims at furthering extant research on integration and citizenship, by focusing on the subjective dimension of citizenship, which remains little explored in the literature (Ismu, 2016). As most research in Italy is mainly based on aggregate data on formal citizenship and labour market (Golini, 2006; Rapporto Cnel, 2013; Osservatorio regionale sul fenomeno migratorio Regione Emilia-Romagna, 2016), an in-depth study on identity and active citizenship of residents with foreign background in Rome may provide insights about the meaning they attribute to belonging to a community, and the actual obstacle they meet in their relationships and day-to-day experience. Through empirically informed observations, the project can also shed some light on the gap between formal citizenship and material, identitarian and active citizenship.
As for the anthropological side, the focus on the informal and virtual loci will represent a real advancement in the study. It will allow the research group to move in a twofold way. From one side it will put at the centre an issue as religion in its multifaceted dimensions, which has been neglected in the migration studies (Schirripa, Naso 2015; Costantini, Massa, Yazdani 2015). From the other it will try to move from the analisys to a real practice of integration, by experimenting the churches and the virtual rooms, like the blog managed by second generation¿s individuals, as way to produce cultural brokerage and then integration. At the same time they can be a way to confront with the subjects on the juridical level, and on the possible juridical articulation of their positions.
The legal analysis proposed appears to be highly innovative. The proposed analysis builds on classical studies (Zolo, 1994; Bartole 2000; Peers, 2001; Nascimbene, 2014, Caggiano, 2014), but proposes an approach having not many precedents in the Italian or European literature. Also in light of the multidisciplinary and of the empirical methodology proposed, the results of the analysis may be useful not only for legal research but also for practitioners, entities and persons working in this fields, such as NGOs. They could also support the law-makers in making the choices and the administration in implementing existing or foreseeable legislation.
The research is highly innovative because it aims to merge a quali-quantitative approach, as it comes from the crossing of the anthropological and sociological methodology, with the juridical perspective. It will try to produce a more exhaustive set of data and the construction of a model for a legal approach well rested on those data.