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.
