Di che parliamo quando parliamo d’identità?

• Main Author: Anna Rita Calabrò
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Rosenberg & Sellier 2013-12-01
• Series: Quaderni di Sociologia
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/qds/422

Even if later compared to other European countries, nowadays Italy can be rightfully defined as a multiethnic country. We can presume that this tendency will be confirmed and strengthened in the future: a future with the present young generation as a protagonist. Thus, it seems obvious to consider the children of immigrants with the great interest they deserve. Not only they allow us to imagine our future, but they also represent an excellent observatory to fine tune the conceptual instruments till now used by sociologists to observe and explain the changes migratory processes have produced in contemporary Western societies. Concepts such as identity and ethnic identity, recognition, difference and inequality temper in the daily experience of adolescents experiencing coexistence practices which from time to time overcome and rebuild boundaries and social barriers, deny and confirm prejudices, shaping future scenarios. In these pages, I’ll focus on the concept of identity. Fully aware of the problematic nature, of the limits and of the explanatory potentialities of the concept, I’ll try to catch the suggestions coming from different fields. Even if different approaches seem to mutually contradict, in truth they shed light on complexity, clarify different aspects of the topic and give the observer the awareness of the unavoidable partiality of his look.