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Le titre de la thèse renvoie aux deux enjeux principaux qu’elle se propose de traiter. Il s’agit tout d’abord d’approcher empiriquement le processus de socialisation urbaine, peu étudié en tant que tel, en l’abordant par le prisme de l’encadrement parental des pratiques urbaines des enfants. L’étude de ce rôle régulateur des parents permet notamment d’approcher la transmission plus ou moins consciente de compétences d’interaction et de mobilité, mais aussi de normes de jugement et de comportement. Le second enjeu de la thèse est la mise en lumière de la différenciation sociale et spatiale de ce processus, qui conduit à interroger par le biais de pratiques urbaines ordinaires la (re)production d’inégalités entre enfants ainsi que le rapport de leurs parents à l’altérité sociale, dans une perspective complémentaire des travaux disponibles sur la ségrégation résidentielle et scolaire. La première partie de la thèse en précise le cadre théorique et les choix méthodologiques opérés, en particulier l’enquête par entretiens (n=78) auprès de parents d’enfants âgés de 8 à 14 ans, la perspective comparée Paris-Milan et le choix de contextes de mixité sociale. La deuxième partie propose une approche compréhensive des mécanismes de la prise d’autonomie urbaine à partir d’une analyse de ses étapes ainsi que des évolutions perçues par les parents au regard de leur propre expérience enfantine. Enfin, la troisième partie s’attache à informer la différenciation de l’encadrement parental, interrogeant en particulier le rôle tenu dans celle-ci par les propriétés sociales des familles, le sexe des enfants et le contexte national et local.

In Italy there is a prison and probation system based on a rehabilitative model that is aimed at social reintegration of the author of the crime, which is connected with social policies and entrusts relevant tasks to the helping professions. Among these, social work is affected by changes in social policies and a new social order, marked in Europe by the influence of neo-liberal thought (Lorenz, 2005; Dalrymple, Burke, 1995, 2006). In this scenario, changes in social policies, which have occurred with the crisis of the welfare state, are interwoven with those of criminal policies. The central research question, proposed in contemporary sociological literature, with particular reference to the U.S. and Britain, is of the gradual transition from a model mainly focused at ensuring social welfare, to a model in which the dominant interest is to increase effective social control (Garland, 2004). In this “new welfare” there has been an impoverishment of social protection, and resources for the most vulnerable segments of the population. This process has led - in some cases - to discriminatory policies, aimed at segregation and incarceration of the most disadvantaged people. In the research presented in this paper, 43 semi-structured interviews were carried out in three regions of northern Italy, to professionals working in the penitentiary sector (mainly social workers). Through them, we have focused on the representations of the respondents on specific issues, including: the crisis of the welfare state in relation to the penal-welfare system, the culture of control and the changes in the functions and activities of social workers. Results show that social workers reject punitive responses, especially those towards the most disadvantaged social groups. Furthermore, in a long-term assessment, there does not seem to emerge, for social workers, a loss of strength as a group and status. There is, in fact, a certain evolution of social work from the methodological point of vie

In Italy, over the last two decades, «illegal immigrants» have come to the fore as both a strategic resource and an unavoidable point of reference for public debate on foreign immigration. Since the end of the nineties, the category of «clandestine» have been deeply affecting both the immigration laws and the modus operandi of the main institutions aimed at controlling immigration (police and judicial system). Administrative detention centres have been one of the main devices police forces have been using in order to check and deport undocumented immigrants. Drawing from a qualitative research that has been done in Milan two years ago we will compare three interpretations of what administrative detention centres are and which functions they perform. We will show how they can be analysed as foucauldian «heterotopy», as «camps» linked to a sort of «permanent state of exception» and, finally, as a device for controlling human mobility and exploiting immigrant labour force.

The implementation of an open-street CCTV system is usually accompanied by bold claims on the increase in efficiency – faster deployments of patrols – and in efficacy – prevention through normalisation – that it will bring about in day-to-day policing. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two medium-sized Italian cities where such systems have been recently implemented, the research sets out to challenge these assumptions by offering a backstage view of how surveillance is actually carried out on a day-to-day basis. Using the political and legislative changes that have taken place in Italy since the end of the ‘90s as a backdrop, the work supports the conclusion that, rather than for crime control, for which they were almost never used, cameras end up serving other goals, for the benefit of constituencies other than the residents of the two cities. Thus, CCTV needs to be understood as a device for the circulation of resources - monetary, discursive and normative - between different institutions and levels of government, part of a wider discursive regime that is only incidentally related to how crime actually affects a given city.

Starting from the literature on ethnic neighbourhoods as places of leisure and consumption in old immigration countries, the chapter analyzes the case of “Lazzaretto”, a multiethnic neighbourhood of Milan. Despite the presence of some pre-conditions highlighted by both theoretical and empirical studies, the transformation of Lazzaretto into an attractive ethnic neighbourhood is hindered by some political and cultural factors. Thanks to some in-depth interviews to local politicians and entrepreneurs we show the crucial role played by a general anti-immigrant climate, by local government’ lack of commitment towards multiculturalism and by some institutional constraints on the blossoming of immigrant businesses.

Sicurezza, immigrazione, genere. una ricerca sulle donne immigrate

The object of this thesis are local conflicts in Verona and Modena, two northern Italian cities. In particular it analyses two specific cases relating to the management of phone centres, that is to say shops that offer phone and Internet services. These shops are mainly managed by residents of immigrant origins and their customers are mainly of immigrant origins too. The thesis points to a paradox: while, on the one side, the conflicts have contributed to an excessive politicisation of the issue of phone centres, on the other they have opened up spaces for phone centre-owners to speak up their voice. The conflicts under analysis are very specific in nature. Yet, they provide with a relevant example of politics’ dynamics in the context of the wider debate on urban safety and relating conflicts. The Italian sociological literature on local conflicts has been mostly focusing on residents’ narratives and on the causes that lead to the emergence of conflicts themselves. In this context, immigrants have been often identified as the ultimate cause for the emergence and development of conflicts. They have been treated as objects of policies rather than subjects of politics, particularly in the context of urban safety policies. It has been all too often been taken for granted that the politicisation of the securitarian frame goes hand in hand with the abolition of any democratic space for political engagement. Yet, these type of narratives, which have spread both in public opinion and within the academia, are very dangerous. Most importantly, they carry with them the risk of promoting the same power asymmetries they promise to overcome, by adopting a strictly structural reading. In this sense, the scope of this thesis was both academic and political in nature. It has been precisely that of questioning similar narratives. The scope was not that of ‘nobilising’ marginal actors, such as immigrants, but rather that of analysing contentious dynamics. Two were my initial research

Identità e differenze culturali sono da tempo al centro del dibattito politico, scientifico e filosofico. Il sempre più frequente ricorso ai concetti di “società multiculturale”, “intercultura” e “transcultura” testimonia l’importanza che la diversità culturale riveste per le società contemporanee, dove differenze culturali di ogni genere si manifesterebbero nei più svariati ambiti della vita sociale, proponendo nuove sfide sul piano individuale, collettivo e istituzionale. Identità e differenze, tuttavia, possono rivelarsi e operare solo nella comunicazione. Nel presente volume, vengono analizzate la complessità culturale dell’esperienza quotidiana e la dimensione interculturale dei processi comunicativi. Dapprima vengono presentate criticamente le diverse prospettive teoriche e disciplinari sulla comunicazione interculturale, che sottolineano la capacità delle culture di plasmare l’agire degli individui e di rendere più o meno agevole la comunicazione interpersonale. Viene poi proposta una lettura alternativa del nesso tra culture e comunicazione, mostrando come identità e differenze siano continuamente ri-prodotte nei processi comunicativi ed entrino a far parte del “senso comune condiviso” grazie al quale attribuiamo un significato all’esperienza sociale. Non più habitus (sistemi simbolici incorporati) o modelli normativi interiorizzati che pilotano in modo inconsapevole l’agire ma riferimenti cognitivi e retoriche che rievocano il carattere imprevedibile, creativo e ludico del comunicare.

Our paper focuses on the socio-economic and the legal/institutional characteristics of international migrants’ incorporation into the Italian labour market. Our interpretation of the statistical evidence available with respect to immigrant’s labour insertion combines the role played by the local characteristics of labour force demand, the normative constraints generated by immigration policies —and more broadly by the institutional framework which organises economic relationships— and the role performed by migrants network. The second part of the paper will focus on Indian immigration in the province of Cremona with a twofold objective. On the one hand, it will show how the “productive vocation” of the Cremona Province, together with the role played by social and economic actors and the institutional/regulatory framework, has had a crucial influence on the methods through which Indian citizens residing in that area have entered the workforce and to generate the local socio-economic arrangements which accompany immigrants settlement. On the other hand, it will reveal how Sikhs represent a deviant case compared to the salient characteristics of migrants’ descriptive labour insertion models discussed in the first part.

The paper addresses the relationships between administrative and penal treatment of il/legal immigrants by police forces in Italy. It draws upon interviews with high-level police officers and attorneys-general from a research project carried out in 1999 in Emilia-Romagna. The main argument focuses on how police use the category of 'illegal/criminal immigrant' as a categorisation device both for administrative purposes, in order to check the formal requirements of immigrants asking for a residence permit-and for crime prevention and repression. The latter case is particularly crucial whenever police have to cope with deviant behaviours, like prostitution, which are not formally criminal, but which are socially perceived as such and which generate social alarm. The intentional use of a blurred distinction between an administrative sphere and a criminal one by police raises interesting questions concerning both new practices Of neighbourhood control and the social construction of a useful political scapegoat.

Il capitolo illustra gli elementi principali di un’interpretazione in chiave costruttivista della “criminalità degli immigrati”. Si focalizza sui principali attori istituzionali coinvolti nel processo di costruzione sociale di tale fenomeno, con particolare riferimento all’operato delle forze di polizia, al sistema giudiziario e a quello penale. Sulla base di varie ricerche condotte tra la metà degli anni novanta e la prima metà degli anni 2000 vengono evidenziati i fattori in grado di spiegare il crescente tasso di incarcerazione dei cittadini stranieri, che non trova un corrispettivo in nessun paese europeo di più antica immigrazione.

The paper analyses intercultural miscommunication from a micro-sociological perspective. Drawing on an empirical research that was done in some public services for foreign immigrants in Milan, it starts introducing the main perspectives from which the relations between miscommunication and cultural diversity are usually studied. Then it focuses on how the perception of heterogeneous language competences, background commonsense knowledge and cultural traits can stress the taken for granted assumptions which assure shared meanings and common understanding in ordinary everyday interactions. Putting into brackets the relevance per se of cultural differences as a good explanation for intercultural miscommunications, it investigates how people who experience it accounts for misunderstanding. Particular attention is devoted to incongruent definitions of situations and their management, as well as to difficulties to attach social attributes to people, when language competences are difficult to evaluate, shared communication schemata can not be assumed as resources at hand and cultural differences are supposed to shape social action