Migration in North-East Italy and its impact on socio-economic local system

Abstract

In this paper some aspects of Italian immigration are examined, focusing on the North East for its singularity in the Italian context.

The first part consists in an analysis of the frequent use of regularisation policies and the consequent problems that this legal system may create in the migration management. For instance how such a frequent use of these kind of interventions can be interpreted as a clear signal of a bad management and of a lack of coordination between public administration and the effective needs of the country's economy.

The second part examines cultural mediation as a typically Italian method of immigrants' integration in public services, that is grounded in an ideology of cultural difference in the equality of rights and duties, in which immigrants have to be integrated in the society as individuals more than as a cultural or ethnical group.

The third paragraph analyses how in the Italian case, most of the services supplied to foreigners are organised on a local scope by voluntary, or anyway private associations, often in response to a lack in public interventions that may cover the immigrants' needs. It is evaluated how, while on one side these voluntary or charitable networks have a positive effect on local society too, creating local networks and involving citizens in their activities, on the other side they often lack of coordination, due also to the fact that governmental policies often finance these projects without really coordinating them. Moreover, some hypothesis are advanced concerning the potential risks that this kind of management can generate as a side effect of reinforcing local communities.

The last two paragraphs concern entrepreneurship, focusing on the North East case, and its involvement in the migratory phenomenon. It is showed how the need of workers have led to a positive attitude of Italian entrepreneurs towards the immigrants, up to their involvement in resolving their integration problems, modifying their traditional role of employers towards a more inclusive role of mediators with Italian society and institutions. A last note is on migrants as entrepreneurs themselves, being this a very recent and interesting phenomenon for local development and social integration.