Integrazione sociale e integrazione locale: risorse, reti e territorio

In a context of progressive loss of confidence in the integrative capacities of national policies and growing fear of cultural diversity and mobility, the paper focuses on the concept of “integration’’ underlining its relational and situated dimensions. Spatiality and relationality define the framework of opportunities for action offered to individuals and, at the same time, are the results of transformative practices implemented by the actors in order to move towards a desired situation of well-being. Taking note of the distortions and abstraction of the so-called national models of integration, more credit is given to research that focuses at the local scale on the local management of cultural and ethnic pluralism of cities, recognizing the role of informal networks and associations in the inclusion of marginal and migrant people. At a more detailed level, it is important to acknowledge the individual agency, going to search for its conditions of possibility in the micro-contexts inhabited that refer both to the structure, type and content of the relationships in which each individual is embedded and to the places or neighborhoods in relation to which social identities are built. A problem often overlooked in analyzing social integration indeed is the existence of ethnic and economic territorial cleavages in cities, that bring the traditional social question back into the spotlight.