RICERCA ITALIANA     

Multicultural society, immigration and security: some question of social integration

Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Abstract

The research project will be articulated in two phases. In the first one the focus will be on two relevant problems for contemporary societies (which is multicultural, characterized by normative pluralism, by the presence of immigrated cultural minorities, the discrimination of vulnerable persons, the legal and constitution capacity to integrate shared values): the relation between constitutionalism and multiculturalism and the phenomenon of rendering migrants criminalized. By mapping the "Critical Race Theory" (CRT) as well as their relevance in the European constitutional field, some topoi like the setting of freedom of speech and the clause of equal protection in multicultural society will be examined. As a typical case, the question of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) will be used, along with its impact on both American jurisprudence and on the Italian legal and political debate, starting from the Tuscany region-case which aroused following to the proposal of a "ritual Sunnah". Moreover, even on the theoretical level in the proposal of CRT, what has been considered the foremost outcome of output racism will be focused on, i. e. the detention of migrants and their becoming criminalized as a tool of social exclusion.
In the second phase the institutional strategies which have the capacity to pacify the multicultural conflict and to protect rights of single person involved will be examinated. Emphasis will be laid on two different ways (extra-judicial conciliatory >>>

Principal Investigator

Gianfrancesco ZANETTI Università degli Studi di MODENA e REGGIO EMILIA

Research Objectives

The research will be carried out in two stages.
In the first stage, the two research units will focus on two significant problems of contemporary societies: the relationship between constitutionalism and multiculturalism, and the criminalisation of migrants. In this context, contemporary societies are understood as multicultural societies where we have phenomena like normative pluralism, immigration, the presence of cultural minorities, discrimination against weak subjects, the crisis of Constitution's and law's capacity to guarantee the social integration based on shared values. The research unit of Modena will cope with the writings of those American scholars who have theorised the so called "Critical Race Theory" by assessing their relevance for the European Constitutional realities. Here the focus will be in particular on the relation between constitutionalism and multiculturalism, by investigating some topoi like the statute of free speech and the principle of equal protection in a multicultural society (Raz 1995; Sunstein 1995). The question of female genital mutilation examining its impact on American constitutional jurisprudence will be considered a paradigmatic case in that respect (Coleman 1996; Heger Boyle 2002). The research unit of Florence will deal with the same topic but here the emphasis will be put on the debate on the "ritual Sunnah" that has developed in Tuscany (a region which provides a free service of ritual circumcision to its inhabitants) >>>

First Results

In order to find ways of social integration through law-given means, concerning the relation between constitutionalism and multiculturalism, a pragmatical constitutional doctrine has to be thought, able to resolve the multicultural issues regarding vulnerable subjects (as individuals, or ethnic-cultural minorities: CRT) within the frame of the principles of the dignity of persons, of their equal consideration and respect, and of equal protection from legal ordering; which, therefore, may be sensitive to cultural differences in a non-relativistic perspective.
Referring to the phenomenon of the criminalisation of migrants, predicted results will be: the analysis of the connection between high rates of imprisonment and the processes of criminalisation and the validation of the hypothesis that the penitentiary is becoming an instrument of negative social integration, as far as it aims at justifying the exclusion of the members of the disadvantaged underclass (who, in Europe, are often migrants who are led by their irregular situation to commit crimes) from the enjoyment of rights. The penitentiary, while abandoning its traditional rehabilitative function, is becoming, according to this hypothesis, the main instrument of a policy of integration that is not based on the principle of a fair redistribution of resources (social rights) in a society of differences, but that aims, rather, at hiding the differences and at producing an apparent social homogeneity by the expulsion >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

Contemporary western societies are pluralist societies where different cultures and minorities, both native and immigrant, struggle for having their cultural identity "recognised" (Taylor 1993). Each social group is willing to follow its own life patterns and behave in accordance with its own cultural models. This attitude often takes the shape of a claim to "a group's cultural rights". Hence, our societies can be defined as "multicultural societies" (Belvisi 2000; Brena 2002; Facchi 2001; Kymlicka 1999; Raz 1995; Tully 1995).
Traditionally, the problems of social integration are dealt with by affording on the integration force of a Constitution (Heller 1928; Smend 1928). This approach assumes that a society is a homogeneous and consistent body: only if a whole is coherent it makes sense to appeal to the idea of "constitutional patriotism" (Habermas 1992). But nowadays the opposite is true: societies are pluralist and multicultural rather than internally consistent. As a consequence, they are hardly satisfactory the approaches taking it for granted that in contemporary societies we have a common set of values, the fundamental rights, accepted by each and every individual and/or group: if we take the "fact of pluralism" (as Rawls 1994 puts it) seriously, we should abstain from embracing a universalist strategy as the foundation of deliberative democracy (Bohman 1996).
In fact, whenever in connection with fundamental institutions of social life (such as >>>