SECOND GENERATION IN MULTICULTURAL ITALY: ETHNOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS ON THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF OTHERNESS IN WELFARE INSTITUTIONS

Grounded on the anthropological perspective, this article deals with the issue of second generation children in the multicultural context of Bologna (Italy). The empirical basis to the paper is an ethnographic work conducted in a Youth Centre, a welfare service committed to provide care and support to adolescents, located in the Emilia-Romagna Region, seen as one of the most "advanced" Italian region in the field of social politics. The focus on the everyday interactions between welfare workers and teenage people of migrant background allows to explore the Italian social production of otherness. Focusing on some questions arising within the Italian public debate, I argue that some dominant common sense representations and media discourses are embodied in the everyday work of welfare institutions, although the local actors' rhetoric of equality and innovation around the adolescent care service. Thanks to ethnographic approach the article highlights how internal boundaries between "us" and "them" are drawn by welfare workers who interact with young people of migrant origins, normalizing social exclusion and leading to different forms of inequalities. Finally, I examine how second generation children negotiate and challenge some dominant essentialist discourse on "cultural differences" and "identities" or strategically adopt them in order to access welfare resources and social rights within the public service.