Session Information
Contribution
Description: The topic of cultural mediation in Italian migratory contexts will be presented from a historical and conceptual perspective so as to point out differences, if any, and/or persisting similarities in meaning, use and potential of this socio-political practice "exported" more than a decade ago from France into Italy.The paper will question notions of cultural mediation as a practice to tackle and solve contingent problems in order to facilitate immigrants' "integration" into Italian society and culture, rather than as a political and educational opportunity to discuss and change quality of services both for immigrants and natives.From life stories collected from cultural mediators working in Turin (Italy), the paper aims to evaluate the intercultural potential of cultural mediation in educational, social and health institutions.The evaluation will be done with reference to a notion of interculture that pays attention and give consideration to issues of equity and social justice.The purpose of the paper (and of the research among cultural mediators) is to indicate how cultural mediation can be an intercultural resource and an instance of interculture (besides being a useful, though not exclusive, way to empower people and become responsible for their own life) provided structural conditions and constraints within which cultural mediation takes place are taken in due consideration and acted upon.The research presented by the paper is part of a larger university research project that intends to study "biographical transitions", namely processes by which one or more individuals move from a condition or status to another thus partially or totally modifying their own identity and the web of social relations they are part of.The research project will be interdisciplinary, since the topic of "biographical transitions" will be studied by scholars from different research areas (education, anthropology, sociology, psychology) who plan to share and discuss both the findings and the theoretical and methodological angles from which they were collected.In this sense, the research project this paper (and the research among cultural mediators) is part of represents an innovation in social and educational research (at least within the Italian context), as disciplinary competences will be initially juxtaposed to be then integrated among themselves. Empirical findings will be shared and compared, so as to bring into relief both similarities and differences dependent on the specific "biographical transition" explored and on the theoretical and methodological tools employed.
Methodology: The research methodology used will be that of life stories.
Conclusions: As the author has already presented earlier research on the same topic, and the present one is partially a continuation of it, it is expected that the 2006 findings will confirm the interpretation of cultural mediation that had been advanced by the author, namely that cultural mediators themselves are extremely critical of the work they are involved in owing to difficult working conditions, limited future prospects, and limited professional training.
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