MIGRATIONS, BORDERS, IDENTITY

This course is meant for students of the the Master Degree Program in Comparative International Relations. It tries to analyze the transnational movement of persons in relation to the international and national societies, particularly, the interactions between migratory processes and the border construction, crossing or removal, considering the ethnic, social and cultural identitarian dynamics. In this way, it colaborates in the construction of specific socio-historical skills for the students, in a phenomenon of global scale, but also with impact in specific geographical areas, and it seeks to broaden the student abilities in the analysis and interpretation of these issues.

- general knowledge about the main concepts of the Contemporary debate about migratory processes, also in a historical perspective;
- knowledge of the change intervened in the last thirty years regarding the impact and the perception of the immigrant as a social and cultural phenomenon globally;
- knowledge of the today's discussion about the analysis of the relationship between space and identity in the understanding of the human movements in the context of the Nation State and that of the global society;
- awareness about the relationship between identity and otherness in the way in which the societies approach a perception or border;
- capacity to analyze critically the construction of the border area as part of an interaction between one "us" and one "others";
- ability to identify the dynamics of construction, crossing and removal of the borders, from different identity building processes;
- capacity to adopt the conceptual instruments studied in class in the reading/study of specific cases present in the international society, at international level or at regional or national level;
- know to propose and argue autonomously the problems involving the migration process as a phenomenon of production of an ethnical, cultural and social plurality.

Basic knowledge of Contemporary History

1. Migration: conceptualizing and historicizing
2. Identity processes and migratory phenomena
3. Memory, identity and migration
4. Border, space, belonging
5. The migrant person and the plurality of otherness

To the attendants:
Suggested bibliography will be provided in the first class.

To the NON attendants:
(Mandatory)
Linhard, Tabea; Parsons, Timothy. Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

To ALL students:
The evaluation will consist in a written (50%) and an oral (50%) exams, always with the target to show his or her capacity to analyze critically issues involving interconnections between migratory and identity processes, and the shaping/deconstruction of spaces, places, borders.

To the attendants (student choice):
1. participation in the seminaries that take part of the course formation, as others formative activities (30%).
2. one research paper (4000 words), topics should be defined in consultation with the Professor (50%), to analyse a topic of the class discussions;
3. oral Exam, in which the student will have to show his or her capacity to analyze critically issues involving interconnections between migratory and identity processes, and the shaping/deconstruction of spaces, places, borders. (20%);

The classes will be carried out with frontal lectures, seminars with oral presentation, texts and documents lecture laboratory, a commented screening of a movie related with the themes discussed in the course.

Italian

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development