Migrants and locals in an Italian town:the construction of public identity through the rhetoric of political discourse

In this essay, our focus is on processes of cultural dynamics investing both migrants and the larger majority in a north eastern Italian town experiencing constant migration inflows. The attention lies on cases of political rhetoric and practices of citizenship which involve representatives of migrants and politicians alike. The underlying subject of the reflection presented in the pages above is identity, which we intend as a process of construction of sense certainly present, but not necessarily visible or recognizable. Victor Turner (1974, 1982, 1993) provides us with an analytical tool, the quadric phased model of the social drama, capable of making this construction of sense observable: in particular we point to the phase of crisis, constituted by the arrival of migrants on the political scene, and the phase of redressive action, characterized by a public reflection on actions already performed. Migrants and politicians, the subjects of our enquiry, unconsciously or purposely, reshape each others’ identities in a constant process of mutual redefinition