La tautologia della paura
1999; Il Mulino; Volume: 40; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1423/2507
ISSN2612-1433
Autores Tópico(s)Educational and Social Studies
ResumoIn this essay the A. discusses the social construction of migrants as enemies. Using different field materials (including interviews with relevant social actors, newspapers articles and other qualitative data), the essay describes how the negative image of migrants prevaling in contemporary Italy depends on «tautological» or self-reinforcing social processes. These include the «voice» or mobililization of moral and political entrepeneurs, the role of local press and the inclusion of migrants' criminality in the political agenda. By the combined effects of these processes, migrants are constructed more and more as social evils, replacing traditional targets of social exclusion. Following Durkheim and Mary Douglas, the A. holds that the image of foreigners as criminal is paradoxically rooted in a social need of «morality», in an age of a growing lack of political and economical certainties
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