MIGRATORY WAVES: HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS IN THE SHAPING OF INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE
MIGRATORY WAVES: HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS IN THE SHAPING OF INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

Summary/Abstract: Sociology has always been interested in social changes and the way such changes affect society. The latter is not compact and monolithic, but rather malleable and modifiable. The desire for a unitary world where all people acquire the same cultural standard is strong, even though it is impossible to decide what standards all should conform to. A subject willing to migrate performs what Merton calls an “anticipatory socialization”. A migrant person prepares beforehand to be open to language models that are different from those of his/her own native language, as well as different models of belonging, for the present and the future. A migrating world is, in sum, a world dominated by a propensity to intercultural dialogue. In order to investigate this issue, two kinds of migration that took place from Albania to Italy in two historical periods are taken as an example to see how intercultural dialogue took place and how it is currently taking place. The examples we focus on are a succession of eight migrations that occurred between 1399 and 1774, and the two more recent migrations of 1991 and 1997. The Arbëreshë (or Albanians of Italy) primarily fled the Ottoman expansion while it was gaining new territories to the west; they also responded to appeals made by the kings of Naples and the Two Sicilies for soldiers to help ward off a conspiracy by the nobility. The Arbëreshë were granted land in the South of Italy as a reward, and the fact that such lands were mostly isolated made it easier for them to keep their customs and language. In the two latest migration waves that occurred in the 20th century, Albanians mostly fled their country by sea, facing dramatic situations to cross the Adriatic sea by boat and reach the ports of Apulia. The first migrations, the “historical” ones, led to a deep intercultural dialogue. The Arbëreshë followed the history of Italy and fought in the wars for the independence of the country. When they emigrated to the Americas at the beginning of the 20th century, only half of their population was left in Italy; and in getting to other countries, most of them were considered Italians, since that was actually their nationality. In the 1960s and 1970s there was an ethnic awakening to enhance and preserve the linguistic minority of the Arbëreshë, who were granted the status of protected minority by Unesco in 2017. Finally, we remember an internal migration displacing very large numbers of Italians from the south to the north of the country; many Arbëreshë were assimilated, even if an Arbëreshë community was recreated in Turin that kept the language and religious forms. In 2018, almost 500,000 Albanians from the latest migration applied for Italian citizenship.

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