Temporal relations between natives and migrants in Italy

The essay is an attempt to describe relations between natives and migrants by a temporal analysis. It employs data-based arguments to illustrate how migrants in Italy are living in non-coeval conditions than natives, since the two social groups share the same space but not the same social time. After briefly illustrating the features of the Italian reception system, it deals with the Italian integration model which is exclusionary and assimilative. Using the concept of social time, the essay shows the coexistence of different social temporal representations and the coexistence of different temporal horizons. In other terms, different social groups live physically at the same time, but their living conditions are so different that it is as if they were living each at a different time. This is the case for migrants and natives in Italy. This is the result of political choices, called temporal politics, which result progressively destructive to the stability of the social system.