Interculturality and migrant professionalities The world of professionalism today is a complex field, as the different professions have become “half-cast” (for example let’s think to the attempts on an European scale to create a map of the competences common to the different countries keeping in mind the diverse cultural and professional traditions) and the intellectual efforts to define its structural foundation starting from specific historical and geographical scenarios appear limiting. The notion of “cultural half-casting” itself assumes different meaning according to groups and contexts, bringing with it all the ambiguities contained in the notion of culture. Professionalism, like culture, is something extremely volatile, changing all the time, requiring constant acquisition of different competences and relies on cultural crossbreeding, resulting in a mix developing within the traditions of a civilization and from a centuries old stratification. Therefore professionalism can be defined as a set in which, within a given time and space, elements coexist and survive in accordance with contact and contamination among imaginaries, roles, different professional and cultural forms. As in the cultural crossbreeding, in the “professional half-casting” basic cultural phenomena can be found. Halfcasting and crossbreeding go in a direction leading to refusing the idea of a single “professional culture” based on a coherent and steady identity able to influence the working behaviours and avoid the coexistence of separated groups. Hence, today it seems we should give up a “culturalistic” practice of professionalism, that is confirming cultures’ specificity and differences, ignoring the relationship within cultures themselves on a given territory. Professional half-casting, like cultural crossbreeding, is developing especially in nowadays world, speeding up changes, contacts, influences. Professionalism is therefore a field governed by “intercultural” and “transcultural” competences. Let’s think when it is said a worker should be able to work with colleagues of other countries. But it also happens if we consider qualified jobs we “naturally” think about skills linked to defined solcial and cultural groups, whilst we consider less qualified jobs usually we attribute them to subjects with some difficulties, like immigrants. This is why “manpower” equals to “immigrant” and it is used in the various local businesses, reinforcing the idea that a “migrant culture” can aspire only to some jobs and not to others. Therefore, the stereotype is that for the migrant cannot exist other than a disqualified job. In turn this is delivering the perception that immigrants’ job is necessarily connected to a dimension of precariousness and subsidiarity. So, which professionalism for the migrant? How is possibile to retrieve her/his competences and reinvest them in new expertises? The contribution aims to analysing especially that aspect starting from how the various European institutions have posed the problem of professional interculturalism both theoretically and practically, at survey level and about specific realities. Bu the problem is a complex one if we do not want to restrain it to an analysis focusing on the intercultural communication only that, even if important, cannot explain alone the dynamics. I believe that to study this problem it is necessary to look for help from different disciplines (history, sociology, pedagogy etc.) that can not only compare the concept of culture with that of work, but mostly try to look at the immigrant’s professionalism as a field in and through which could be possible to build a new “possible” professionalism culture, a professionalism of everyone, all over the world, and focused on the wellbeing of the individual, or better of any individual regardless of ethnic, social or cultural status. Such a professionalism look to work as a point of contact – or crossbreeding - among different cultures, where meeting’s subject can be learnt in many different ways.

Interculturality and migrant professionalities

NUZZACI, Antonella
2007-01-01

Abstract

Interculturality and migrant professionalities The world of professionalism today is a complex field, as the different professions have become “half-cast” (for example let’s think to the attempts on an European scale to create a map of the competences common to the different countries keeping in mind the diverse cultural and professional traditions) and the intellectual efforts to define its structural foundation starting from specific historical and geographical scenarios appear limiting. The notion of “cultural half-casting” itself assumes different meaning according to groups and contexts, bringing with it all the ambiguities contained in the notion of culture. Professionalism, like culture, is something extremely volatile, changing all the time, requiring constant acquisition of different competences and relies on cultural crossbreeding, resulting in a mix developing within the traditions of a civilization and from a centuries old stratification. Therefore professionalism can be defined as a set in which, within a given time and space, elements coexist and survive in accordance with contact and contamination among imaginaries, roles, different professional and cultural forms. As in the cultural crossbreeding, in the “professional half-casting” basic cultural phenomena can be found. Halfcasting and crossbreeding go in a direction leading to refusing the idea of a single “professional culture” based on a coherent and steady identity able to influence the working behaviours and avoid the coexistence of separated groups. Hence, today it seems we should give up a “culturalistic” practice of professionalism, that is confirming cultures’ specificity and differences, ignoring the relationship within cultures themselves on a given territory. Professional half-casting, like cultural crossbreeding, is developing especially in nowadays world, speeding up changes, contacts, influences. Professionalism is therefore a field governed by “intercultural” and “transcultural” competences. Let’s think when it is said a worker should be able to work with colleagues of other countries. But it also happens if we consider qualified jobs we “naturally” think about skills linked to defined solcial and cultural groups, whilst we consider less qualified jobs usually we attribute them to subjects with some difficulties, like immigrants. This is why “manpower” equals to “immigrant” and it is used in the various local businesses, reinforcing the idea that a “migrant culture” can aspire only to some jobs and not to others. Therefore, the stereotype is that for the migrant cannot exist other than a disqualified job. In turn this is delivering the perception that immigrants’ job is necessarily connected to a dimension of precariousness and subsidiarity. So, which professionalism for the migrant? How is possibile to retrieve her/his competences and reinvest them in new expertises? The contribution aims to analysing especially that aspect starting from how the various European institutions have posed the problem of professional interculturalism both theoretically and practically, at survey level and about specific realities. Bu the problem is a complex one if we do not want to restrain it to an analysis focusing on the intercultural communication only that, even if important, cannot explain alone the dynamics. I believe that to study this problem it is necessary to look for help from different disciplines (history, sociology, pedagogy etc.) that can not only compare the concept of culture with that of work, but mostly try to look at the immigrant’s professionalism as a field in and through which could be possible to build a new “possible” professionalism culture, a professionalism of everyone, all over the world, and focused on the wellbeing of the individual, or better of any individual regardless of ethnic, social or cultural status. Such a professionalism look to work as a point of contact – or crossbreeding - among different cultures, where meeting’s subject can be learnt in many different ways.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11697/38675
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