Participant Forum
Article by Chiara Gabrieli, who participated in the Summer School in 2025 in Castellammare di Stabia
The children of immigration, citizens of a global world
Testimony of Ariel Shapiro, a student at Boston College who attended the 2016 Summer School in Lampedusa.
Link to the video: click here
Testimony of Lucia Fucinelli, who participated in the Summer School in 2012 in Rome.
The third edition of the Summer School, held last July in Rome, was entitled "Building citizenship to promote coexistence". For me, who returned to Italy a few months ago after four years spent managing a project in Bogotá – Colombia – on behalf of the congregation of the Scalabrinian Fathers, the Summer School was a unique and important opportunity to share and discuss Italian sensitivity on the theme of integration and coexistence. During the week, together with the scholars and experts who took part, we analyzed the meaning of "citizenship" from various aspects: historical, philosophical, sociological, psychological and religious and, above all, we applied this analysis to the changes that this is bringing to today's Italian society. On the one hand, it has been highlighted that often migrants use the word "citizenship" only as a tool to have access to the rights due to citizens, while on the other hand, it has been highlighted how citizenship should increasingly become a need for belonging and identification with the host country and where the social and affective life of migrants develops, without forgetting the roots from which they come. For me, building citizenship means first of all accepting the upheaval that derives from the arrival of new cultures and building all together a new culture that is the union and synthesis of the culture of departure and that of arrival. This week of confrontation and discussion on the subject has strengthened in me the need and certainty of having to and being able to make the effort together to create a new citizenship of inclusion and sharing.
Testimony of Giulio Cesare Tersalvi, who participated in the Summer School in 2012 in Rome.
The lessons envisaged as part of the university course of study do not succeed, objectively, in exhausting the necessary in-depth study on some topics. All the more so on an issue such as citizenship, which is at the center of a debate that, in some quarters, even calls into question the value of the political concept of the nation-state. Does it still make sense to talk about citizenship, according to the usual criteria, when civil society lives in a global dimension? The merit of the Summer School was to allow participants to address and analyze the topic from different points of view: historical, social, philosophical, psychological and religious, and to develop, within each area, stimuli and discussions for further study. Alongside this theoretical part, testimonies and exercise workshops made it possible to verify how it is possible to think differently about the concept of citizenship through concrete experiences and group activities. The scanning, within the agenda, of moments of lessons and moments of common work made the rhythm of the Summer School very agile and not at all tiring. Finally, there was a final moment, with a round table that saw the participation of representatives of various religions to discuss the theme "Citizenship and religious rights". The debate, at times even animated, highlighted once again how the issue of citizenship and how much connected to it is incredibly topical and far from being resolved. Overall, I think it was a very stimulating experience from an intellectual point of view, full of content, well organized and full of further insights.
