Housing and the social inclusion of immigrants in Calabria.The case of Riace and the 'Dorsal of hospitality'

The monograph presents some results from a case study carried out by the authors in the context of the Italian national collaborative research project (PRIN Project) on Small municipalities and social cohesion: urban practices and policies for the social inclusion of immigrants, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Scientific Research between 2012 and 2015. This empirical material was also shared in the context of the COST Action SO.S. COHESION – Social services, welfare state and places. The paper highlights the tensions that exist in Italy between local action and national policy in what concerns the social inclusion of immigrants – with particular attention to the specific segment of asylum seekers – and provides a critical assessment of the Riace ‘story’, a socially innovative initiative that developed in a marginal area of Calabria at the end of the 1990s and coupled the hosting of immigrants with an urban regeneration strategy, with interesting horizontal and vertical mainstreaming impacts.