Paper Short Abstract:

We present here a research experience carried out for two years as an insider in an Italian cooperative, formed by cultural mediators of foreign origin, which managed a reception centre for refugees and asylum seekers in the city of Padua, Italy.

Paper Abstract:

This contribution intends to draw attention to the commitment of many anthropologists in facing the humanitarian crisis, finding employment in associations, cooperatives, institutions working in the field of reception of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers or for integration projects with communities of foreign origin. It should be considered, in this sense, how fostering the recognition of the “other” as “another human being”, the struggle against racism and the defence of universal human rights, modulated in cultural diversity, are still basic characterising elements of an applied social anthropology, on an educational level. We present here a research experience carried out for two years as an insider in an Italian cooperative, formed by cultural mediators of foreign origin, which managed a reception centre (“centro di accoglienza straordinario”) for refugees and asylum seekers in the city of Padua, Italy. During that experience, the organisation of intercultural civic education workshops, addressed to the centre's guests and managed through mediation, brought remarkable results.