Paper short abstract:

Paper long abstract:

In Italy, migration and citizenship policies, with particular regard to the immigration Act of 2009, are interpreted as a way of institutionalizing immigrants' social exclusion through a "differential" citizenship. The mentioned Act introduced the "crime of illegal immigration" and the prohibition of marriage with an illegal migrant, where the condition of illegality concerns exclusively non-European citizens. In this way the law produces a kind of redefinition of membership in the European Union, and is a practical and symbolic process of "europizzazione". In Italy the key model of citizenship is embodied in the family. The "good father" of the family and the "good husband" becomes the "good citizen" with a "progressive naturalization" that the family leads to the nation and simultaneously redefines the boundaries between European and non-European citizenship. The prohibition of marriage produces a racialization based not on ideology of blood but, following neoliberal ideology, on the ideology of social success and work. So "differential" citizenship can be seen, first, as a racialization processes based on economic frameworks and the other as a process of Europizzazione which produces new boundaries and new membership.