The Project PRISMA has been funded by the Italian national programme PRIN (Research Projects with Relevant National Interest). Such project will deal with the participation and integration of migrants in three Small and Medium Towns, by particularly taking into account access and accessibility of social and health services through structures, networks and narratives. Localities involved in the research are the areas of Alessandria (Piedmont), Macerata (Marche) and Avellino (Campania), composed by various types of SMSTs and characterised by different migrant population and history, institutional and structural organisation, socio-economic fabric and geographical position. Indeed, these local contexts will be considered as a crucial part of the analysis, which will be carried out through the perspective of “socio-structural integration” and by adopting an intersectional perspective to look at the diversity of migrants’ groups. Moreover, access and accessibility will be taken into account by going beyond the mere idea of services’ fruition and also considering the participation of migrants themselves in their design.
The project will thus provide new planning tools through the participatory co-construction of policy instruments and guidelines, which will contribute to the understaning of migrants’ participation and integration in small- and medium-sized towns and to produce guinding instruments for integration policy design in these contexts. As PISTE Project, we are particularly pleased to welcome this new research project on Italian towns, not only because of the common points in terms of aims and methods, but also because its connection with the our work will be assured by the presence of PISTE team member Dr. Alba Angelucci (University of Eastern Piedomnt) as principal investigator, together with colleagues from the University of Urbino and Turin. Other information about this project will be provided when this will be officially launched.
