Abstract: 

This talk presents the results of an anthropological study conducted between 2012-2018 in South Tyrol, examining the understudied issue of migrant integration in societies with ethnic/ethnolinguistic divisions.  The research considers the case of South Tyrol, whose consociational regime basically compels migrants and their children to choose sides.  The focus here is not so much the migrants themselves and their agency, as it is on the dominant society in which they are supposed to be “integrating”.  Looking at key institutional sites that have been charged with the task of dealing with immigrant integration in South Tyrol (the school systems, offices of the Provincial Administration,integration boards, the Provincial Council), the study concludes that immigrant integration is more about assimilation into the separate sides, rather than becoming a factor leading to a mending of the social divisions – that is, what would instead be an integral integration of the local society.