Matteo Gianni

Citizenship and Immigration: An Empirical and Normative Analysis of Swiss Philosophy of Integration

For more than a decade Switzerland has been adopting laws and policies on integration, which are the subject of serious debate. Why is integration so politically contested? Because it is a multifaceted concept and political project with multiple meanings. It does not have a fixed but a relational meaning and faces critique from subaltern and racialized social groups who call into question its assimilationist character. There is thus a need to rethink integration to reinvigorate citizenship with democratic legitimacy.

Project Fact Sheet (PDF)
Main Results (PDF)

Messages for Decision-Makers

Integration has to be reconsidered as a set of resources provided to marginalized subjects to gain their political agency and to be included in the process of defining common norms.
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Race-conscious policies are needed to overcome the stigma and lack of political voice suffered by racial minorities.
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Border control policies do not affect only outsiders; they also have an impact on the citizenship regime, and create internal dynamics of exclusion.

Project-related scientific publications Select publication   Akin, Arkan and Elisa Banfi Depoliticizing integration through statistical indicators 2019   Gianni, Matteo Injonction à l’intégration et citoyenneté pour les musulmans en Suisse. Une relation paradoxale 2019   Gianni, Matteo La présence musulmane en Suisse: intégration, sécurisation et citoyenneté 2018   Gianni, Matteo The Migration-Mobility Nexus: Rethinking Citizenship and Integration as Processes 2017   Gianni, Matteo On the political and democratic preconditions of equal recognition 2017   Baycan, Esma Book Review: Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Rights 2016   Baycan, Esma Flemish Pro-independence Parties and Immigrants: Friends or Foes? 2016   el-Wakil, Alice, Rémi Baudouï and Matteo Gianni Etat d’exception, démocratie directe, exception démocratique: Le cas suisse 2016   Gianni, Matteo La Régulation de l’Islam et l’intégration des musulmans en Suisse: Une relation paradoxale ? 2016   Gianni, Matteo Accommodating to Swiss Religious Pluralism: Interrogating Muslim Integration and Swiss Citizenship 2016   Gianni, Matteo Muslims’ integration as a way to defuse the “Muslim Question”: insights from the Swiss case 2016   Michel, Noémi Accounts of Injury as Misappropriations of Race: Towards a Critical Black Politics of Vulnerability 2016   Turculet, Georgiana and Esma Baycan A fair cooperation scheme in a de facto uncooperative institution? 2016   Baycan, Esma The Ethics of Immigration (by Joseph Carens) 2015   Gianni, Matteo, Marco Giugni and Noémi Michel Musulmans en Suisse, profils et intégration 2015   Michel, Noémi Sheepology: The Postcolonial Politics of Raceless Racism in Switzerland 2015   Gianni, Matteo and Marco Giugni Resources, Opportunities, and Discourses: What Explains the Political Mobilization of Muslims in Europe? 2014