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CERM Centre for Research on Minorities - Centro di ricerca sulle minoranze

News and Events

24.11.2023
Seminario «Trent’anni fa sulle vie della seta»
Il viaggio esperienziale come iniziazione alla diversità culturale
Prof. Daniele Brigadoi Cologna - sinologo
Dott. Davide Carlo Ferraris - psicoterapeuta
poster

 

Statement of the Centre for Research on Minorities on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine   

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Logo CERM

The Centre for Research on Minorities – CERM promotes interdisciplinary research on the sociology and sociolinguistics of minorities, generating synergies among academics, experts, and civil society actors.

Through an inclusive and comprehensive vision of minorities, that aims to enhance their potential of human capital, growth and development, the CERM supports and encourages collaborative cross-institutional and multidisciplinary research on minority communities.

Before the founding of the CERM in 2019, no university research centre had focused its research in, on, and for minority groups.

The opening of the CERM has established the University of Insubria as a vibrant hub of scholarly exchange and collaboration among all those interested in minority issues.

The CERM is based in the city of Como on the Italian-Swiss border, and occupies a distinctive building that overlooks the southwest end of lake Como.

Research clusters

Minorities in the Post-Soviet Space

Head of cluster: Paola Bocale

The aim of this cluster is to examine issues related to the status and protection of ethnolinguistic minorities in the states that emerged from the former Soviet Union after the dissolution of the country in the early 1990s. These include policies of language planning and language in education, including those implemented in several former USSR countries with regard to the teaching of Russian and other minority languages; new forms of control over the use of minority languages; the politics of linguistic landscaping; power politics, such as the balances and tensions between central government authorities and the authorities of individual republics over the status of minority languages ​​in the Russian Federation; notions of identity belonging and self-determination of minorities, that stimulate and influence ideological, political and cultural movements in the post-Soviet region. In consideration of the geographical, ethno-cultural and historical specificities of the post-Soviet space, particular attention is paid to linguistic dynamics taking place in urban contexts, to recent migratory phenomena, and to new dimensions and configurations of multilingualism in the border areas.

The following main projects are in progress:

1- Investigating forms and issues of Ukrainian heritage education in Italy. There is currently no collated, published information about how many Ukrainian heritage schools operate in Italy, how they function and who they serve. No national surveys have been conducted to date and no scientific studies have been carried out to provide insights and information on the topic. This project aims to contribute to filling this gap and fostering this research direction.

2- Exploring the linguistic landscape of Daugavpils (Latvia) in order to find out what impact the language and education policies implemented in Latvia have on the minorities living in the town and in the Latgalia region.

3- Examining the interweaving of identity negotiation and language learning in the Italian minority community of Crimea, in order to uncover and document longitudinally the experience of those who participate in revitalization projects.

Minorities in Contemporary China and Chinese Diaspora

Head of cluster: Daniele Brigadoi Cologna

This Research cluster’s research programme is structured in three distinct research projects:
1- Exploring the history of the Zhejiang migration to Italy and its past and present mobilities, with the aim of publishing a History of the Chinese in Italy (1906-2006) within the year 2026.
2- Researching language polyglossia within the Chinese diaspora in Italy, surveying extant heritage language schools providing Chinese language instruction to second generation migrants, describing at least one of the most relevant Wu topolects (the focus will be on Yuhuhua and Qingtianhua).
3- Establishing a networking platform for Italian researchers that are studying minorities in the PRC and within the Greater Chinese sphere of political influence, organizing an international seminar with the aim of clarifying the current state of minority policies in the PRC and its effects on the PRC’s periphery.

Minorities and the Law

Head of cluster: Lino Panzeri

The research projects currently being developed touch on the following main thematic areas:

- Protection of linguistic rights in Italy, with particular references to new minorities;
- Models for the protection of minorities in comparative law;
- The personal autonomy of members of minorities in the Estonian Law of 1925.

Minorities and Languages

Head of cluster: Andrea Sansò

The ongoing research projects touch on the following thematic areas:

1- Language discrimination across Europe: glottophobic phenomena and accent discrimination with respect to both regional and learner/immigrant varieties;
2- Heritage languages in Italy: their vitality and sociolinguistics;
3- Historical minorities and local languages (“dialects”) in Italy, and their degree of endangerment.

Minorities and Culture

Head of cluster: Nieves Arribas

The research projects currently scheduled include:

- The role of interpreters and translators in war conflicts;
- Spanish Judeo speakers in Turquia;
- The culture of Gypsies and Rom.

Minorities and Religions

Coordinator: Alessandro Ferrari

Minorities and Digital Media

Head of cluster: Martina Codeluppi

The Research cluster “Minorities and digital media” aims to explore the following main themes:
1- The relationship between digital space and lived space. The research cluster will focus on online platforms by analyzing their various declination and investigating their power to create a free space able to counterbalance the marginalization that minorities often face, concerning language, ethnicity, gender, etc. In particular, we will address the phenomenon of The Great Translation Movement and shed new light on the ideological fallouts of translation by mapping the changeable perception of contemporary China conveyed by online resources and social media.
2- The relationship between technology and identity. We will focus on digital media as both a determining factor in the creation of new cultural identities, such as the incarnations of translingualism in migrant literature, and as a vehicle of discrimination capable of exacerbating the marginalization of certain minorities. We will focus on Sinophone poetry written by ethnic minorities in China and the use of online space to voice their literary espression.
Particular attention will be paid to the context of contemporary China and to its diasporic manifestations.

Minorities and Society

Head of cluster: Valter Zanin

Minorities and Visual and Performing arts

Head of cluster: Sergio Basso

How are minorities represented in the media? Who handles and manages the storytelling about them? Do these minorities manage to have an original voice and find room to narrate themselves, or are they narrated by a small group of holders of the “power of storytelling”, the so-called “scepter of communication”?
This section aims to investigate this topic, with a primary focus (for organizational agility and cogency of the issues) on the Chinese minority and on the specificities of the Italian theatrical, artistic, TV and cinematographic market. However, the survey will also be open to other communities and to their inclusion / visibility within the European and North American performance industry.

 

Minorities and History

Head of cluster: Elisa Bianco

The Research cluster “Minorities and History” aims to explore the non-religious minorities in the early modern Europe. In particular:

• The Cagots, a minority of uncertain origins, without any specific linguistic, ethnic or religious traits, settled in western France and northern Spain.
• The gipsies, who in recent years gained new attention by scholars of early-modern history: see Büchel, Toni (ed.), "Zigeuner" im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit.Wien: Institut für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit, 2019; F. Timbers, "The Damned Fraternitie": Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500-1700. New York: Routledge, 2016; L. Mróz, Roma-Gypsy Presence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 15th-18th Centuries. Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2015; R.J. Pym, The Gypsies of Early Modern Spain, 1425-1725. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. The cluster aims to follow this path of research with a focus on the Italian States in the early modern period.
• Other non-religious minorities (such as Uskoks, fugitive slaves).

Gender, Identity, Minorities

Head of cluster: Federica Formato

The research programme includes the following areas of interest:

- language as an inclusive device in Italian and other languages;
- hate speech towards gender minorities;
- representation of gender minorities in the media.

Sul linguaggio inclusivo 11.02.2022

Minorities and Decolonial Studies

Head of cluster: Valentina Albanese

This field treads the path of pluriversality. Indeed, there are many variables (the pluriverse) in which relations between spaces, communities, nature, land, territoriality, sovereignty, etc. are organised and conceptualised.

Therefore, it is necessary to structurally reflect on the power dynamics underlying colonialism and the materiality of knowledge production as well as in the practices of living. Finally, using the decolonial topic as an observational lens of being-human-on-earth means making the reflections left by colonialism in terms of gender, patriarchy and many other forms of social power found in topics, among others, such as race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and heteronormativity, in accordance with intersectional theories, more clear and visible.

Topics:

-education, gender studies and colonialism in European academic programmes

-multiversal forms of space appropriation (murals, street dance, demonstrations, protests, etc.)

-tourism as a form of colonisation

-putting voices from the margins at the centre of academic debate

Minorities and Education

People

Director

Vice Director

Scientific Committee

Members

Past Events

2023

26.10.2023
Tavola Rotonda «Le scuole ereditarie in Lombardia e il loro ruolo nel mantenimento delle lingue delle comunità migranti»
poster
programma

 

Appello per Khaled El Qaisi
testo

Appeal for Khaled El Qaisi
text

15 September 2023
Translation Sites in Istanbul: The non-Muslim Minorities in Moda and Yeldegirmeni Neighborhoods
Ayşe Ayhan, Yildiz Technical University
poster

15 May 2023
«State Control, Surveillance and Minority Policies in China»
Seminar with Børge Bakken
Discussant Daniele Brigadoi Cologna (University of Insubria – CERM)
poster

02.05.2023

Book presentation “Storia della Bielorussia. Da Rahvalod di Polack a Lukasenka” by Massimo Vassallo
Introduction: Ekaterina Grishanova (University of Insubria), Darya Vashkialevich (University of Insubria)
Discussant: Paola Bocale (University of Insubria)
poster

19.04.2023

Seminario “La linea dell’accento”
Partecipano Enrica Bracchi, Nantes Université; Paola Bocale, Università dell’Insubria; Silvia Calamai, Università di Siena; Rosalba Nodari, Università di Siena; Mirko Sacchini, Università dell’Insubria & Tyumen State University; Darya Vashkialevich, Università dell’Insubria
Introducono e moderano Andrea Sansò, Università dell’Insubria; Maria Paola Bissiri, Università dell’Insubria
poster

18.04.2023
Seminar “The verbal classes of Russian Aktionsarten and their sociolinguistic dimension how morphology decreases pragmatic distance” Mirko Sacchini, Università dell’Insubria & Tyumen State University
Discussant Paola Bocale, Università dell’Insubria
poster

 

04.04.2023
Presentazione del volume “My people La mia gente” di Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Interverranno Margherita Zanoletti (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore),
Paola Bocale (Università dell’Insubria), Ekaterina Grishanova (Università dell’Insubria)
locandina

Winter School “How to Document the Present: Oral History and Memory of the War”
Como, 23-27 January, 2023
Programme

21.02.2023
International Mother Language Day 2023
“L’insegnamento dell’ucraino nelle scuole ereditarie della Lombardia”
poster

 

2022

December 6, 2022, 2.30 p.m.
Ukraine and Russia: What are the chances for peace?
Rossella Bettoni, Alberto Castelli, Salvatore Del Gaudio, Mara Morini, Oleg Rumyantsev, Francesco Strazzari – discussants: Paola Bocale, Daniele Brigadoi Cologna
poster

 

November15 2022, 3 p.m.
The Italian community in Crimea: Identity, memory, revitalization
Paola Bocale, Giulia Giacchetti Boiko, Stefano Conca Bonizzoni
poster

November 17, 2022, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
International Conference RELIGIOUS MINORITIES: A POLITICAL TRANSMEDITERRANEAN CHALLENGE
Organised by the REDESM in collaboration with the CERM
poster

November 17, 2022, 3 p.m.
Romanian literature in the Republic of Moldova
Olga Irimciuc, Paola Bocale, Roberto Russo
poster

November 8, 2022 2.30 p.m.
Cerm-Redesm event: Book presentation
Quando gli immigrati vogliono pregare, M. Ambrosini, S. D. Molli, P. Naso (Eds.), Il Mulino, Bologna 2022
poster

Seminario “La comunità italiana in Turchia, tra passato e presente”, Como 06.10.2022
poster

Comunicato condoglianze per Prof. Fiorenzo Toso
testo

Cerm 2022 Prize
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Bando per il Premio CERM 2022 per la miglior tesi di dottorato sulle minoranze
Bando

26 maggio 2022
Seminario Storia dell'Ucraina dalla Rus' kyivana ad oggi: le radici del tragico e sanguinoso conflitto dei nostri giorni
Massimo Vassallo, Paola Bocale, Salvatore Del Gaudio
Locandina

19 maggio 2022
Convegno Aver Cura in una società multiculturale: la donazione di sé, la promozione della salute e l’educazione del paziente
Programma

12 maggio 2022
Race, Ethnicity and the Policies of American University
Evelyn Hu Dehart (Brown University, Rhode Island, Usa),  discussants: Valter Zanin (Università di Padova), Daniele Brigadoi Cologna (Università dell’Insubria)
Poster

5 maggio 2022
“Il Legionario” di Hleb Papou.
Proiezione del film e dibattito con il regista
Locandina

12 aprile 2022
Presentazione del volume “Il suicidio dell’Urss” di Sergio Romano
Ne discutono con l’autore Paolo Luca Bernardini, Paola Bocale, Angela Di Gregorio
Locandina

 

7 aprile 2022
Giornata di Studio Interpreti e mediatori nei conflitti bellici
Nieves Arribas Esteras, Enrique Santos Unamuno, Lucía Ruiz Rosendo, Jesús Baigorri Jalón, Linda Fitchett
Locandina

24 marzo 2022
Seminario Zero – L’invisibilità è un potere, non una debolezza
Mohamed Hossameldin, Stefano Voltaggio, Sergio Basso
 

A partire dal 24.02.2022
Corso online base di Lingua e Cultura Romena
Olga Irimciuc, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria
Locandina

17 marzo 2022
Tavola rotonda Ucraina e Federazione Russa: Indagine sulla crisi
locandina

8 marzo 2022
Tavola rotonda Le donne rifugiate in Italia, tra qui e altrove
locandina

03.03.2022
Seminario Lev Vygotskij Educazione e minoranze nazionali
Luciano Mecacci, Academia Europaea
poster

21.02.2022
Giornata Internazionale della Lingua Madre Le scuole ereditarie in Italia. Situazione attuale e prospettive
poster

20.01.2022
Seminario Chroniqueers Time, care, visibility in queer subjects with chronic illnesses
Mara Pieri, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra
Federica Formato, Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender, University of Brighton
poster

 

2021

01-03.12.2021

Convegno Internazionale Minorities in the post-Soviet space thirty years after the dissolution of USSR

poster

07.10.2021

“L’unica persona nera della stanza”, presentazione del volume di Nadeesha Uyangoda

Locandina

14.09.2021

Digital technology, Surveillance and Internal Migration in China
Rogier Creemers, Leiden University
Discussant: Daniele Brigadoi Cologna, University of Insubria
Moderator: Lucrezia Goldin, China Files
Poster

5 marzo – 4 giugno 2021 ore 9 – 10.30
Seminari online di introduzione alla cultura, alla storia e alla musica degli Ebrei della Diaspora e dello stato di Israele
Dal testo al contesto. La cultura ebraica, dalla Torah allo Stato d’Israele 
Locandina

Webinar – 24 maggio ore 14-17
Web-based platforms for language learning: the case of Revita, University of Helsinki
Link per partecipare: vd. Locandina
Locandina

Webinar – 15 aprile
L’albanofonia in Italia. Prospettive linguistiche e giuridiche
Link per partecipare: vd. Locandina
Locandina

Webinar – 17 marzo 
Migrazioni e cittadinanza – Prospettive sociologiche e giuridiche
Per informazioni: [email protected] 
Link per partecipare: vd. Locandina
Locandina

Webinar – 8 marzo 
Emancipazione, autonomia e protagonismo nelle migrazioni femminili
Per informazioni: [email protected] 
Locandina

Webinar - 10 February 2021
Heritage Languages and Multilingualism Day
Per informazioni: [email protected] 
Locandina

2020

Webinar – 10 dicembre dalle 10 alle 12
Italia e Cina: 50 anni di relazioni
Per informazioni: [email protected] 
Locandina

Webinar - 9 dicembre, dalle 14 alle 17
Sfide attuali della cittadinanza
Per informazioni: [email protected] 
Locandina

11 maggio 2020 ore 14
Web Seminar
LE NUOVE MINORANZE IN LOMBARDIA
Profili linguistici, giuridici, socio-pedagogici e religiosi
Locandina

3 giugno 2020 ore 14
Il paese delle badanti
di Francesco Vietti
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Locandina

Presentazione Web – 10 giugno 2020 ore 14
Aspettando la fine della guerra
di Daniele Brigadoi Cologna
Locandina

Presentazione Web – 15 giugno 2020 ore 14
Italianità a confronto: Crimea e Quarnero
Paola Bocale, Università dell’Insubria
Daniele Briagadoi Cologna, Università dell’Insubria
Lino Panzeri, Università dell’Insubria
Locandina 

Presentazione Web – 22 giugno 2020 ore 11
La lingua ucraina moderna: fasi di formazione
nel contesto slavo orientale
Salvatore del Gaudio, Università di Kyiv Borys Hrinčenko
(Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University), Ucraina
Interventi:
Paola Bocale, Università dell‘Insubria
Khrystyna Krychkovska, Università dell‘Insubria
Locandina

Convegno internazionale - 28 – 29 ottobre 2020
Flumen - Fiume - Rijeka
Crocevia interculturale d’Europa
Per informazioni: [email protected] 
Per partecipare: https://www.uninsubria.it/convegno-fiume 
Locandina

2019

27 novembre 2019 ore 15
Chiostro di S. Abbondio, Aula S.0.1., Via S.Abbondio 12, 22100 Como
Bessarabia 1939-2019: echi e riflessi nella letteratura
Locandina

 

Publications

Quaderni del CERM

  1. Le nuove minoranze in Lombardia (a cura di P. Bocale, D. Brigadoi Cologna, L. Panzeri), Milano, LEdizioni, 2020
  2. Flumen Fiume Rijeka Crocevia interculturale d’Europa (a cura di E. Bianco, P. Bocale, D. Brigadoi Cologna, L. Panzeri), Milano, LEdizioni, 2021
  3. Migrazioni e cittadinanza (a cura di D. Brigadoi Cologna e L. Panzeri), Milano, Ledizioni, 2022
  4. Minorities in the post-Soviet space thirty years after the dissolution of USSR (edited by P. Bocale, D. Brigadoi Cologna, L. Panzeri), Milano, LEdizioni, 2022
  5. Espressioni e poetiche dell’identità e dell’appartenenza negli scrittori della letteratura italiana dell’Istria (L. Sorgo), Milano, LEdizioni, 2023

Podcasts

14.09.2021 “Digital technology, Surveillance and Internal Migration in China”

Contact

[email protected]

Contatti CERM

Via M. E. Bossi 5, 22100 Como
Tel. +39 031 238 4181