The looking glass: From the citizen to the migrant in Italians’ naïve imagery

The paper discusses the concept of citizenship both from a critical-theoretical point of view and in the light of the findings of a research conducted in Italy on the social representation of citizens and migrants. The research aims to analyze how the thêma of social recognition is objectified in everyday language and to explore the characteristics attributed to the other in a plural society. We show how the contemporary foreigner figure that we have come to know as ‘the migrant’ is a political and legal figure, but is also the result of a symbolic construction which is shaped through a social comparison process between citizens and non-citizens. Keywords: Citizenship; social representations; thêmata; social recognition