December 18th: International Migrants Day

Article by UniCamillus Professor Ugo Giorgio Pacifici Noja

When we talk about emigration, we deal with one of those topics that have a plurality of interpretative keys. Therefore, qualifying a theme as “thorny” not only means giving a restrictive and limited interpretation, but also means falling into the panic of commonplace.

For the purposes of an assessment of the extent of the problem, it is useful to remember that, according to Istat data, in 2018 for the first time there was a negative balance after three years (2014-2017) of constant growth and migratory flow towards Italy amounted around three hundred thousand units per year. It is important that these people become a living and working force of our country and do not go to enlarge the discomfort social area.

The several implications of immigration affect a plurality of institutions and social groups, only apparently in contradiction and distant from each other. As every sociologist knows, there is no recipe valid for “all tastes.” However, it is very likely that the light that highlights emigration as a subject of study is composed of a set of factors: politics, economics, law, anthropology.

Yet, perhaps, although sociology is alien to the use of any type of labeling, today the word “culture” is the one that most fills the spaces otherwise left empty to the dissatisfaction of all scholars. Culture, in fact, is by its very definition the representation of welcoming diversity, always seen as an enrichment and never as an obstacle or deprivation.

If this is true for every explanation of culture, it is certainly even more true for a University like UniCamillus which was born with a mission of multiculturalism.

The voice of Margaret Leininger, founder of transcultural nursing, is still heard today through those who started their academic mission from that message. In fact, the contrast between people from different cultures and different ethnic backgrounds is not the purpose nor point of arrival of all these of professional activities and, we could add today, academic-scientific activity.

When UniCamillus looks at people from the most diverse geographical and geopolitical backgrounds, it sees them as an enrichment of which they are both bearers and recipients.

Therefore, the University, first of all, must take note of the great changes that society makes us understand every day. In this sense, the University of the future must contribute to transmitting, especially to the youngest, that the “codes” (as they say in semiology) of which everyone is a bearer certainly have all the same value. The lack of understanding, in fact, of this principle is at the basis of any future misunderstanding and any future dispute that risks leading to conflicts and to loss of human life, of intelligence, of cultural and intellectual heritage.

For this reason, it is only through a synergistic collaboration between the academic and professional world that we can reach the realization of that transculturality that, better than all other nomenclatory attempts, can serve to explain a new phenomenon of which each of us is, albeit in a different way, protagonist.

Ugo Giorgio Pacifici Noja is Professor of General Sociology in the Degree Courses in Nursing and Midwifery. He also teaches Sociology of work in the health sector for the 1st level Online Master in Management for coordination functions in the Health Professions area.

Among the University’s innovative methods are the 1st and 2nd level Masters also delivered in e-learning mode, synonymous with maximum flexibility. The University, in fact, provides a platform accessible 24/24 that allows each learner to reconcile study with work and their private life.

The student will independently manage the Master having the opportunity to use the teachings and tests in any place and time of the day.

Through a highly qualified faculty and an international study plan, training internships are also provided that ensure the consolidation of specific professionalism in world-famous structures.

Furthermore, the academic qualifications obtained at the end of the training courses are recognized by the MUR and can be spent throughout Europe.

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