La politica migratoria dell’U.E. e la depersonalizzazione dei migranti: una strategia consapevole?

The essay takes as its starting point a brief survey of the different meanings of the concept of crisis in the history of political doctrines and of the European Union for an evaluation of its use, as far as recent landings of migrants on European coasts are concerned. The fact that in scientific research the plight of migrants is not considered as a crisis in itself but rather as the signal of a real crisis in related policy areas leads to a broadening of analysis to EU documents on migration and asylum. It emerges that EU institutions are undertaking a gradual but inexorable process of depersonalization of migrants, that is the slow cancellation of their identity and individuality. This is achieved through the progressive tightening of the criteria for the recognition of refugee status or of the international protection regime in the EU. This is even more evident if we compare modifications in EU definitions of "refugee" with those of socially-excluded people formulated by the EU Commission in the period 1985-1995. What emerges is that hesitancy to apply the notion of crisis with regard to migrants can be the flip side of the evolution of EU norms on the subject, i.e. the depersonalization of migrants could be functional in avoiding questions being raised about the compatibility of their rejection with the values of solidarity the EU declares itself to be founded on

Setting of Methods for Analysis of Mucosal Antibodies in Seminal and Vaginal Fluids of HIV Seropositive Subjects from Cambodian and Italian Cohorts

International audienceBACKGROUND: Genital mucosae play a key role in protection from STD and HIV infection, due to their involvement in both horizontal and vertical disease transmission. High variability of published observations concerning IgA isolation and quantification underlies the strong requirement of specific methods able to maximize investigation on HIV-specific IgA. METHODOLOGY: Genital fluids from 109 subjects, including male and female cohorts from Italy and Cambodia, were collected, aliquoted and processed with different techniques, to assess optimal conditions maximizing mucosal antibody recovery. Three sampling techniques, up to sixteen preservation conditions, six ELISA methods and four purifications protocols were compared. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The optimal method here described took advantage of Weck-Cel sampling of female mucosal fluids. Immediate processing of genital fluids, with the addition of antibiotics and EDTA, improved recovery of vaginal IgA, while the triple addition of EDTA, antibiotics and protease inhibitors provided the highest amount of seminal IgA. Due to low amount of IgA in mucosal fluids, a high sensitive sandwich ELISA assay was set; sensitivity was enhanced by milk-based overcoating buffer and by a two-step biotin-streptavidin signal amplification. Indeed, commercial antisera to detect human immunoglobulins showed weak cross-reactivity to different antibody types. Three-step affinity purification provided reproducible immunoglobulin recovery from genital specimens, while conventional immuno-affinity IgA purification was found poorly manageable. Affinity columns were suitable to isolate mucosal IgA, which are ten-fold less concentrated than IgG in genital specimens, and provided effective separation of IgA monomers, dimers, and J-chains. Jacalin-bound resin successfully separated IgA1 from IgA2 subfraction. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Specific, effective and reliable methods to study local immunity are key items in understanding host mucosal response. The sequence of methods here described is effective and reliable in analysing humoral local responses, and may provide a solid advance to identify and measure the effective mucosal responses to HIV

Società e inclusione nell'Unione Europea

Il saggio ricostruisce l'evoluzione delle politiche della CEE/UE in materia di inclusione sociale e lotta alla povertà e le analizza alla luce del concetto di cittadinanza come titolarità di diritti. Nel caso delle politiche comunitarie per l'inclusione, si vuole verificare quanto questeultime possano essere inquadrate come reintegro di diritti individuali che la povertà neg

I Moduli europei Jean Monnet: obiettivi formativi e culturali

Il saggio ripercorre la storia dell'Azione Jean Monnet della Commissione europea ed analizza i risultati del Modulo, assegnato al Corso di Laurea di Scienze della Comunicazione, a Taranto

L'idea di Europa tra storia e prospettiva. Conseguenze teoriche ed istituzionali dell'allargamento orientale dell'UE

Il liro analizza lo sviluppo dell'idea politica di Europa dai primi progetti di pace perpetua(Abate di Saint Pierre, Rousseau, Kant) alle teorie federale, funzionale e confederale di organizzazione europea dopo la Seconda GUerra mondiale ed il metodo sovranazionale di integrazione federal-funzionale di Jean Monnet.Il libro ananlizza le sfide che l'allargamento orientale pone a questo metodo di integrazione ed all'idea politica di Europa sovranazionale sulla quale la CEE/UE si è sviluppata storicamente

Gallotta, G.M. 2019. “Clash of civilizations and interregionalism: rise and fall (and a new dawn?) of two theoretical approaches”. Open Journal of Humanities 2: 3-25.

The article starts from an analysis of S.P. Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations and puts in evidence one of its critical points, i.e. the fact that Huntington does not pay any attention to the development by the EU of a particular kind of actorness through the promotion of interregionalism worldwide. Tracing the history of the different phases of success and decline of both theories, the article attempts to test their persistent explanatory and analytical capacity in relation to current developments in the international arena as well as in the academic context

L’UE e i regolamenti Frontex: quale idea di confine?

This essay starts from the latest news on migrants trying to reach the EU territory to analyze how the very idea of border is changing in the European Union. In this sense, documents from the European Commission and the two regulations establishing and governing the tasks of the European Border and Coast Guard (Frontex) are considered with the aim of understanding what idea of border they involve. The final confrontation, rather merciless, is with the concept of Europe as borderland by E. Balibar and with the new challenges at Union’s border

Un'unione acefala? Riflessioni su Unione europea e governo misto

Il saggio ripercorre l'evoluzione teorica del concetto di "governo misto" nella storia del pensiero politico e ne valuta la pertinenza rispetto al processo di integrazione europea. In effetti, questo appare lo strumento migliore per gestire la complessità dell'UE

Democrazia ed Europa nell'età globale

Il contributo analizza l'impatto delle nuove tecnologie di identificazione dei migranti, basate sull'uso dell'intelligenza artificiale, nella gestione della migrazione alle frontiere dell'Unione europea. Il silenzio che circonda lo sviluppo di questi strumenti non fa ben sperare sulla loro trasparenza ed affidabilità