A Research Project about the Romanian Immigrants in Turin (Italy)  

The research project Romanian Immigrants in Turin. A Cultural -Anthropological Approach, financed by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was conceived for a 3-year period (2007, 2008, 2009), with a multidisciplinary team: a historian, a psychologist, a sociolinguist and a researcher in cultural problems. The Romanian community in Turin has more than 70.000 members officially. The main goals of the project were: to offer a better understanding of the multiple problems Romanians confront with along the struggle to integrate into the adoption society. What degree of integration can we speak about? Is it a total assimilation or do they preserve their national identity markers on specific levels (language, ethnological customs, collective mind)? Does living in a foreign country mean for them a total breaking with their native socio-economic and cultural past or do they continue to maintain a connection with their mother country? What is their children's attitude towards Romania and towards their relatives in Romania? What is the aboriginals' attitude towards Romanian immigrants and how does the local authorities' policy reflect into Romanians' lives? How do Romanian authorities respond to the immigrants' needs?  These are few of the questions the team tried to find an answer to during our research in Turin. We used questionnaires and narrative interviews. Unfortunately, because of the financial crisis, we were prevented from developing the third and final part of the project. Yet we had the opportunity to gather revelatory information and data during the first two stages of the project (2007 and 2008).