Religious diversity, state and politics. the intercultural approach and its perspectives in migrants' integration processes

The spread and growing roots in European societies of a heterogeneous set of new cultural and religious expressions, often far removed from those traditionally known in the Western world, has broken the ethnic, cultural and religious homogeneity that had characterised the European continent for centuries. Governing contemporary cosmopolitan societies by finding solutions to the problems arising from ‘diversity’ is therefore an imperative not only for the present, but also and above all for the future of Europe. After clarifying the inadequacy of traditional models of governance of diversity, the essay asserts how possible solutions to the problem of conflicts between cultural identities cannot disregard an intercultural ‘rethinking’ of the legal institutions that regulate everyday life and inter-individual relations. In this perspective, the use of the model of intercultural management of diversity (the so-called ‘intercultural legal approach’), which makes use of a threefold reading of ‘Otherness’ that envisages three methodological steps to translate/include habits of cultures other than the majority one, combining it with a critical reinterpretation of the universalism of human rights aimed at favouring its use as interfaces of metaphorical intercultural translation/transduction’ between the different cultural subjectivities living in a society, is proposed as the most responsive to the goal of creating lasting and fair societies characterized by peaceful coexistence of all individuals, regardless of their ethnic, cultural or religious affiliation.