The Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of a Global Age which marked the successful beginning of our mutual collaboration. Since that time, the Catholic University of America and Globus et Locus have embarked upon a course of research and reflection, which can, I am convinced, not only enrich our own experience, but also the current crucial debate on the global world in which we live, its peoples and its institutions.

I would like to cast our minds back to that which we achieved during that first seminar almost two years ago, for it was the starting point from which we developed and articulated our ideas together. The theme of study and debate was the "essence of Italic identity". Our point of departure—and it is at the root of all our efforts as the Globus et Locus Association—was the conviction that there is such a thing as an Italic identity, a unifying transnational dimension of an essentially cultural, rather than ethno-linguistic or juridical, nature that is based on citizenship.

This Italic entity is a great community of sentiment and values which, in our opinion, now goes far beyond the limits of descent or family relations of the 60 million people of Italian origin spread around the world. In fact, it also comprises all those who to a certain extent "feel Italian"—whatever ethno-linguistic and national differences there may be—because especially in recent years they have appreciated or shared Italian values and interests, whether this be through encounters with people (through business contacts, tourism, etc.), things (goods bearing the label "Made in Italy") or signs (information, art, cinema and all those communication processes which feed our collective imagination).

At our last gathering, we used this idea as a springboard for an attempt to identify and define the main features which make up this unifying "Italic" dimension and found them in certain significant common elements rooted both in ancient history and, at the same time, the more recent developments in the globalisation process: a mild-mannered identity (without any hegemonic pretensions deriving from a strong imperial and colonial tradition); not resentful (unlike those peoples who have been subjected to, or still live under, domination and oppression and therefore feel humiliated); aesthetic (conscious of the value of beauty); affective (aware of the value of feelings and, therefore, of the centrality of the family as the basic root of feelings); universalist (founded on the quest for universal shared values); cosmopolitan (marked by an openness towards the other, a desire for and capacity to listen to and engage in dialogue with the other).

Based on these premises which were enriched and articulated in an analytical manner through the various contributions and subsequent discussions arising from the first seminar, we developed our ideas over the following months, until we came to this second gathering. Over this period of time, each of us has in one way or another made a personal contribution. The Catholic University and its Center for the Study of Culture and Values made a significant contribution to the work of the seminar by editing the drafts produced by the participants.

This was an invaluable contribution in that it made it possible to publish and distribute a volume which today comprises the main element of our shared cultural heritage and can be recognised and communicated outside this context. Given that we are more a political-planning agent than academic institution, we at Globus et Locus have worked on a practical level as well as that of research. We have attempted to broaden our knowledge and ability to interpret, drawing up plans, setting up experiments, in this way subjecting our hypotheses and theories to the test of empirical research and comparison with others.

On a concrete level, given our conviction that theoretical study must always act as guideline for procedure, but at the same time procedure can and must in turn form the basis for theoretical reflection, we have promoted a series of initiatives from the ground up, in an awareness of all the communities which make up the "Italic world" in the four corners of the world. These dealt with themes such as information and communication processes among and with Italic people, the conditions and means required for the essential knowledge (and therefore also self-representation and self-awareness) of the distribution and composition of this transnational community and finally, the multicultural and intercultural aspects which are the two fundamental options open to all diasporas and, at the same time, to all state organisations and societies which are increasingly articulated into multiple and diverse cultural communities and collective identities.

Throughout this period of work and study, we have become increasingly convinced that the concept of "glocalisation," on the one hand, and function, on the other, can serve as a useful and meaningful key to understanding the themes of identity and the growing copresence of different cultures in our society as well as possible policies and strategies for dealing with these and "governing" the outcome.

Glocalisation is the process by which the connection between local and global dominates our lives. The global is found in the local and vice versa. We not only see it in our own day to day lives, we also hear it from studies carried out by anthropologists, sociologists and social scientists in general. The "spaces" in our lives—in the sense of transnational spheres of social practices—physically take place (and nowadays, with increasing mobility, they often take place in different places) and are always to some extent the crossroads between the local and the global.

The "spaces", which we can therefore actually define as glocal (at the crossroads)—cultural, social, information and communication "spaces" and, more and more often, institutional, political and juridical spaces too—increasingly elude the reach of those institutions set up and designed around the concept of the centrality of territory.

In these "spaces", each individual tends to assume, and therefore expect that he be seen to have and be guaranteed, a multiple and diverse cultural, linguistic and also institutional and juridical sense of belonging. The dilemmas of multiculturalism and interculturalism arise in this context: how can multiple and diverse "spaces" be made to coexist peacefully within the same territory? And how can we reconcile the glocal nature of these spaces at the crossroads between a place and the world, this crossing of borders and territory with the traditional expectations of exclusive statehood?

The second key to understanding lies in the concept of function. In a glocal world, where territory has lost its confines and exclusiveness, it is functions which come to the foreground (research, culture, business, voluntary humanitarian projects, etc.), functions which cross territorial boundaries and take place beyond the confines of territories.

Around these functions, we see the formation of transnational functional communities (of research, study, business, international voluntary projects, etc.) which, with the mobility and work of their members, utilising the new technologies of communications and transport, create metaterritorial "spaces" crossing and interconnecting different continents, States and peoples. This gives rise to "multiple new senses of belonging and non-territorial but functional identities which reside and operate in these new spaces."

To sum up, the multiplication of "spaces" is, in many senses, the product of the multiplication of functions and, in turn, generates a plurality of identities and senses of belonging. Transnational mobility, migratory processes, diasporas, the evolution of transnational functional communities, all contribute to what has been described as the "prismatic breakdown of space and belonging". This breakdown is something which traditional politics finds increasingly difficult to comprehend and especially regulate and gives rise to a displacement of politics, a "without place", which is eluded by the new metaterritorial spaces and multiple, hybrid, ambiguous dimensions of belonging and identity.

Another sphere of experience and study upon which, as Globus et Locus, we have worked during this period, is that relating to the ways in which the global interferes with "places" and places, in their turn, react to this interference. We experience in Italy, as you all know, a sort of defensive localism (that of the Northern League) which, out of fear and on the basis of a closed, immobile idea of identity, rejects globalisation, a localism which sees the place as not interconnected with, but rather opposed to, the world.

This defensive localism has neither understood nor recognised the multiplication of "spaces" and sense of belonging which have accompanied the decline of territories. It deludes itself, that it can fortify and close its borders and expect local, regional or national institutions to achieve this rather than promoting the possible and necessary task of creating interconnections and long-distance networks with the world beyond.

From a cultural point of view, in order to convince others and give itself legitimacy, defensive localism constructs myths (in our case, that of the Celts and the Po Valley) of the eternal permanence of identities, forgetting that identities are never a constant but a process. Throughout history, they have always been "constructs" arising in the course of diverse social practices, from the comparison with otherness and actually feeding on this otherness which is internal, even more than it is external, to the subject. There is always, so to speak, "another" already within us, even before the other outside of us.

In other words, identities and belonging, in differentiated and complex societies such as our own, are ever increasingly a "residing in displacement" (as commented by an attentive observer like James Clifford) or, in other words still, an unstable collocation within and between (in-between). Nothing permanent and univocal, but something mobile and articulated.

As has already been said in another language, "once you intervene in an interconnected world, you are always, to a certain extent, ‘inauthentic’, caught between certain cultures while implicated in others". In this globally interconnected world, identity and belonging basically arise from a continuous process of "cultural negotiation" which, starting with cultural elements already acquired, leads to the acquisition of new elements and the rejection of others and a second time around acceptance of still others, that is, a complex construct that is never entirely definitive, of identity and belonging. All the diasporas, all the transnational communities of a functional nature are to some extent the product of this process of cultural negotiation which can also be seen as a glocal process in that it takes place at the "crossroads" between places and the world.

On the basis of this phase of experiment and reflection which began with our last meeting, we have decided to propose now a deeper examination of the themes which are indicated in the very title of our convention, "Italic Identities and Pluralistic Contexts: Toward the Development of Intercultural Competencies." We considered it to be both useful and necessary to reflect on the fact that the process of construction of the Italic identity always takes place, nowadays, in a pluralistic context of culture and identity, starting from diverse identities and belongings: an individual is at the same time Italo-American or Italo-French (and, in this case, also European) and then, as far as local roots are concerned, also Lombard, Piedmontesi or Sicilian.

And we also wish to reflect on the fact that this process of drawing closer to constructing an Italic identity, which arises from the coexistence of multiple aspects within the same identity and belonging, also arises "between" different identities, that is, in an inevitably pluralistic context from an ethnic, linguistic and cultural viewpoint (all the more so in a culture which is the "nexus in a post-national network of diasporas, such as the United States today). In effect, pluralism is as much "in identities" as "between identities".

Given these premises and considerations, what we need to ask ourselves during these two days of work is therefore: How does the Italic identity relate to this pluralistic context, full of so many other senses of belonging and identities? What diverse forms does the essence of the Italic identity take in this relational context? How does the relatedness with other senses of belonging and identity—a relatedness which is intense and inevitable in a pluralistic context such as the American one—interfere with the process of construction and dynamics of change of the Italic identity?

And again, in this pluralistic context, what fundamental "spaces"—with the meaning defined earlier of transnational spheres of social practices—are promoted or as it were "inhabited" in a more meaningful way by the Italic communities? And, from a historical perspective, what are the most significant experiences that the Italic community has had in the past in this pluralistic context, especially when "put to the test" by tension, crisis and conflict? And what today are the new experiences, in more recent contexts, what challenges and opportunities do these provide for the Italic community’?

Finally, from the viewpoint of planning and politics, faced with the challenge of an increasingly pluralistic society which must manage to make differences coexist peacefully in the same territory, what do the options of multiculturalism and interculturalism represent? According to the intercultural option, in particular, that which is based on dialogue, interconnection and exchange, what original and significant contribution can the Italic community offer, based on their specific identity (which we attempted to articulate, define and discuss at our last meeting)?

We of Globus et Locus are firmly convinced of one thing, that interculturalism can succeed and that the Italic community can make a significant contribution to this success if we assume as the central value the "culture of functions" rather than that of territory. In other words, if we recognise that the "spaces" in which the encounter takes place, the dialogue, the exchange between human groups in a pluralistic context are above all meta-territorial spaces constituted from functions: study, research, the economy and the world of business, voluntary projects, and so on.

It is these "spaces" that form the basis for new communities, functional and glocal communities with their own specific institutions of reference, such as the university for research and study, Chambers of Commerce for business, NGOs or UN agencies for humanitarian and voluntary projects, and so on, which traverse and interconnect territorial communities and base their identity not on closedness but on openness and exchange.

We can, at this point, "come full circle" in our reasoning and return to the starting point of our last meeting: the essence of the Italic identity, the characteristics and forms of this identity. It is our theory that Italic communities are, by their very nature, particularly well-equipped for and well-disposed towards intercultural dialogue, pluralism of identity and belonging, the practices and experiences of functionalism (upon which, I would like to remind us all, is based the historic experience of the building of the European Union, which allowed us to end centuries of war on the continent) and, finally, the new challenges of interethnic societies and the global world.

This is a hypothesis which we wish to discuss in greater depth together during this two-day encounter and which we hope to continue in a future third meeting which here and now I take the opportunity of proposing be held by ourselves in Italy.