Abstract
In South Tyrol, an autonomous province in Northern Italy with a large German-speaking minority, questions of identity and belonging are historically controversial and are shaped by formal and informal politics of identity, language and culture both at the local and the national level. People of migrant descent tend to be excluded from these debates, practices and policies, even though they constitute more than 10 per cent of the total population. This presentation investigates the daily struggles over belonging and membership of people of migrant descent who grew up in the province. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with youth of migrant descent, it explores how they make sense of local identity politics which often excludes them directly or indirectly, and how they claim membership in the local community through everyday acts of resistance against these exclusionary politics. Paying particular attention to the ways in which belonging and the politics of belonging on the macro scale (the state) and the micro scale (the province of South Tyrol) clash, intersect and interact with each other, the paper provides insights into the complex negotiations that go into the attempts of migrants’ descendants to find their place as a minority within a minority in rural Europe, and the effects their presence may have, in turn, on the majority population’s understandings of belonging and identity.