Intercultural Dialog as a Strategy for a Sustainable Society: Case Studies from Italy

In the last decades, Europe has been through important socio-economic changes and has seen an important influx of incoming immigrants and migrant workers. The paper presents on the case of Italian society, aiming to underline the impact that foreign incoming communities have on the traditional Italian system. The approach of intercultural learning will be introduced, arguing that responsible services supported by communication strategies can strengthen social cohesion and enable the creation of a sustainable hybrid culture. The main question asked is how designers can contribute with their expertise in this process? The argument will be sustained by presenting the case of a service design course in which Master level students from Politecnico di Milano had to work with local NGO's that offer various services to foreigners. The objective of the course was to develop services to support the intercultural dialog. The conclusion explains how traditional cultures have to open up to incoming changes in order to become sustainable. In this respect, the starting point in preventing cultural clashes is to educate the young generation how to negotiate the balance between local cultural heritage and foreign influences through intercultural dialogue.