Mediazione e competenza interculturale: Quando l’emergenza si tramuta in risorsa

<p><strong>Abstract</strong> – Sicily is undoubtedly highly involved in welcoming migrants and asylum seekers. Even though those who never arrive are the ones that receive most attention in the news and on newspapers, it is dealing with those who land that poses the most challenging problems. The situation is particularly demanding because of the high number of arrivals and for the absence of effective procedures. Recruitment of specialists proves to be one of the most problematic issues since Sicily does not have adequate laws nor has it courses specifically created to train those who wish to work in this field as mediators or social agents. After a brief overview of the term <em>mediation</em> as used in Italy, and starting from an analysis of the Sicilian context, which highlights the weaknesses of legal procedures and the absence of vocational courses, and trying to define what the term <em>mediator</em> hides and implies, the following chapter presents some preliminary results of an on-going research which aims to define what ‘efficiency’ means as far as mediation is concerned, and to understand whether and why non-Italian mediators are more likely to be preferred by migrants and recruiters. Exploiting the tools provided by Conversation Analysis and following the ethnographic method, the research focuses on some conversations between migrants and mediators aiming to compare the behaviours with the aim of highlighting significant differences between Italian and non-Italian mediators’ efficiency.