Modern societies are characterised by multiple factors that highlight diversity, especially in the cultural and religious spheres. Among them, migratory flows can clearly be considered as one of those that generate the greatest tensions in the social fabric, going beyond the strict sphere of foreigners (insofar as immigrants settle and become nationals) and forcing a comprehensive analysis or study from an intercultural dimension. Faced with the challenges posed by the management of diversity in a legal-political perspective, reductionist solutions are often offered, based especially on fear of the other, which instead of encouraging social cohesion contribute to its fragmentation. Particularly in times of crisis (not only economic, but also of shared common values), when certain subjects feel threatened or discriminated against, conflicts arise that hinder life in common. These tensions translate, on more occasions than desirable, into a withdrawal of identity or a securitarian frenzy, ranging from cultural or religious manifestations to practices that are incompatible with human and fundamental rights, which must be tackled from the regulatory and jurisprudential sphere, but also from public policies of a preventive nature. The miscellaneous problem areas of intervention when dealing with diversity make it impossible to exhaust such a complex and dynamic subject matter, which makes it necessary to spatially limit the scope of study and seek models or guidelines that can offer lasting solutions for the sake of social integration, which is essential for the strengthening of the rule of law. For this reason, the MULTIHURI project, from a multidisciplinary study and based on its previous experience, focuses on analysing four European states: Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, and proposes comparing them with an a priori different legal-political reality, at least in its trajectory, such as that of Canada, in an attempt to find mechanisms that bidirectionally allow cultural and religious conflicts that may compromise social peace to be confronted. 

Indeed, in the aforementioned European context, the so-called policies of integration of (or with) immigrants have not produced the expected results, nor have they had an impact on the population to generate a climate of respect and guarantee of human rights. On the contrary, the increasingly pressing identity challenges inherent to diversity, their link with public order or the fundamental principles of modern democratic states governed by the rule of law (such as equality, pluralism or secularism) and their relationship with latent feelings such as, among others, that of national vindication, highlight the difficulties in establishing common values in a fragmented world. 

It is therefore essential, as the European Court of Human Rights has already highlighted in its jurisprudence, to build a model of coexistence in multicultural, diverse societies, especially marked by the impact of migratory flows, that takes into account, as a guide for the articulation of regulations and public policies, strict respect for human rights from their international standards as the basis of the democratic rule of law. See http://www.multihuri.com/es/

Partners

• María José Aguilar Idáñez - Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.
• Bridget Anderson - Oxford University (UK).
• Pierre Bosset - Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada). 
• Géraldine Galeote - Université Paris-Sorbonne (Francia). 
• María Isabel Garrido Gómez - Universidad de Alcalá (Madrid). 
• Letizia Mancini - Università degli Studi di Milano (Italia).
• Lourdes Santos Pérez - Universidad de Salamanca.

Research and experimental development on social sciences and humanities