The paper explores how second generation youths in Italy are creating and re-elaborating their life plans, sense of identity and belonging amidst the many pressures, influences and legal/social barriers they encounter in their daily lives. Following recent anthropological theorisations of identity and belonging, the project aims to highlight the importance of acknowledging the many, interrelated
... [Show full abstract] and multilayered, factors which impinge on second generations' lives and identity formation and argues how classical theories of integration - conceptualised as a straight line which runs from "parents' culture" to "host country's culture" - are theoretically inadequate. The paper integrates the existing literature on second generation migrants with fieldwork conducted in northern Italy during the summer months of 2008 with young adults of Albanian and Moroccan origin and discusses sense of belonging and identity formation with reference to legal and social exclusion and the intimate spheres of sexuality and male-female relationships highlighting how Italy's specific political, legal and social context needs to be seen as central to immigrants' children's identity formation and life trajectories.