Robert E. Park: the concept of assimilation and its shifts

In this chapter I propose an analysis of the perspective that Robert E. Park developed around the process of assimilation, focusing on three notions introduced during the third decade of the twentieth century. My analysis proceeds from the 1921 concept of "cultural assimilation" to the 1930 definition of "social assimilation", passing through the idea of "cultural hybridity" embodied by the figure of the marginal man presented in the 1928 article. My conclusion is that Park's conceptual legacy on the migrant's integration is quite composite, and still useful for the study of contemporary interculturality.