Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-05-23DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.13
Sean Wyer
{"title":"‘Palermo is a mosaic’: cosmopolitan rhetoric in the capital of Sicily","authors":"Sean Wyer","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.13","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The political messaging of Leoluca Orlando, who served five terms as mayor of Sicily's capital, Palermo (most recently, until 2022), articulates a cosmopolitan vision of local identity. Orlando seeks to emphasise Palermo's ‘tolerant’ values, invoking the city's history to foster this image, as well as using a variety of rhetorical strategies. He portrays Palermo as having a true ‘essence’, which is necessarily multicultural. I analyse Orlando's pronouncements on his official Facebook page, as well as observing his audience's reactions to his messaging, both supportive and critical. I examine how Orlando articulates the narrative that Palermo has historically been a ‘mosaic’ of various cultural influences, proposing that the contemporary city is the ‘true’, welcoming face of the Mediterranean. As well as exploring the political utility Orlando sees in such arguments, I analyse the risks inherent in this essentialising project.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141085155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-05-08DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.10
Paola Bonifazio
{"title":"Buffalo Bill's Wild West, cowboys, and the fate of the western in Italy","authors":"Paola Bonifazio","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.10","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines the first tour of <span>Buffalo Bill's Wild West</span> in Italy and the so-called ‘<span>sfida dei butteri</span>’ (the challenge of the Italian cowboys of the Pontine marshes), which took place in Rome in March 1890. Analysing nineteenth-century Italian newspapers and photographs, I demonstrate that populist, anti-capitalist, and anti-American sentiments marked the Italian media's responses to the American show. In the historical context of Italy's socioeconomic crisis and of the first phase of colonial expansion in Africa (1870–1922), the mixed reception of <span>Buffalo Bill's Wild West</span>, amplified by the media event of the <span>sfida</span>, shaped the fate of the western genre in Italy.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140890474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-04-15DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.6
Andrea Sangiovanni
{"title":"Imaginary work: media representations of work and gender in Italy from the economic miracle to the present day","authors":"Andrea Sangiovanni","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article explores media depictions of industrial labour in Italy, with a special focus on visual, film and television portrayals, spanning from the 1960s to the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Rather than delving into an analysis of labour processes, the primary objective of the article is to scrutinise the gendered representations of work and whether and how the representation of work, including all professions, has played a pivotal role in shaping narratives about Italian society and its inherent contradictions. In this context, the article also emphasises the significance of what remains unrepresented, highlighting the absence of work as equally consequential as its presence. Of particular importance within this exploration is the examination of women's work, a realm less frequently depicted than that of men. The article dedicates specific attention to unravelling the nuances of women's role in the workforce, recognising their portrayal as a key element in understanding broader narratives about Italian society and its complexities.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140553509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-04-02DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.7
Maud Anne Bracke, Ilaria Favretto, Nicola Pizzolato
{"title":"Introduction: Gender and work in twentieth-century Italy: new approaches","authors":"Maud Anne Bracke, Ilaria Favretto, Nicola Pizzolato","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.7","url":null,"abstract":"This introduction to the special issue ‘Gender and Work in Twentieth-Century Italy’ draws on key strands of historical scholarship on gender and work, including women workers’ experiences, labour market discrimination, domestic work, the impact of gender norms, and ideas of masculinity and femininity on work identities. It traces the development of feminist influence within this scholarship, from making women workers’ experiences visible to challenging essentialist notions of gender identities. Drawing on post-structuralist and intersectional perspectives, particularly influenced by Joan Wallach Scott and Judith Butler, the scholarship on which this special issue is based understands gender as a system of power signified through language and social constructions, and builds on the critique of the dichotomies and essentialisations of traditional labour history, proposing a systemic and structural approach to understanding gendered experiences of work. By exploring the intersections of gender, work and power, this collection offers insights into wider European developments and challenges established historical concepts and narratives. It highlights the importance of understanding gender dynamics in shaping labour relations and social structures, ultimately contributing to a more nuanced understanding of labour and power dynamics in twentieth-century Italy and beyond.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140533260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-04-02DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.5
Alessandra Gissi
{"title":"‘Entirely white’? Female immigrants and domestic work in Italy (1960s–1970s)","authors":"Alessandra Gissi","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.5","url":null,"abstract":"Recently, a renewed history of foreign immigration in Italy, focusing on the very first migration flows after the Second World War, has offered a more appropriate periodisation of the phenomenon. Women have been at the forefront of these flows, which were initially determined by the new postcolonial setting of the former Italian colonies (Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia). Subsequently, the immigrants came from various other countries (Spain, Cape Verde, Portugal, El Salvador, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ceylon, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan). At the same time, the majority of them were employed in a specific sector of the labour market: domestic work. This article focuses on female immigrants who were employed as domestic workers, their presence in public discourse in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, and government policies in this area. Drawing on statistical data and surveys, press and audiovisual materials, and feminist theory and practices, it aims to analyse the construction of paradigms – visibility, invisibility, subalternity, rights and racialisation – associated with female immigration and domestic work as a specific sector of employment.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140533265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-03-25DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.3
Carla Mereu Keating
{"title":"Working in the dream factory: gendering women's film labour under Fascism","authors":"Carla Mereu Keating","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article draws on a broad range of under-explored historical sources to document the career trajectories of the women who worked in the Italian film industry between 1930 and 1944. Challenging established histories that normalise male dominance in Italian cinema during and after Mussolini's regime, the article sheds light on women's overlooked contribution to Italy's sound film industry and explores the multilayered, shifting dimension of their precarious and gendered labour. Engaging with key questions raised by historians of Italian Fascism and by feminist research in film and media history, the article delineates intersectional barriers to film employment faced by women in the years of the dictatorship and points to their historical legacy.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140209762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-03-18DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.4
Eloisa Betti
{"title":"Italian women workers and women activists between home and factory: the struggle against labour precarity (1950s–1970s)","authors":"Eloisa Betti","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>From a gender historical perspective, labour precarity constitutes a long-term phenomenon. Women's work represents a privileged observatory to understand how instability and precarity also characterised the cycle of economic and industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s. The article compares the conditions of female factory workers with those of home-based workers, a traditionally invisible category of workers, who between the 1960s and 1970s promoted demonstrations and protests with the support of trade unions, women's associations and local institutions. Changes in the subjectivity of women workers and homeworkers, whose demands often came together and gave rise to joint protests, not only became part of broader discussions on the relationship between industrial crisis and precariousness, but also generated discourses on specific forms of work that are now central to debates on flexible/precarious work such as part-time work.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"151 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140146097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-03-11DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.8
Konstantina Zanou
{"title":"Italy's diasporas: a discussion between Donna R. Gabaccia, Lucy Riall, Pamela Ballinger, and Konstantina Zanou","authors":"Konstantina Zanou","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>It has been over 20 years since Donna R. Gabaccia's seminal work <span>Italy's Many Diasporas</span> was published (London & New York, 2000), an overview of the social, cultural and economic history of Italy's various migrations. Much has changed since then, but this book remains a classic. In this roundtable, historians Lucy Riall, Pamela Ballinger and Konstantina Zanou reflect on the value of Gabaccia's work and on the historical moment of its production. They discuss with the author the developments in the historiography of Italian and other diasporas during the last two decades, and offer insights on new avenues of research including settler colonialism, race and belonging, migration and environmental change, global microhistory and biography, and the Mediterranean context of Italy's migrations.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140096881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-03-01DOI: 10.1017/mit.2023.77
Balázs Juhász
{"title":"Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war and their employment in the Italian hinterland (1915–1920)","authors":"Balázs Juhász","doi":"10.1017/mit.2023.77","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2023.77","url":null,"abstract":"This essay deals with the criteria for the employment of POWs in Italy during the Great War. It is a contribution to the current research demonstrating the close connection between civilian and military spheres during the war, including in the area of internment. This intertwining is particularly evident when one studies the wartime economic system. Although the article shows that the contribution of POWs was marginal, their work was diverse and particularly visible in certain sectors. Therefore, it is important to clarify the rules that governed their employment, and the outcomes of their work.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"99 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140015578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-02-27DOI: 10.1017/mit.2023.76
Lucia Bonfreschi
{"title":"Political change through the culture of the Radical Party (1962–89)","authors":"Lucia Bonfreschi","doi":"10.1017/mit.2023.76","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2023.76","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article aims to sketch out the main features of the political culture of the Radical Party (PR). This political culture is paradigmatic of a much broader phenomenon that has affected the politics of Western democracies since the 1970s: the critique of traditional parties in the name of a party model formed by spontaneous groupings of society; the extreme emphasis placed on individual choices in political action, and the programmatic tracing of the latter back to the former; and the call for a less ‘mediated’ relationship between citizens and institutions. Yet, this culture contained certain ingredients that would distance it from the populist forms of the twenty-first century. After grafting anti-authoritarianism onto its liberal matrix the PR identified the promotion of civil rights as the goal and battle for the transformation of the relationship between politics and the citizen. This transformation emphasised the sphere of individual freedom and the liberty to participate in community decisions, and thus implied a transformation of the ways and means of doing politics. In the late 1970s, the PR deepened its critique of parties and partitocracy and, at the same time, emphasised a supranational view of politics, eventually becoming a ‘transnational transparty’ party in 1989.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139976733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}