Modern ItalyPub Date : 2024-10-09DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.21
Terri Colpi
{"title":"Deathscape, materiality and memorialisation: Arandora Star remembrance in Scotland","authors":"Terri Colpi","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.21","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article progresses Second World War historiography of ‘enemy alien’ internment, especially of the SS <span>Arandora Star</span>, sunk in 1940 with a high loss of Italian civilian lives. Employing a new paradigm, that of the deathscape, defined as a topography of death and the practices that surround it, this investigation recontextualises <span>Arandora Star</span> remembrance in Scotland. Ambiguous loss, complicated grieving, disenfranchisements in mourning and absences in multiple layers of the deathscape form overarching themes that are explored in parallel to emotional-affective memory. The previously neglected study of individual memorialisation, both private and ‘official’, provides an important primary source in the fragmented materiality of the deathscape, allowing fresh insight on both cultural manifestations and political context. As the material and cultural apex of the deathscape, the Italian Cloister Garden and Arandora Star Memorial in Glasgow, created by Archbishop Mario Conti in 2011, are evaluated through the lenses of leadership, identity and heritage activism.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386263","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 : 2024-10-09DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.31
Terri Colpi
{"title":"Raising the Arandora Star: history and afterlife of the Second World War sinking","authors":"Terri Colpi","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.31","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.31","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Since the sinking of SS <span>Arandora Star</span> 84 years ago, the memory of this tragic wartime incident has been strongly held and developed within the British Italian community, moving through several phases, from oblivion to recognition and commemoration to a more recent growing awareness in a wider mnemonic community of interest. The aim of this special issue is threefold: to raise further the profile of the <span>Arandora Star</span>; to consolidate and secure the uncertain historical foundations of the event; and to advance the historiography by introducing new facts and perspectives and uncovering previously hidden or unknown aspects both of the past and the continuing afterlife. The six articles presented move logically through the history and stages of memory evolution and its manifestation – internment and deportation, the sinking itself, material, cultural and political aspects of the deathscape, oral histories, the multimedia ‘archive’, with finally, an embarkation listing to plug a serious knowledge gap.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"122 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386260","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 : 2024-09-20DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.18
Margaret Renata Neil, Federica M. Cerruti
{"title":"South(s) of the South(s): race, caporalato, and the ‘Southern Question’ renewed in contemporary Italian border-making","authors":"Margaret Renata Neil, Federica M. Cerruti","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.18","url":null,"abstract":"In contemporary Italy, media and public actors frame the exploitation of migrant agricultural labourers as the outcome of <jats:italic>caporalato.</jats:italic> This concept – translated as labour brokerage or gang mastery – connotes the violent treatment of workers and their exploitation by powerful individuals, who are today increasingly racialised and understood as being Black and immigrants. However, our fieldwork in Apulia and Sicily uncovered a more complicated picture. This article considers a variety of sources to explore how <jats:italic>caporalato</jats:italic> is constructed and to what effect. Our argument is that, though rooted in real dynamics, <jats:italic>caporalato</jats:italic> is also a reductive, sensationalised, and racialising framing device that transposes historic tenets of Italy's ‘Southern Question’ onto ‘othered’ migrant workers. It affects policy by creating categories of people who are made ‘illegal’ and ‘deportable’. In also reinforcing derogatory stereotypes about the Italian South, it makes visible further South(s) of the Italian South(s) – offering insight into how and where borders are created and what their effects are.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142306314","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 : 2024-09-19DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.29
Goffredo Adinolfi
{"title":"Italy between liberalism and democracy: universal suffrage and the 1913 elections","authors":"Goffredo Adinolfi","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.29","url":null,"abstract":"In 1912, the Italian parliament approved the extension of male suffrage, making it ‘almost’ universal. This process of revising representation transformed the very idea of the relationship between citizens and the state and shaped a profoundly different Italy. The aim of this article is to trace both the process leading to the approval of universal suffrage and its impact on the party system. With a compilation and analysis of data developed from scratch for the elections of 1909 and 1913, it was possible to analyse the main dimensions of the two rounds in a disaggregated manner. Three aspects make 1913 a year of transition. First, the degree of competition in the electoral process, especially in the South, increased considerably. Second, the decline of liberal formations was not transformed into defeat, thanks only to the Catholic vote. Third, the birth of the Popular Party and the failure to create a mass party of conservatives were causes of the imbalance in the party structure.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"193 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142245527","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 : 2024-09-19DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.33
Monica Jansen, Stefania Basilisco
{"title":"Narrating COVID and captivity in Italy: ‘no prison’ writings and the restorative potential of the penitentiary","authors":"Monica Jansen, Stefania Basilisco","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.33","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.33","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Italy's prison overcrowding became world news in early March 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak sparked riots in prisons across the country, causing the death of 13 inmates. As a crisis narrative, the COVID-19 pandemic made visible the deep, ongoing crisis of Italy's prison system and disclosed new conditions for critical thought on the restorative potential of the penitentiary system. This article first describes the impact of COVID-19 on Adriano Sofri's ‘no prison’ writings, starting from his column in <span>Il Foglio</span> on the prison uprisings in March that followed the announcement of the anti-COVID measures; it subsequently analyses the Italian response to the pandemic from an internal, practitioner-led perspective. By offering both a dialectic and an immanent perspective, it aims to develop new ways of understanding the detention system and enhance the social credibility of the penitentiary system in Italy beyond the constraints of COVID and the emergency logic.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142245487","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 : 2024-09-19DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.34
Sebastian De Pretto
{"title":"From Cadarese to Morasco: the creation of a Fascist hydroscape in alpine space after 1928","authors":"Sebastian De Pretto","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.34","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.34","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores the socio-ecological impacts of Fascist hydropower extraction in the Alpine valleys of Italy, focusing on the Toce river basin during the interwar period. It investigates the conflicts between local communities and hydropower initiatives by private energy companies under Fascism, thereby revealing the regime's communication strategies rooted in its political ecology. By analysing newspaper articles, propaganda outlets and communal archival documents, the study uncovers statal and local perspectives on infrastructure development and its enduring consequences. How the political ecology of Fascism in a high-altitude hydropower construction site became an expression of Fascist modernity will thereby be shown. Despite objections from valley inhabitants, Fascist hydropower projects persisted, perpetuating socio-ecological inequalities after 1945. Even postwar efforts for compensation failed to address the long-lasting impacts on mountain communities. This research reveals the intersection of political ecology and modernist infrastructure development in Mussolini's Italy, and thus also highlights the legacies of Fascist resource extraction policies on the country's peripheral Alpine regions.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142245489","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 : 2024-05-23DOI: 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}