Mediterraneità e bianchezza. Il razzismo italiano tra fascismo e articolazioni contemporanee (1861-2015)

Abstract

In the wake on important research published in the last 15 years, this article aims to explore contemporary rearticulations of racial contructions of Italians as white and Mediterranean. It is founded on the idea that these constructions of whiteness and Mediterraneanness – where Mediterraneannes, as opposed to Aryanness, is a result of a complex conversion of historical and racial components in the discourse on Italians’ white identity – are a long-lasting and find their origins in the nation-building process. These constructions then underwent through important rearticulations in the reappraisal of the national identity and body politics during the Liberal Age, Fascism and finally the Republic. Through a methodology that intersects political philosophy, cultural, postcolonial and gender studies, the article investigates Mediterranean whiteness in current Italy as the result of a complex intertwining of Fascist legacies and postfascist dynamics. These legacies and dynamics include what I have called “symbolic anthropophagy” – drawing the concept from latin American decolonial and African-American feminist critiques – ideas of miscegenation and proximity/differences with the black race. These legacies and dynamics are interpreted contraputally in the context of the current rearticulations of race, gender and nation at the time of mass migrations and border control strategies.