Roots tourism is noteworthy for a strong emotional bond between the tourist and the “place of destination” even before the trip takes place. It is also important to point out that the roots tourism ...is related to the mobility regime of diaspora, qualifying the so-called “diasporic tourism” and many other markers of mobility related to genealogical and affective ties with an original community. It can be assumed that the roots tourism (specifically the Turismo dell Radici – TdR) is a type of mobility and tourism practice integrated broadly in a social system of multiple space-time scales (the regime mobility across the globe). We believe that TdR can be understood as an analytically privileged sociological phenomenon, since it is a regular fact that is increasingly widespread in the liquid modernity, contributing in a decisive way to think about the mobile lives of contemporary tourism and its embeddedness in a globalised regime of mobilities. In this study we seek to investigate the sociological “mechanisms” that characterize the tourist experiences of TdR through an exploratory case study about the relation of the tourism experiences and the consolidation of the Italian diaspora community settled in Brazil. First, we organized the text with the conceptual problematization of the TdR and its consequences for our understanding of the phenomenon of tourist practices and the constitution of communities and identities affected by the regime of mobilities across the globe (the formation of a transnational community and a very particular identity – the representation of the “Italianity”). In a second part, we discuss the TdR and the debate on authenticity and the performance in the tourism space, highlighting the importance of understanding the interaction between people, places, goods, services, scales and distances under the framing of a “tension” provoked by the new moral economy in Modernity. The persistent reflections on the TdR tend to put a relational bias in the sense of focusing on the point of view of the “origin”, assumed in the analyses as a fixed and homogeneous territory of “return”. However, TdR should not focus only on the perspective of the “original place”, real or imaginary. Another analysis must be attempted, considering the relational and re-dimensioned aspect of territorial scales according to the historical processes that interconnect origin and destination, local and global, constructed and imagined space, hot and cold. To this end, we planned an exploratory case study related to the formation of the Italian diaspora communities in Brazil and the accelerated growth of projects characterized as Turismo delle Radici connecting both local associations (of transnationalised identities) founded in Brazilian territory to their original communities in the Italian peninsula (comuni and regione). We highlight the social mechanisms of this moral economy that implies roots tourism as a vector of the Italianità – Italianity – that generates self-sustainability at different levels (local-global) balancing authentic experience out of the massive tourism industry. We suggest that associationism contributes for strong ties among Italian communities and exert a decisive role in the promotion of tourist experiences of "return" in a transnational social field. Then, travelling experiences in the place of destination strengthen the sense of “atemporal” belonging, the Italianità feeling that protects one against overtourism while simultaneously preserving the moral field of dense ties and transactions to homeland. Methodologically, the case study of the Italian diaspora in Brazil and the formation of the sense of belonging as Italianity makes it possible to problematize the phenomenon of TdR through the paradoxes of the authenticity of tourism practices in the moral economy of the globalised world.
This article explores how the Italian American bilingual weekly La Settimana, which ran from December 1935 to November 1937, represented an excellent platform not only to promote the extraordinary ...achievements of Italians in America, but also to educate its wide readership about the need to be more united, more focused in their aims, and more respectful and understanding of the values of culture. This article examines the weekly in light of the belief advocated by its founder, Edward Corsi, that the Italian American communities needed a much higher quality of journalism that reflected and followed the progress of the Italians in America, particularly those of the second and third generations, and to stimulate their interest in American life and its institutions, while stressing the importance of their Italian heritage and language. The essay also addresses La Settimana's benevolent attitude toward Mussolini and his leadership within the context of the weekly's promotion of italianità.
Abstract
In this essay, we analyze how the temporary photographic exhibits of Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren served as artifacts of creating, circulating, and negotiating italianità: the essence of ...Italian culture and national identity. The photography exhibits in Rome and Sorrento anchor our study, but in order to understand more fully how they invite or reinforce cultural meaning, we evaluated these works in their larger architectural, regional, and urban contexts. We conclude that the exhibits communicate contrasting versions of italianità in order to subvert patriarchic tendencies in society, withstand globalization, challenge pan-European transnationalism, and create a strong sense of shared, yet diverse, identity by Italians, as well as manifest national pride to the visitors of the Belpaese.
This article reviews the history and legacy of Italian migration to South Africa since the seventeenth century, covering the colonial period under Dutch and British rule, the apartheid years (1948 ...to 1994), including the period after World War II, as well as developments in the Italian presence in the context of the post-1994 democratic dispensation. Unusual aspects of the roles of gender and religion are considered. Although several studies have explored Italian communities' experiences elsewhere in the world, little academic research has been conducted on the psycho-social experiences of the Italian community in South Africa. To address this lacuna, this article lays the foundations for a larger research project that was conducted on the experiences of second- and third-generation Italians in South Africa. It also identifies and stresses the need for further research into this part of the Italian diaspora in the context of the larger field of Italian studies.
Abbracciando la questione dell’utilità dell’italianistica nello studio comparato delle lettere, l’osservazione riguarda il problema dell’irradiarsi della cultura italiana nella civiltà europea ...attraverso temi e immagini comuni, la sua funzione ispiratrice per il corpus transnazionale di generi e di modelli artistici, e infine, l’intervento si riferisce anche al significato della letteratura e dell’arte italiana per la memoria culturale contemporanea, in particolare quella polacca, anch’essa ispirata da Dante.„Miłość, co wprawia w ruch słońce i gwiazdy…”, albo italianistyka jako narzędzie pomocnicze komparatystyki literackiejZłożony z pięciu fragmentów szkic poświęcony jest roli i znaczeniu kompetencji italianistycznych w warsztacie komparatystycznym. Rozpiętość italotematycznych badań porównawczych wskazują kolejno: refleksja nad tradycją podróży włoskiej (obejmująca problematykę intertekstualności, promieniowania wzorców literackich i artystycznych, zagadnienie „mitu Italii” i italianizmu w różnych epokach literackich), ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem włoskich wątków pisarstwa Stanisława Vincenza; następnie rozważania dotyczące genologii (tradycja sonetu i oktawy w literaturze polskiej) oraz przekładu jako obszarów wzajemnego oddziaływania literatur (w tym polskiej jako przyjmującej włoskie modele literackie – przypadek Juliusza Słowackiego – i oddziałującej na piśmiennictwo włoskie – przypadek Wisławy Szymborskiej). Odrębnym sygnalizowanym wątkiem jest zagadnienie recepcji Dantego w polskiej (i europejskiej) tradycji kulturowej (petrarkizm Felicjana Faleńskiego; fascynacje polskich romantyków Boską komedią).
The article explores the place of women and migrants in Italian Neorealist and New Migrant cinema, arguing that New Migrant cinema continues and reworks key Neorealist tropes and tendencies. It ...intends to render explicit how an ensemble of films challenge the stereotypes concerning gender, national and cultural identities. Among the figures that are scrutinized are the borgatari, extracomunitari, popolane and terrone. Its main objective is to demonstrate how the cinematic expression of these figures in Italian Neorealist and New Migrant cinema enhanced the reinvention of italianità and the generalised understanding of gender. It also aims to explain why the cross-fertilisation between migration studies, urban studies and gender studies is indispensable for comprehending this reinvention. Particular emphasis is placed on the shared interest of Roberto Rossellini's Roma città aperta and Vittorio De Sica's Il tetto in the plight over housing and the special character of the urban landscape of Rome. The article also sheds light on certain common concerns of Italian Neorealist and New Migrant cinema, especially as far as national and gender narratives are concerned. Pivotal for the reflections developed here are the roles of Anna Magnani in Roberto Rossellini's Roma città aperta, Luchino Visconti's Bellissima and Pier Paolo Pasolini's Mamma Roma.
The Fascist policy towards linguistic minorities has sometimes been compared to that practised in the colonies, using the categories of racism and internal colonialism. According to some ...interpretations, Fascism considered members of minorities as something foreign, potentially hostile, if not actually inferior, starting from a clear dividing line between who could be considered Italian and who not. It has also been argued that the 'allogeni' were the first targets of radical measures to exclude them from Italian citizenship, the forerunners of the later racist laws implemented against colonial subjects and Jews.
This article has three aims: to verify whether severe discriminatory actions really were taken against members of linguistic minorities with regard to citizenship rights; to understand whether these persons were perceived as completely alien to the nation on the basis of clear, shared demarcation lines between those who could consider themselves Italian and those who could not; and, finally, to determine whether the view of such minorities was always radically negative and disdainful to the extent that it could justifiably be called racism. The analysis of forms of representation focuses in particular on the German-speaking population of South Tyrol, using various sources (newspapers, institutional correspondence, political speeches, literary accounts).
The answer to the first question posed is negative; as regards the other two, in the first place there is a considerable degree of uncertainty on the part of the Fascists in defining the members of the German-speaking minority, who were sometimes presented as being completely outside the perimeter of Italianità, i.e. Italianness, while more often as being on the margins but undoubtedly capable of integration thanks to their unshakably Italian core. This seems to reveal a certain difficulty in defining who could be considered Italian and who could not when clearly drawing the boundaries of Italianness. Secondly, judgements were made about the South Tyroleans that were in no way characterized by a lack of appreciation or by contempt. The descriptions of the South Tyrolean peasant are, to say the least, flattering: full of exaggerated praise for his many virtues, from his religiosity to his obedience to institutions, from his strong ties to the land to his conservatism. The views regarding the Slovenian and Croatian-speaking populations of Venezia Giulia and Istria were very different, expressing and amplifying the most scornful stereotypes of anti-Slavism developed during the national struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This article is a short introduction for a special edition on Italian nationhood. The articles that comprise the special edition are the following: From a cosmopolitan to a fascist land: Adriatic ...irredentism in motion; Erecting fascism: nation, identity, and space in Trieste in the first half of the twentieth century; Building Italianità in northern Adriatic: The case of population from Pola.
The new Italian vocal style that arrived in Britain at the end of the seventeenth century with teachers such as Pietro Reggio and Pier Francesco Tosi - and which soon became regarded as the epitome ...of vocal expertise - was the sound of italianità as much as it was a pragmatic mode of vocal production. My intention in this article is to trace emerging patterns of Italian singing teachers who settled (sometimes only briefly) in Britain, and explore their impact and influence on ideas of singing. Beyond Reggio and Tosi, particular attention will be given to later prominent Italian musicians resident in London (Domenico Corri, Gesualdo Lanza and Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari in the early 1800s; Alberto Randegger and Paolo Tosti in the early 1900s) and the degree to which they challenged or accommodated British vocal culture within their teaching of Italian style and technique.
During the Fascist
ventennio
, prominent Italian writers and journalists, such as Mario Appelius, Raffaele Calzini, Arnaldo Cipolla, Arnaldo Fraccaroli, Roberto Suster and Cesco Tommaselli, reported ...from China, Japan and Korea for
Il Popolo d'Italia
,
Corriere della Sera
and
La Stampa
. Their travel narratives were crucial for the creation and diffusion in Italy of the dominant representation of China and Korea as remote, decadent and exotic societies; and of Japan as a progressive society resonant with Fascist Italy. The narrativisation of these countries in Italian travelogues from the Fascist
ventennio
was part of a widespread discursive practice by Italian intellectuals willing to subscribe to, and actively disseminate, the guiding principles of Fascism. When emphasising China's and Korea's irreconcilable difference from, and Japan's affinity with, Fascist Italy, these intellectuals extolled the Italian race and culture, justified Italy's position in geopolitical dynamics, and propagandised the exceptionality of the Fascist ideology.
Durante il ventennio Fascista, alcuni tra i più importanti giornalisti e scrittori italiani (Mario Appelius, Raffaele Calzini, Arnaldo Cipolla, Arnaldo Fraccaroli, Roberto Suster and Cesco Tommaselli) viaggiarono in Cina, Corea e Giappone per
Il popolo d'Italia
, il
Corriere della Sera
e la
Stampa
. Le loro narrative di viaggio furono determinanti per la costruzione e diffusione in Italia delle rappresentazioni predominanti della Cina e della Corea come società esotiche, lontane e decadenti, nonché del Giappone come una società progressista e affine all'Italia fascista. Questi resoconti di viaggio furono dunque parte di estese pratiche discorsive, promosse da intellettuali italiani che si riconoscevano nel fascismo e ne disseminavano i principi guida. Attraverso l'enfasi posta nell'irriconciliabile differenza tra l'Italia fascista, la Cina e la Corea, nonché nell'affinità tra essa e il Giappone, costoro elogiarono la razza e la cultura italiane. Inoltre, essi propagandarono l'eccezionalità del fascismo e giustificarono l'orientamento politico della nazione italiana nelle dinamiche geo-politiche del tempo.
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