L’eterno abietto: le classi popolari napoletane nelle rappresentazioni del Partito Comunista Italiano

This article examines the complex albeit rarely studied relationship between the PCI/PDS and the so-called ‘popular classes’ in Naples from the end of the Second World War to 1998. Despite the fact that the party after 1958 consistently received more votes in Naples than in Milan or Rome, the popular classes would always represent a dilemma for the Neapolitan institutional Left and its way of thinking about the city. On the one hand, the mobilization of the ‘lumpen’ city was considered a crucial goal for a communist politics, on the other, the ‘pre-political’ forms of life of the city’s subaltern classes were seen to pose an obstacle to such a project. Through an analysis of the writings of local party leaders and the communist daily press, the article illustrates how the relationship between the Left and the popular classes was reconfigured over time: from the aim of building class consciousness among the ‘lumpenproletariat’ to the goal, during the 1990s, of inculcating ‘civic consciousness’ among the Neapolitan people

Humanitarian reason and the representation and management of migrant agricultural labour

Published online second semester 2018This article critically examines how humanitarianism has reshaped both the representation and management of migrant agricultural labour in Southern Italy over the last ten years. Drawing on media analysis and ethnographic research of sub-Saharan tomato pickers in the regions of Puglia and Basilicata, the article traces the rise – starting from Fabrizio Gatti’s famous undercover report ‘I was a Slave in Puglia’ in the national weekly L’Espressoin 2006 – of an increasingly dominant public discourse in the mainstream press that sees migrants as ‘victims’ of human rights abuses, unscrupulous gangmasters and perilous housing. The recourse to humanitarianism has worked to conceal the centrality of labour relations in agricultural work and the wider question of the agri-food value chain. At the same time, humanitarianism has provided the ideological rationale to a series of governmental responses to poor working and living conditions in the region, including most recently the work camps set up and run by the Red Cross in Basilicata during 2016. It is argued that ‘humanitarian reason’ – to draw on the term coined by Didier Fassin – is underpinned by a disciplinary logic that is both functional to the regulation of the migrant labour force and the perpetuation of unsustainable forms of intensive agriculture

Beyond crisis talk: Interrogating migration and crises in Europe

Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes policy decisions and governance structures. It explains the rationale for choosing Europe as a multidimensional setting for investigating the diverse links between migration and crisis. It ends with a summary of the contributions that are divided into four thematic strands: relationships between the economic crisis and migrant workers and their families; the Mediterranean in crisis; political and public discourses about the post-2015 ‘migration crisis’; and ethnographies of everyday experiences of the ‘refugee crisis’ on the part of migrants, activists and local people

Quali strumenti giuridici statali e regionali per le comunit\ue0 patrimoniali?

The Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro Convention, 2005) recognizes a central role to heritage communities in the process of identification, study, interpretation, protection, conservation and presentation of the cultural heritage. As a signatory State of the Convention (signed on 27th February 2013, still waiting for ratification), Italy has in any case to ensure its contribution to the safeguarding of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage by adequate policies. Currently, a State law providing a general regulation of the participation of civil society to the protection and the enhancement of cultural heritage in the Italian legal system has not been adopted yet. Nevertheless, communities, groups and individuals have a wide range of instruments available, which can be drawn by an accurate interpretation of the Constitution and of many State and regional laws. In the long run, the persistent lack of common rules on this subject may be a source of uncertainty, capable of weakening, instead of strengthening, the role of heritage communities, in contrast with the principles of the Faro Convention

Citizens of Europe

Il titolo della collana esprime la volont\ue0 di approfondire i profili legati al processo di integrazione europeo, non ignorandone i risvolti pi\uf9 discutibili e burocratici ma sapendo guardare al di l\ue0 di essi, nella logica che traspare dal gioco di assonanze indicato dal titolo. In questo terzo volume Citizens of Europe, dedicato ai temi delle identit\ue0 e della cittadinanza culturale, viene in rilievo la tensione tra i limiti delle politiche, culturali e di cittadinanza, perseguite dalla UE e l\u2019imporsi progressivo \u2013 malgrado le cupe ombre proiettate dalla drammatica attualit\ue0 \u2013 di una pi\uf9 ampia nozione di \u2018cittadinanza d\u2019Europa\u2019, scandita in particolare da quei recenti strumenti giuridici del Consiglio d\u2019Europa attraverso i quali l\u2019afflato europeo, non imprigionato nelle pastoie dei meccanismi della EU citizenship, si sviluppa pi\uf9 significativamente