Italian Mobilities

The Italian nation-state has been defined by practices of mobility. Tourists have flowed in from the era of the Grand Tour to the present, and Italians flowed out in massive numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Italians made up the largest voluntary emigration in recorded world history. As a bridge from Africa to Europe, Italy has more recently been a destination of choice for immigrants whose tragic stories of shipwreck and confinement are often in the news. This first-of-its-kind edited volume offers a critical accounting of those histories and practices, shedding new light on modern Italy as a flashpoint for mobilities as they relate to nationalism, imperialism, globalization, and consumer, leisure, and labor practices. The book's eight essays reveal how a country often appreciated for what seems immutable - its classical and Renaissance patrimony - has in fact been shaped by movement and transit.

List of contents

Foreword Introduction 1. Beyond the Italies: Italy as a Mobile Subject? 2. Italian Mobilities and Circulating Diasporas in Neoliberal Times 3. Contact, Contagion, Immunization. Gianni Amelio’s Lamerica (1994) 4. Becoming Ospite: Hospitality and Mobility at the Center of Temporary Permanence 5. Italian Mobilities and the Demos 6. Migrating to the Colonies and Building the Myth of ‘Italiani brava gente’: The Rise, Demise, and Legacy of Italian Settler Colonialism 7. Imagining Lampedusa 8. Coasts, Blockades, and the Free Movement of People

About the author

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University.
Stephanie Malia Hom is President’s Associates Presidential Professor of Italian at the University of Oklahoma.

Summary

This edited volume presents a first-of-its-kind study of modern Italy as a mobile construct. It offers a critical accounting of the histories, power, and politics specific to Italian mobile practices, and reflects upon Italy’s paradoxical status as both a space of transit and a signifier of heritage and fixity.

Product details

• Authors: Ruth Hom Ben-Ghiat
• Assisted by: Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Editor), Ben-Ghiat Ruth (Editor), Stephanie Hom (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.07.2015
• EAN: 9781138778146
• ISBN: 978-1-138-77814-6
• No. of pages: 206
• Series: Changing Mobilities
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Politics; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology; Ethnic Studies, Media Studies, Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / General, Europe, European History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Colonialism & imperialism, Migration, immigration & emigration, Regional Studies, Migration, immigration and emigration, Social and cultural anthropology, Colonialism and imperialism, Regional / International studies, Human Geography, Transport: general interest, Tourism industry, Retail and wholesale industries