The public relevance of the church and Catholicism in Italy

Abstract

This article highlights the particular situation of the Catholic religion in Italy which distinguishes itself for its systematic organization, active association-forming and cultural vitality, unrivalled in any other European country either Protestant or Catholic. On the one hand the church in Italy still disposes of such a wealth of clergy and religious figures, dioceses and parishes, educational and social institutions, ecclesiastical groups and associations, and so on, that it can maintain a diffuse presence scattered over the national territory; it deploys numerous forces and resources which form an integral part of normal social relationships that animate civil society. On the other hand, the church and Italian Catholicism today are particularly active at a cultural level, with their contribution of ideas and experience on vital questions arising in social coexistence (ranging from the family to bioethics, from religious freedom to the secular State, from national identity to the multiethnic presence, and so on).     

Legitimism,liberalism and nationalism: the nature of the relationship between North and South in Italian unification

During the years following national unification, the Mezzogiorno became one of the greatest problems for the Italian government. On the one hand, because of its social and economic backwardness and the loyalty of some sections of the population to the previous illiberal government, it was devalued by the national political and military elite as a part of the large and undeveloped ‘South’ of the world, which was at that time affected by the criticism of ‘orientalistic’ Western discourse. On the other hand, it was also the place where the democratic and progressive opposition to the moderate liberal national rulers was stronger. A transnational and transregional perspective shows how the Mezzogiorno contained two different coexisting nations, a reactionary and a progressive one, which were in mutual conflict and, at the same time, on different grounds, in conflict with the central State. Building the state in the South meant, for the Italian liberal elites, discovering an ambiguous and dangerous periphery of the Nation.     

A Shift‐Share Method for the Analysis of Regional Fertility Change: An Application to the Decline in Childbearing in Italy, 1952–1991

This paper applies shift‐share analysis, a tool often used in economic geography and regional science, to regional fertility change in Italy, 1952–1991. During this post–World War II period, Italian fertility declined by over 33 percent, but the decline varied widely from region to region. Moreover, the demographic originations of the decline in births are not fully understood. Using birth data for nineteen Italian regions, this analysis is able to break regional change in births into three main components: a national effect, a cohort effect, and a regional differential effect, which in turn provide insight into the roots of fertility change at the regional level. These three components of change are then further disaggregated to account for the differences between changes due to population change and those related to actual changes in birth rates (the number of children produced by each woman). Strong regional differences between the north and south of Italy are demonstrated.     

Gender trouble: Women and the making of Italy's ‘active population’, 1861‐1936

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the complex sociocultural and ideological reasons that lay behind the well‐known fall in the number of women workers in the Italian population censuses from the post‐Unification period to Fascism. This was a time when the statisticians of the whole ‘civilized’ world were engaged in the definition of the modern statistical notion of ‘active population’. Through an examination of material published by Italian as well as non‐Italian statistical institutions and of the debates on women's work at the turn of the century, the article shows how the statisticians sought to make their data comparable to those of other, more modem countries and argues that an important turning point in the changing statistical representations of women's work in Italy occurred with the census of 1901. This coincided with growing interest in the question of women's work and the campaign for the introduction of legislation ‘protecting’ women workers. As state constructions, the censuses clearly contributed to the production of a more masculinized image of the labor force, an image which, however, eventually became too distant from reality even for the statisticians themselves.     

Bodies,Shrines, and Roads: violence, (im)mobility and displacement in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, gender and national identities intersect to shape people's mobility and security in the context of conflict. This article aims to illustrate the gendered processes of identity construction in the context of competing militarised nationalisms. We contend that a feminist approach is crucial, and that gender analysis alone is insufficient. Gender cannot be considered analytically independent from nationalism or ethno‐national identities because competing Tamil and Sinhala nationalist discourses produce particular gender identities and relations. Fraught and cross‐cutting relations of gender, nation, class and location shape people's movement, safety and potential for displacement. In the conflict‐ridden areas of Sri Lanka's North and East during 1999–2000, we set out to examine relations of gender and nation within the context of conflict. Our specific aim in this article is to analyse the ways in which certain identities are performed, on one hand, and subverted through premeditated performances of national identity on the other hand. We examine these processes at three sites—shrines, roads and people's bodies. Each is a strategic site of security/insecurity, depending on one's gender and ethno‐national identity, as well as geographical location.     

Italy as a negotiator in the EU equal opportunities policy process

The creation of both a Ministry and a Department for equal opportunities has been Italy's main institutional response to EU pressures in the field of equal opportunities policy. Nevertheless, the impact of Italian negotiators in the EU depends not only on the institutional resources available to them, but also on the political credibility acquired by presenting well‐defined and clear preferences during the bargaining process in the Council. This article considers how the Italian position was presented, and how successful it was, in two recently approved Directives, one decided by qualified majority vote, the other on a basis of unanimity. The aim of the analysis is to assess Italy's capacity to influence EU social affairs. Information was gathered by conducting qualitative interviews with the main political actors involved in the decision‐making process at the national and European levels.     

Popular perceptions of Europe and the Nation: the case of Italy

ABSTRACT. To date, European identity has not mobilised a feeling of belonging or solidarity that would be comparable to the ways in which national identities stir people's passions and make them ready ‘to die for’ their nations. However, much of the related political debate and scholarly analysis has paid little attention to citizens' understanding of European identity and the way this relates to national identity. This paper aims to contribute towards filling this gap. It explores qualitatively the relationship between national and European identity among Italian citizens with a view to answering the following research questions: How do Italian citizens define Europe? Who is a European? How does feeling European relate to feeling Italian? How do citizens perceive the European integration process? The article is based on 24 qualitative interviews with Italian citizens of varying age, gender, locality of residence and socio‐economic status, conducted in spring and summer 2003. The methodology adopted follows the discourse analytical tradition.     

Language as an instrument of nationalism in Central Europe

This article presents a brief survey and analysis of the most intimate coupling of culture and national projects that occurred in Central Europe following the success of the Italian and German nation‐states established in this manner during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Language is the very ‘stuff’ of culture as well as the instrument of communicating and reaffirming cultural difference vis‐à‐vis other cultures. As such, language became central to the processes of nation‐ and nation‐state‐building in Central Europe, leading to politicisation of language and also of linguistics and philology, which were expected to fortify the nations and their nation‐states than rather to lend themselves to objective research. It is proposed that this specific Central European interweaving of language and national projects may be better comprehended through the application of Einar Haugen's model of language standardisation and Miroslav Hroch's model of nation‐building. These two models in the Central European case seem to be closely corresponding to each other. The short catalogue of language elements used to produce national differentiation closes this contribution.     

Republicans and Socialists and the Origins of Italian Political Parties

A central debate in political science centres on the origins of political parties and specifically on the question as to whether they emerged as a result of the rise of parliamentary institutions. Regarding the Italian party system, the commonly held view is that Italian parties emerged as a consequence of national unification and the establishment of parliament. This article contributes to the debate on the origins of Italian parties by presenting empirical evidence on the timing of their initial formation, analysing data regarding the social base, membership, organisational articulation and policy-making accomplishments of the two major political movements active before and after the establishment of the national parliament. The article argues that, at least in the Italian case, parties did not originate in the legislature; rather, similar to countries such as Germany and Spain, Italian parties developed as a result of a major national crisis.     

Italian history and gli italiani nel mondo,Part II

Abstract

Italian historians have not yet seriously confronted the emigration of 27 million Italians as an interpretative theme. Part II of this two‐part article studies Italian migrants’ experiences in France, South America, Switzerland and Germany, comparing ‘Latin’ and ‘Germanic’ receiving areas to the English‐speaking world discussed in Part I. A focus on these other sections of the Italian diaspora challenges some fundamental interpretations of historians of Italy about emigration: Italian migrations to these areas were neither limited to the late nineteenth century, sparked by the economic crises of those yean, nor a product of the ‘problem of the Mezzogiomo’. Italian historians have special opportunities to study return migration to Italy, and to interpret Italy's own evolution into a multicultural receiving country, by comparing it to the models of multi‐ethnic nations where Italian migrants once settled around the world.     

Ambivalent patriotism: Jacob Aall and Dano‐Norwegian identity before 1814

Abstract. Like many Norwegian elite, Jacob Aall (1773–1844) lived between two national identities – Norwegian and Danish. On the one hand, he was a subject of the Danish crown, educated in Denmark in the refinements of European knowledge and high culture; on the other he was a loyal provincial son of Norway, engaged in building the political and economic autonomy of his homeland. This article examines the two sides of national identity in Jacob Aall's life and work by focusing on the evolution in his understanding of the concept of the Norwegian nation. It argues that the patriotism central to Aall's understanding of modernity and the coming‐to‐age of Norway contains two disparate, but equally necessary sides. The one is characterised by an abiding sentiment of national romantic cultural belonging, the other is a learned commitment to the Enlightenment utilitarian principles that gave force to the Norwegian national movement.     

Demographic Modeling of the Geography of Migration and Population: A Multiregional Perspective

This article focuses on the development and evolution of migration and population redistribution modeling within the spatial context of multiregional demography. It begins in 1965, when the state-of-the-art consisted largely of ideas and techniques imported from other disciplines (regression analysis, gravity models, Markov chains, and matrix cohort-survival population projection models) and then continues on to tell the story of multiregional demography, its evolution and emergence as a fully developed paradigm for studying the spatial dynamics of migration and population redistribution and, more recently, its approach for estimating the necessary migration input measures from inadequate data.     

The rediscovery of ‘the national’ in the 1990s – contexts,new cultural forms and practices in reunified Germany

This article examines how and in which societal and political contexts nationhood is expressed and symbolised in reunified Germany. This ‘rediscovery’ of nationhood since the 1990s mixes new and old motifs of the cultural repertoire of ‘the national’ for different purposes. Three main contexts triggered a rediscovery of ‘the national’ after 1989: reunification, immigration and the retrenchment of the social state. I argue, by analysing ethnographic material and political discourses, that these contexts, on the one hand, rearticulate old forms of ethnic and cultural nationalism and, on the other hand, create new images and symbols of an open civic society and immigration country. There are ‘playful’ forms, such as campaigns of nation branding, that symbolically include the ‘productive’ and ‘useful’ immigrant into the national project. Moreover, such campaigns serve to legitimatise the downsizing of the national state that – according to a neoliberal attitude – relies on a new community spirit of entrepreneurial, ‘activated’ citizens who ‘help themselves’. Thus, focusing on these pluralised renationalisation processes makes evident how polyvalent ‘the national’ still is. It can be employed by those who attempt to ‘reunite’ the East and West Germans, by businesses to sell their goods and ideas and by almost any political orientation, be it right‐wing or left‐wing.     

Mosaic art in modern Israel and the construction of a sense of place

The article deals with the construction of a narrative and sense of place among the Jewish immigrant‐settler society in 20th century Israel in the context of its efforts to establish a national collective identity on indigenous (i.e. authentic) foundations and with the symbolic struggle with the Palestinian national movement as its backdrop. The case study under discussion is the instalment in public spaces of mosaic decorations inspired by ancient Jewish mosaics unearthed in archaeological excavations. I argue that intentionally or unintentionally, these decorations functioned as agents in the construction of an authentic narrative and a sense of place by producing a link between the current and the ancient Jewish presence in the place. This practice went hand‐in‐hand with the hegemonic national dogma about the link between an ancient, allegedly glorious era of the Jewish people in Palestine, and the modern Zionist project.     

Methods of Palaeodemography: The Case of the Iberian Oppida and Roman Cities in North‐East Spain

Ancient demography is a recurrent topic in archaeology, thanks to new methods and evidence from different surveys and excavations. However, different cultures or periods are studied on their own, without any comparison being made between them and of their population dynamics. The present paper seeks to advance the situation by defining methodologies to allow diachronic comparisons between two different periods and cultures. After setting out a methodological approach, the paper goes on to apply the same to a case study: namely the Roman conquest of north‐east Spain, comparing the demography of the ancient Iberian communities (fourth‐second centuries BCE) to the Roman colonization (first century BCE to first century CE). Roman urbanism is generally supposed to increase the population in a particular territory, but our present evidence refutes this point: a decrease in population is visible in urban or proto‐urban sites from the Iberian to Roman periods, though there is an increase in the rural densities.     

Jean-Jacques Rousseau on women and citizenship

The aim of this article is to shed light on the eighteenth-century Italian reflection on luxury and consumption in a comparative perspective, clarifying, on the one hand, the complex significance that it assumed and, on the other, the specificity of the Italian context, marked by the immense political value of the debate on the subject. In particular this objective will be pursued through the analysis of specific cases among the many offered by the Italian context and through different research strands. These are: the debate on the evaluation of luxury; the transition from the notion of luxury to that of consumption; and the discussion on luxury and consumption in the revolutionary context. This article intends to outline the particular contribution made by Italian thought, which conveyed a multifaceted discourse of social reform, critique and understanding built on more even foundations, and at the same time to clarify what contribution can be made to current historiography by the study of this theme within eighteenth-century Italy.     

Extreme right parties in Western Europe: the case of the Italian Northern League

Abstract

This article argues that voters of the Italian Lega Nord have been radicalized in recent years, shifting from an intermediate ‘centrist’ position to the extreme right. Data from both national and European mass surveys (e.g. Italian National Election Studies and European Electoral Studies) provide additional support for this shift from left to right and the accompanying changes in criteria (i.e. immigration, democracy, civil rights, European integration, and politics), indicating that Lega Nord voters have evolved into a body that fits the new extreme-right concept well.     

An unsettling integration: Immigrant lives and work in Palermo

Giuseppe Garibaldi was the most enduring political hero of nineteenth‐century Italy. His political image was inspired by both the romantic movement and religion and, in turn, inspired a new kind of charismatic popular politics. The first part of this article explores the sources and assesses the impact of the cult of Garibaldi during the Risorgimento. The second part examines the use made of Garibaldi's image after Italian unification and, especially, after his death. It finds that government attempts to glorify Garibaldi were relatively unsuccessful while the parallel, republican cult of Garibaldi had a considerable impact. Thus, Garibaldi's extraordinary popularity highlighted the failed official ‘nationalization’ of Italians. At the same time, support for Garibaldi points to the emergence of an alternative sense of Italian national identity     

Gender and geography in Italy

Abstract

This article attempts to provide a picture of Italian gender geography in order to better understand the discipline’s key achievements and development. Rooted in a lively tradition of feminism stretching back to the 1970s, Italian gender geography has faced cultural and academic resistance while achieving a number of milestones. There is still much to be done if the multifaceted theme of gender is to be fully engaged by Italian geography. However, seminars, national and international congresses on gender geography themes, and the dialectic encounter with international gender geography have stimulated the domestic debate since the new millenium. Italian gender geographic voices may be self-perceived as limited and isolated but are continuously engaged in the struggle to overcome the many structural and cultural constraints imposed by Italian society and academia. This article tries to review Italian gender geography’s history to look forward and encourage new agendas and projects within a larger academic audience.     

Italian fashion: yesterday,today and tomorrow

The article considers Gianna Manzini's ‘La moda e una cosa seria’ (La Donna, 1935, July, 36–37) as a forerunner of current scholarly approaches to fashion in general and Italian fashion in particular, for three reasons. First, it asserts the importance of a gendered history of fashion; second, it argues for the importance of boundaries and lines of demarcation in the study of fashion that do not pertain solely to time but also to fields, disciplines and the other arts, as well as social and political domains; third, it raises the question of the relationship between fashion and nation. In examining how and when to establish the beginning or the origin of Italian fashion, the article argues for a long history of Italian fashion that stretches as far back as early modernity, thus reframing a number of historiographical questions. The article goes on to signal the difficulty involved in establishing neat points of ruptures and origins, and continuities in any historical or cultural spectrum in view of the porosity of national boundaries; and makes the case for considering fashion, both today's and that of yesteryear, in both its national and transnational dimensions.