Legal hyper-invasiveness and anti-legal practices in contemporary Italy

This paper gives an illustration of legal hyper-invasiveness in Italy over the course of the last decades, with particular emphasis on the increase in laws and law-producing institutions: neoliberal governmentality is not characterized by a retreat of the State, rather by the extent of its reach and force. The success of legal imposition has always been partial; in recent years, however, anti-legal constituent praxes are becoming more evident both in public demonstration and in everyday conduct. Street mobilizations are fuelled increasingly by disillusion with institutional politics, pursuing explicit anti-legal aims and marked by an autonomy from political parties and trade unions. The paper also provides an ethnographical examination of the day-to-day avoidance of institutional control, revealing a growing and widespread sense of intolerance of several regulations promoted by the institutional powers. Finally, contemporary forms of repression of these constituent energies are examined; and the belief that an increase in legality will benefit citizens is questioned.     

The Lusitania Riots in Pietermaritzburg 13–14 May 1915

During the Great War the sinking of the British liner Lusitania by a German submarine off the Irish coast on 7 May 1915, with the loss of 1198 lives, evoked a strong popular reaction throughout the English-peaking world, and included violent outbursts against Germans in many urban centres of the British Empire. In South Africa these riots resulted in great damage to property and pressure on the Union government to enforce harsh restrictions on enemy subjects and businesses. This is an account of the riots and their consequences in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, one of the most ‘British’ of South African cities.     

Marie Monsen: Charismatic Revivalist - Feminist Fighter

After leaving the diplomatic post vacant for over a year, Richard Nixon in 1970 surprisingly appointed African-American Jerome H. Holland as the new US ambassador to Sweden. When Jerome Holland arrived at the Stockholm airport, antiwar protesters allegedly shouted ‘nigger go home’ at him. A week later, as Dr. Holland submitted his credentials to the Swedish king, demonstrators may have again shouted the racist epithet ‘nigger’. These incidents were widely reported in the US media and now appear in history books. This article examines what happened in April 1970, and concludes that the evidence showing that antiwar demonstrators said any of these things is weak. It may be that someone simply misunderstood what had been said. Another possibility is that the Nixon White House wanted to smear the Swedish antiwar movement with the stain of racism, trying to undercut the legitimacy of Sweden's criticism of the Vietnam War. This article examines the evidence behind a historical puzzle that still allows various interpretations of meanings and motives.