Migration discourses in Italy

In the last thirty years, Italy has undergone an anthropological revolution: from a country of emigration that exported millions of emigrants around the world, it has reversed its vocation and has become a country of immigration. The presence of the newcomers on the Italian territory has not always...

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Main Author: Elena Benelli
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Conserveries Mémorielles 2013-03-01
Series:Conserveries Mémorielles
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journals.openedition.org/cm/1419
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author Elena Benelli
author_facet Elena Benelli
author_sort Elena Benelli
collection DOAJ
description In the last thirty years, Italy has undergone an anthropological revolution: from a country of emigration that exported millions of emigrants around the world, it has reversed its vocation and has become a country of immigration. The presence of the newcomers on the Italian territory has not always been welcomed and integration has been problematical on diverse levels. In this article I explore how the rhetoric of the State, its laws and the media have portrayed the newcomers under the negative label of a “biblical exodus” or as a “mass invasion” (Portelli, Dal Lago) and have ineffectively managed the process of integration (Dal Lago, Parati). In order to counterbalance this inhospitable rhetoric of the State, I examine the construction of migrant’s narrative identity through the writings of some Italophone authors (Methnani, Ebri and Scego) who started to discuss issues of representation in their works and to reflect on the rapidly changing Italian society. In their works these authors “talk back” (Parati) to the host society entering a dialogic process (Bakhtin) whose mandate is to subvert prejudices and problematize the very notion of Italian national identity.
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spelling doaj.art-379d0fd713774267a9c3cc78072cc97f2022-12-22T01:22:46ZdeuConserveries MémoriellesConserveries Mémorielles1718-55562013-03-0113Migration discourses in ItalyElena BenelliIn the last thirty years, Italy has undergone an anthropological revolution: from a country of emigration that exported millions of emigrants around the world, it has reversed its vocation and has become a country of immigration. The presence of the newcomers on the Italian territory has not always been welcomed and integration has been problematical on diverse levels. In this article I explore how the rhetoric of the State, its laws and the media have portrayed the newcomers under the negative label of a “biblical exodus” or as a “mass invasion” (Portelli, Dal Lago) and have ineffectively managed the process of integration (Dal Lago, Parati). In order to counterbalance this inhospitable rhetoric of the State, I examine the construction of migrant’s narrative identity through the writings of some Italophone authors (Methnani, Ebri and Scego) who started to discuss issues of representation in their works and to reflect on the rapidly changing Italian society. In their works these authors “talk back” (Parati) to the host society entering a dialogic process (Bakhtin) whose mandate is to subvert prejudices and problematize the very notion of Italian national identity.http://journals.openedition.org/cm/1419discourse.identityimmigrationItalian statemediasmigrant writers
spellingShingle Elena Benelli
Migration discourses in Italy
Conserveries Mémorielles
discourse.
identity
immigration
Italian state
medias
migrant writers
title Migration discourses in Italy
title_full Migration discourses in Italy
title_fullStr Migration discourses in Italy
title_full_unstemmed Migration discourses in Italy
title_short Migration discourses in Italy
title_sort migration discourses in italy
topic discourse.
identity
immigration
Italian state
medias
migrant writers
url http://journals.openedition.org/cm/1419
work_keys_str_mv AT elenabenelli migrationdiscoursesinitaly