Italy's Margins
Social Exclusion and Nation Formation since 1861

Five case studies show how different people and places were marginalized and socially excluded as the Italian nation-state was formed.

David Forgacs (Author)

9781107052178, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 March 2014

337 pages, 51 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.68 kg

'An innovative scholar of twentieth-century Italian culture and a major scholar of Antonio Gramsci, Forgacs is known for studies that have questioned the conventional periodization of modern Italian history by showing cultural continuities between the fascist regime and the democratic Republic. Here too he often moves across conventional space-time compartmentalizations to dissect the ways in which Italian culture and nation formation have produced exclusion and social marginality, creating spaces that belong in the nation and yet are placed outside of it: from urban peripheries, to the colonies, the south, insane asylums, and 'nomad' camps … Forgacs's critical analyses of counterrepresentations offer indispensable tools for those who are involved in the work of cultural critique.' Silvana Patriarca, The Journal of Modern History

Italy's Margins explores how certain places and social groups in Italy have been defined as marginal or peripheral since unification. This marginalization involves not only concrete policies but also ways of perceiving people and places as outside society's centre. The author looks closely at how photography and writing have supported political and social exclusion and, conversely, how they have been enlisted to challenge it. Five cases are examined: the peripheries of Italy's major cities after unification; its East African colonies in the 1930s; the less developed areas of its south in the 1950s; its psychiatric hospitals before the reforms of the late 1970s; and its 'nomad camps' after 2000. Each chapter takes its lead from a symptomatic photograph and is followed by other pictures and extracts from written texts. These allow the reader to examine how social marginalization is discursively performed by cultural products.

Introduction: looking at margins
1. Urban peripheries
2. Colonies
3. Souths
4. Asylums
5. Nomad camps
Conclusion: understanding margins.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]