L’Italia e il mondo post-coloniale

• Department of History

In this book talk and roundtable, organised by the Public History Working Group, two of the co-editors of 'L'Italia e il mondo post-coloniale', Beatrice Falcucci and Gianmarco Mancosu will discuss the genesis of the book and the intervention they wanted to make in the historiography of postcolonial Italy.

Contemporary debates on 'postcolonial Italy' reflect an ever-growing body of literature that deals with three distinct but interrelated historical reckonings: first, with Italy's colonial history from the end of the nineteenth century and especially during Fascism; second, with the question of colonial memory today, decolonial activism, and how to deal with the persistence of coloniality in contemporary Italy; and third, with Italy's role in postwar decolonisation movements and the changing postcolonial world order in the second half of the twentieth century. 

The various contributions to L'Italia e il mondo post-coloniale: Politica, cooperazione e mobility tra decolonizzazioni e guerra fredda explore all three strands of literature, focusing on the continuities of colonialism in Cold War Italy, the cooperation between Italian institutions and newly independent countries in Africa and Asia, and the impact of decolonisation and migration on Italy's post-war economy, politics and society.

Emanuele Giusti will offer an in-depth look at one of the three parts of the book, the part on technical cooperation, recounting how his contribution traced the influence of Italian technicians on Iranian agricultural policies and ideas of development. The synthesising roundtable will be moderated by Adrià Enríquez Álvaro and Dario Willi (EUI), and will also leave ample room for questions from the audience.