July 30, 2026

Post-Colonialisms and Global Citizenship

Catarina Caldeira Martins e Manuel Jesús Sabariego Gómez

This thesis develops a postcolonial genealogy of Italian nationalism through the analytical triangulation of colonialism, the Southern Question, and emigration. It argues that Italian national identity has been historically structured through a specific condition of ambivalence: the racialization of Southern Italy as an internal other and the long-standing self-representation of Italians as emigrants. These dynamics have contributed to the production of what this research conceptualizes as a form of 'precarious whiteness', sustained through narratives of exceptionality and innocence.
Grounded theoretically in postcolonial studies and critical race theory, and methodologically informed by feminist approaches to situated knowledge, the thesis challenges the persistent myth of Italian white innocence. It demonstrates how colonial violence has been minimized through its confinement to the Fascist period, how emigration has functioned as a narrative alibi obscuring Italy's settler colonial dimension, and how the Southern Question has been both internalized and externalized within racial regimes of nationhood. Across these three axes, a discourse of national exception has been actively constructed through strategic erasures, affective investments, and institutional arrangements.

The first part of the thesis reconstructs the historical articulation between Southern Question and Italian colonial enterprises in Africa and the Balkans - highlighting the continuities between liberal Italy and Fascism. It then analyzes Italian emigration not only as a racialized experience abroad but also as a constitutive element of nationalist imaginaries. By situating Italian migrants within diverse global racial regimes, the research complicates binary interpretations that portray Italians solely as victims of racialization or, conversely, as unambiguously included within whiteness.
The second part applies this theoretical framework to contemporary Italy, examining the nexus between immigration, emigration, and the resurgence of nationalist discourse after the 2008 financial crisis. It shows how postcolonial nationalism mobilizes affective repertoires centered on borders, demographic anxieties, and racialized citizenship, while simultaneously erasing Italy's renewed condition as a country of emigration. Particular attention is devoted to the transformation of the Southern Question within contemporary nationalist projects.

The thesis concludes with a digital multisited fieldwork based on twenty-five semi- structured interviews with young Italian emigrants, including Southern "bouncing migrants" and racialized second-generation Italians abroad. Adopting a feminist and oral-history- informed approach, the research privileges narrative depth and situated experience over statistical representativeness. The interviews reveal how liminal and marginal positionalities generate critical perspectives on Italian national identity, unsettling homogeneous and exclusionary notions of belonging.

By conceptualizing Italian nationalism as a postcolonial formation structured through ambivalence, racial hierarchy, and mobility, this thesis contributes to broader debates on European nationalisms, whiteness, and the politics of belonging. It proposes that Europe's "internal Souths" function not only as sites of marginalization but also as epistemic vantage points from which to interrogate the affective infrastructures of contemporary nationalism.

Keywords: Italian postcolonial nationalism; Southern Question; Italian critical whiteness studies; Postcolonial citizenship; Italian emigration.