Equivocal Subjects

Greene, Shelleen

doi:10.5040/9781628928686

Cited by 38 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…As the Italian nationality law still relies on “the line of blood” ( jus sanguinis ), it is not surprising that children of migrants have mobilised politically to exercise pressure on the Parliament to reform this law . Some have also expressed their claims of belonging to Italy via a variety of artistic mediums: literature, films, and music (Clò, ; Greene, ; Orton, ; Russo Bullaro & Benelli, ). In all these instances, the common aim is to expand the social boundaries of the nation and make the public aware that children of migrants are not migrants themselves, but offspring of a new, demographically diverse Italy.…”

Section: The Italian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

The face of the nation: Troubling the sameness–strangeness divide in the age of migration

Antonsich

2018

Trans Inst British Geog

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last two decades, banal and everyday nationalism have been the main theoretical and methodological approaches for studying how nations are reproduced “from below”. The present article advances this literature by paying close attention to racially differentiated subjects and, more precisely, subjects who are perceived to look different from, but sound like, the national majority group. Building on the feminist attention to the corporeal, I argue that face‐to‐face encounters with the simultaneous embodiment of (somatic) strangeness and (linguistic) sameness generate a sense of surprise which interrupts the reproduction of the nation. This, in turn, allows for the “troubling” of the very identity category (nation) which both banal and everyday nationalism avoid interrogating directly. I support and illustrate this argument by focusing on the case of the children of migrants born and raised in Italy and their personal experiences in mundane settings. The article discusses the implications of this short circuit in the banal and everyday processes of national reproduction in terms of potential openings of the nation to more inclusive forms.

show abstract

Section: The Italian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%