Images of black faces in Italian colonialism

Mobile essentialisms

Bibliographic Data

ID12536014
AuthorsLuigi Piccioni (0000-0002-7527-6074, European University Institute, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume27
Issue4
Pages375-396
Publication date2022-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Italy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-2944 • E-ISSN: 1469-9877
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/mit.2022.40
OpenAlexW4308886888
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited8

This study analyses the essential question of the role of visual and material culture in the construction of a mass racial ideology during the Fascist colonial empire. The hypothesis behind this essay is that representations of the facial features of colonised populations may be understood as agents that transform what are in fact inconsistent and vague notions of identity and race into concrete and effective ontologies, both in the scientific field and in the popular imaginary. The facial casts made by the anthropologist Lidio Cipriani and exhibited in the race pavilion of the very popular Mostra triennale delle Terre italiane d'Oltremare (1940) in Naples, the anthropological photographs and illustrations of the infamous journal La Difesa della razza (1938–43), and the advertising images representing African women's bodies, both gave consistency to the notion of race and incarnated its protean nature made up of narratives, metaphors, fantasies, and prejudices constructed and accumulated over time

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Colonialism · Consistency (knowledge bases · Empire · Field (mathematics · Identity (music · Ideology · Literature · Narrative · Pavilion · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Race (biology · Representation (politics · Sociology · The Imaginary · Anthropology · Computer Science · Gender Studies · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Psychology

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Open DOIOpen Access