The 'brutal force' of the mines

Natural resources and the aesthetic of extraction in Fascist Italy

Bibliographic Data

ID2969032
AuthorsGiorgia Alù (0000-0001-6434-2358, The University of Sydney, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume31
Issue1
Pages1-26
Publication date2025-09-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Italy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-2944 • E-ISSN: 1469-9877
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/mit.2025.10075
OpenAlexW4414071256
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited47

During the Fascist period, the extractive industry played an important role in Italy's economic and political landscape, and sulphur was considered the autarkic mineral par excellence. This article reveals how the rhetoric surrounding the vigorous extraction of sulphur in Sicily was part of a larger project of reconstruction and reorganisation, which involved the division of land, reclamation efforts, military operations and colonisation. Drawing on examples of visual and written narratives from public reports, essays, illustrated magazines and exhibitions of the time, the article demonstrates that extraction was both the actual site of resource extraction and the Fascist extractive logic of consensus. The use of specific discourses and definitions enabled and justified the portrayal of humans and lands as extractable resources, creating images and imaginaries that normalised exploitation and transformation, and the regime's extractive force

Exhibition · Land reclamation · Narrative · Natural resource · Politics · Rhetoric · Cambodian History and Society · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

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