Negotiating Italian Identities‪.‬

In recent years, a number of critical theories-ranging from psychoanalysis and feminism to Marxism, structuralism, deconstruction, rhizomatics, gender, post-colonial studies and beyond--have converged in questioning the traditional and orthodox view of identity as a fully centered and autonomous source of meaning and agency. While many important differences exist among the theories mentioned above, they nevertheless all point towards an understanding of identity as a relational process created in a dynamic exchange within the world and the collectivity within it, and carried by and through symbolic activities. Yet, it is perhaps the relatively recent theory and practice of Cultural Studies that has placed the issue of identity at the core of its inquiry, conceptualizing it as a continuous set of ever-evolving subject-positions negotiated and articulated within the wider contexts and sites of acculturation that are available to us at any given stage of our personal and public histories. The dramatic economic, social, and political transformations that have characterized the Italian peninsula from the second half of the 20th century onwards make it a privileged site for an examination of processes of identity-formation. From the years of the post-war reconstruction to the contemporary period, Italy has evolved from a mostly rural society to an industrial and a post-industrial one. With the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, phenomena of urbanization, rural exodus, and mass consumption have modified the collective models of integration upon which traditional Italian society rested. Since 1968 further transformations have occurred. Not only have the protests of workers, students, youths, women, and gays additionally undermined older forms of integration, but Italy's joining the ranks of post-industrial economies has led to a sharp increase in particularistic and secularized forms of identity-formations. Recent political developments have continued this trend. In the last two decades the integrative authority of traditional parties has lost legitimacy and the practices of political corruption, patronage, and opportunism of "Tangentopoli" disclosed by the investigation of the judges of "Mani pulite" has led to the demise of the "so-called" First Republic in 1992 and the subsequent rise of regionalist groups, such as the Northern Leagues; i.e., Liga Veneta, Lega Lombarda, etc. The electoral successes of the latter, which have gone as far as calling for the creation of an independent state, or "Padania," reveal the emergence of new sub-national identities. At the same time, they clearly testify to a further weakening of the already highly problematic concept of a unified national body wished for by Risorgimento and pursued by governments from the Liberal State to Fascism and beyond. To the complexity of this panorama, one must also add the new forms of identities that are taking shape as the country strengthens its European economic and institutional integration, partakes to the accelerated effects of globalization, and experiences an unprecedented flow of immigrants from Eastern Europe, North Africa, India, South America, and China. These current developments are enabling further intersections and boundary crossings and will tend to reshape Italian society and culture into a myriad of identities ranging from sub- and supra-national to diasporic and hybrid forms.