Diskursiva framställningar av Italien – en analys av den offentliga diskussionen kring italiensk nationell identitet i samband med statens 150-årsjubileum

Författare

Julia Wik

Summary, in English

The aim of this study is to examine the discussion about the Italian national identity as it manifested itself during the period the celebrations of Italy’s 150th anniversary as a unified nation-state. The material is composed by a corpus of articles and speeches written by the President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano, the Pope Benedict XVI, the famous comedian Roberto Benigni, the author Andrea Camilleri and the editorial columnist and identity researcher Ernesto Galli Della Loggia. These actors are chosen because of their frequent appearance in Italian mass-media. Furthermore, their ideas have been regularly discussed and reproduced by both journalists and common citizens. Relevant theoretical frameworks applied on the measurable data collection are Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities and Michael Billig’s banal nationalism. Mapping of the identity discourse is made by using primarily discourse analysis, with an inclusion of methodological tools from content analysis. My conclusions are dealing with the findings that, according to the analysed actors, Italy as a unified nation still seems to have a long way left to go on its road to obtaining stable unity. The main challenge for the young nation is to overcome internal struggles, such as a geographic polarization between the North and the South. Meanwhile, it is argued that these struggles in a way can be justified as the norm of Italy’s unifying elements.

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