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The Horn of Africa
Diasporas in Italy
An Oral History
Gabriele Proglio

Introduction by Luisa Passerini

The Horn of Africa Diasporas in Italy
 Gabriele Proglio

The Horn of Africa

Diasporas in Italy
An Oral History
Gabriele Proglio
Centre for Social Studies
University of Coimbra
Coimbra, Portugal

ISBN 978-3-030-58325-5    ISBN 978-3-030-58326-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58326-2

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 Foreword

Three voices animate this book: the chorus, often discordant but always
informative and stimulating, of the experts in fields that go from postco-
lonial history to anthropology to border studies; the individual voices of
the interviewees, which in spite of the singularity of each person compose
a multifarious narrative displaying recurrences as well as contrasts; and the
voice of the author, who appears in the double guise of the scholar and the
researcher/interviewer in direct contact with the people he interpellates.
The first voice testifies to Gabriele Proglio’s assiduous exploration of a
body of expertise in the history of the relationships between the colonizers
and the colonized; Proglio is at ease conversing with masters in the fields
of cultural theory and history ranging from Stuart Hall to Ann Laura
Stoler, extracting suggestions from their works for his own as well as criti-
cizing some aspects of this entire body of research. The resulting docu-
mentation of secondary sources that is rightly limited in quantity is well
governed by his approach, as of somebody who can be considered an
intellectual heir, not uncritical, of that patrimony—a term that no longer
merely represents the heritage of the father. In his re-visitation of this
accumulated scholarship, the voice of the author sounds as autonomous.
At the same time, his research concretizes some of the transmitted con-
cepts such as the often abused term “imagined community” coined by
Benedict Anderson, that is understood here not in a national sense but
rather as the projection of a possible future in Africa (in the hopes of an
interviewee, Winta, who told Proglio that her “heart is in Eritrea”).
The dominant voice, I am delighted to recognize, is that of the other
choir, composed of more than eighty women and men from the Horn of

v
vi FOREWORD

Africa, who were approached by the author in a fieldwork campaign con-

ducted between 2014 and 2016. These individuals, from all ways of life,
ages and cultural positionalities, are highly vocal throughout the four
chapters of this book that follow the introduction. We emerge from this
book bearing the mark of their concise and striking statements. Some
examples on the experience of crossing the Mediterranean are as follows:
“the sea was inside the boat” (Ali); “there was only sea” (Amari); “worse
than the Sahara…all you do is pray. There is no food, no water” (Belay);
“…waves before us, and the boat that rides up and down, the horizon ris-
ing and falling. Nothing surrounding us, only sea.” These remarks stress
the fact that this book is very much about language and languages: Italian,
English, Arabic, Eritrean, and Somali. The significance of language is not
only conveyed by the questioning of loaded terminology like “migrant”
and “refugee,” but also by the highlighting of the centrality of language in
the experience of mobility: “when we arrived [in Lampedusa], we didn’t
believe it. They spoke a different language to us. And it was then, only
then, that we understood that we had perhaps arrived in Europe, in Italy,
maybe…” (Belay). “There is no Italian word” for certain states of mind
and for positionalities such as “half-blood,” “lighter skin color,” “half and
half,” meaning children of Italians; in this discursive context the term
“half” recurs frequently: “we were sons of Italians, we were half” (Nino).
“They [the Europeans] use ‘blacks’ because the dictionary has its rules,
but in their minds they think ‘negro’” (Sarah). This book is interwoven
not only with terms from many languages but also with the new lexicon of
the diaspora, which includes words inherited from the colonial period (like
insabbiato, meaning “covered with sand,” to indicate Italian soldiers who
deserted the army in the 1930s to stay with Ethiopian women). It also
includes terms elaborated by people outside the place of origin, such as the
definition of Europeans as “eaters of cows” (Nuurta), namely not Muslim,
not black and not natives.
A book of sounds, and of visions. Oral memory, visual memory. The
expansion of the study of memory from orality and writing to visuality and
corporeality has been the central contribution to memory studies made by
the “Bodies Across Borders: Oral and Visual Memory in Europe and
Beyond” Project. I served as Principal Investigator of this European
Research Council Project, which was hosted at the European University
Institute in Florence from 2013 to 2018. Gabriele Proglio was part of the
research team, and in many respects, this book originates within that proj-
ect, in as far as it follows a methodology of intersubjectivity from the
 FOREWORD vii

collection of oral and written memory to that of the visual memories of

mobile people, currently called “migrants.” The novelty of the BABE
Project lay in its establishment and practical realization of a strong link
between different forms of interactive subjectivity, such as orality and visu-
ality, the latter being the royal way toward including the crucial dimension
of corporeality within the research. In this sense, Proglio’s book (as well as
some of his other writings) made a notable contribution to the BABE
Project, which I am glad to acknowledge. Proglio generously continued
to participate in the project even when his formal attachment had to be
terminated because he had taken up a university employment. At the same
time, I do not intend to reduce this book to its practical gestation within
the project; rather I consider it as the fruit of an individual genealogy that
led the author from a focus on Italian postcolonial literature to his analysis
of Italian colonial imaginaries during the war for the conquest of Libya,
and ultimately to his works on the history of the Mediterranean.
In the BABE Project, the enlargement of the collection of memory
from orality to visuality entailed conceptual and methodological changes
induced by the implicit as well as explicit criticisms that we received from
our interviewees: Why were we posing these questions? What were our
assumptions and objectives? Why did we ask for visual imagery rather than
for talking and writing? Many of the 400 interviewees not only questioned
our expectations but also often deluded them, delivering not the images
of troubled journeys and victimization—as we had half-consciously
expected—but rather triumphant figurations of the past greatness of the
countries they came from, whether Albania or Egypt or Peru. One person
even handed back to us a white sheet of paper, empty but for her signa-
ture. Halfway through our work, we began to realize that the most fruitful
result of our search was to accept being challenged and to learn to ques-
tion our approach, scrutinize our conceptual categories, and constantly
re-examine and eventually modify our methods. It was an invitation to an
emotional and intellectual mobility that we tried to accept, more or less
consciously, besides questioning the binary division between mobility and
sedentarism understood in a literal and material sense.
In the BABE research project, the resistances on the part of the narra-
tors were coupled by our difficulties in interpreting their visual replies to
our requests. I therefore proposed the term “visual intersubjectivity” to
designate the convergence between narrators and interviewers, in both a
positive and negative sense. Conceptual and interpretative difficulties
included coming to terms with previous conceptions of the relationship
viii FOREWORD

between the mental and the visual. We used the word “map” to indicate
the visual replies that our narrators created in reaction to our questions for
images of their trips, comprising many drawings as well as some photo-
graphs and short videos (produced with cell phones). Elsewhere, I have
deconstructed the structuralist undertones of the mental map concept,
but we retained the term “map,” while trying to evidence the individual
ideation of every image we received, notwithstanding the medium.
The visual memory approach to maps understood as individual elabora-
tions is enhanced in this book in a telling way. I find Angela/Malaika’s
map of an “egg” depicting herself as “one half in Somalia and the other in
Italy” powerful and moving, with the graphic comment of a miniature of
Italy and Africa vividly presenting her places of departure and arrival—
Mogadishu/Milano. Convincingly, Proglio interprets this drawing as a
metaphorical tool for defining a constructed “in between” identity.
Three more maps illuminate this book, the one by Dabar that con-
cludes Chap. 3, and the two by Meron and Rachid at the end of Chap. 5.
A comparison of the latter two maps strikingly reveals their representation
of the “inversion” of direction and perspective induced by the experience
of forced mobility. In the four drawings, the writing—which of course is
visual, especially in terms of the way the authors drew these maps—is
dominant. I encountered the same expressive attitude in my fieldwork and
I interpreted this gesture as one of the implicit criticisms of our methodol-
ogy, restoring an affirmation of literacy in the face of a request that might
have been interpreted by the interlocutors as bringing them back to a non-­
literate expression.
I must add an observation to this discussion of visuality: I was struck by
the sternness and essentiality—we could say the abstractness—of these
maps compared with other maps collected during the BABE Project
(https://babe.eui.eu/ and http://hdl.handle.net/1814/60164), which
were often vividly figurative and colorful. I attribute this difference not
only to the material and corporeal situations in which these visual memo-
ries were collected but also to their especially dramatic nature, in the con-
text of an intersubjective dialogue between the descendants of the
colonized and a receptive interviewer, who was knowledgeable and empa-
thetic enough to accept, share, and try to interpret the images he asked
for, taking the position no longer of an enemy but rather of a perceptive
and collaborative interlocutor.
This is one of the reasons why I appreciate this book. There are other
ones: the interpretation of the Mediterranean Sea as both a remembrance
 FOREWORD ix

site and a site of silence—given that my predilection for silences marked

the very beginning of my oral history career; and the capillary attention to
methodological procedures, both big and small. Not only are we informed
of the interviewees’ pauses, silences, laughter, which may express embar-
rassment, sorrow, amusement, or indignation, but also called to share the
author’s awareness of his position as a white male researcher on stipend
and of his role in the co-construction of memory as an intersubjective act.
He records the changes induced in his “rigid conception” of research
methodology through his encounter with people from the Horn of Africa;
for one thing, he shifted from face-to-face to collective interviews, a move
whose fruitfulness I experienced myself through interviews in classrooms
of adult education schools. From this self-recognized positionality, he
enters into dialogues in which his voice and his aside comments sound
sympathetic and genuinely interested, sometimes naïve, but always dem-
onstrating his readiness to learn.
For methodology to advance, the awareness of choices is crucial.
Therefore, I apprize Proglio’s constant efforts to make explicit the deci-
sions he took in his research itineraries and in the composition of this
book. Similarly, he explains the motivations for his choice of locations (the
places of these encounters mostly being railway stations, coffee bars, and
public squares) and the composition of his “sample” (here between
inverted commas to show awareness that this word is borrowed from the
quantitative social sciences, and of course it does not fit properly with a
qualitative approach). Furthermore, Proglio informs the reader of the
steps through which he conducted his selection process: choosing stories
that he considered representative (evidently in the sense of qualitative rep-
resentativeness); extracting fragments of memory related to recurrent
themes such as the ideas of home and the journey; and assembling the
fragments within the diasporic context. He emphasizes that these three
steps are linked through their connectedness within an intersubjective
process of co-construction and transmission of memory.
I also like the anti-mechanistic concept of “not immediate” connection:
“I endorse the view that a diasporic condition is not immediately con-
nected with a critique of the system,” writes Proglio, and in another pas-
sage: “[my] theoretical work is resonant with the oral narratives collected
from individuals from the Horn of Africa.” Our common research project
too established “not immediate” connections, first of all the one between
visual memory produced by mobile people at our solicitation, on the one
hand, and visual arts on European borders, on the other hand. The second
x FOREWORD

was the nexus between the narrations of mobile people from all over the
world and those of students born in Italy and the Netherlands, thus devel-
oping a research direction relating to schools, teaching, and didactic
knowledge transfer. Third, the question of the archive that became central
to us (as it is in this book too) in the sense of connecting our critical inves-
tigation on the concept of a European cultural archive with our effort to
create an archive making accessible to the public the oral, written, and
visual documentation we collected (now housed at the Historical Archives
of the European Union in Florence).
But above all I appreciate the central place given to intersubjectivity in
the structure and content of this book. While all of us in our common
project shared the experience of interaction with the narrators, this process
led each of us to reconfigure the role of intersubjectivity between cultures,
generations, classes, and social roles and to accord it primacy within spe-
cific configurations pertinent to our respective fields. Primacy here can be
understood as a cognitive and ethical way of proceeding and as a method-
ological tool that implies the old concept of empathy, lauded as a theoreti-
cal category since the Scottish Enlightenment but seldom and partially
translated into historiographical practice.
On this point, this book offers a specification of particular relevance,
since it grapples with the question of the relations between the present and
the past of the country to which the majority of the project team members
belong: Italy. The declarations of the interviewees in this book on the
responsibilities of Italians and Europeans in the colonial and postcolonial
periods shed light on this thorny question, helping us to understand and
face this burden in our efforts to contribute to the collective task that it
implies for our intellectual work.
Before drawing this foreword to a close, I would like to signal two
points of discrepancy between my perspective and this book’s: one is more
theoretical and the other is political, if such definitions can still be used
convincingly. The first point concerns the oscillations around the question
of “counter” that appear in the text: counter-geographies and counter-­
narratives. These oscillations signal that the author is aware of the contra-
dictory conceptualizations that have surrounded the scholarly debate on
this issue and their political implications. The question is whether these
terms bear within them the assumption that there is one hegemonic nar-
ration (including that of geography as a specific form of narrative) against
which all counter-narratives and/or alternative geographies would be
directed. I believe that the “counter” part of the narratives and
 FOREWORD xi

geographies we collect is secondary, while the pro-positive one is the most

important as it fuses the individual and the collective, the old and the new
within a transitional reconfiguration of the experienced world. The state of
the art in this sort of debate is subjected to backlashes of anxiety around
the recognition of the role of the former oppressed and colonized as inno-
vators and creators of their own narrations, whatever form these take. I am
thinking not only of postcolonial and decolonial discussions but also of
similar controversies that used to arise around the role of narrations col-
lected from the “unheard,” “ignored,” “hidden from history,” which oral
historians in the early stages of the oral history movement believed they
had “discovered” and “given voice to” against hegemonic history.
Such an approach is a reductive one that presupposes an authoritative-
ness and ubiquitousness of European/Western narratives that in reality
were often challenged within both practices and theories. This book offers
a valuable contribution to the debate by giving body (the body of words
and images) to the thesis of the autonomy of migration, a contribution
that can cohabit with oscillations of terminology and conceptualization,
not in peaceful coexistence but rather in the recognition of contradictions
that might evolve with further research and reflection. This perspective
facilitates the acceptance and promotion of various types of pluralization:
of geographies, imaginaries, colonialisms, racisms, and colors (“each one
had his own type of black”—Amari). Therefore, not a single alternative
geography but rather multidimensional geographies.
My second point: the horror of colonialism—to use the gravid term
that the protagonist of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness utters on his
death bed—is still with us. The words pronounced by the protagonists of
this book help us—as Italians, Europeans, scholars, and last but not least
citizens—to nominate the dark part of our heritage. Gabriele Proglio nur-
tures the hope that his and others’ work can “change the face of Italianness
and Europeanness,” “shifting Europe from its barycenter.” I must admit
that I no longer feel confident about this hope being realized, having
grown pessimistic about the destiny of both Italy and Europe, and having
largely lost the illusion of modifying the European scenery and its tragic
defaults. However, it gives me solace and courage to hear that the efforts
in that direction made by many, among whom I count myself, are being
brought forward, perhaps with better foresight and success.
It is high time for me to leave the word. In this foreword, I have delib-
erately not dealt with the question of emotions, given my desire to let the
voices of the author and his interviewees speak freely of the emotionality
xii FOREWORD

they share. For the same reason, I have not touched upon the question of
what Europe is and could be and why Lampedusa is considered by one of
the interviewees as being both Europe and not Europe, for the same rea-
son. Now, it is time to let the interlocutors of these dialogues speak for
themselves.

Pavarolo Luisa Passerini

July 2020
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
1.1 The Methodological Approach and Ethical Issues 11
Bibliography 16

2 Diasporic Identities and Subjectivities 17

2.1 Seeking Revealing Movements 20
2.1.1 Playing with Subtraction and Addition 21
2.2 Ways of Being-in-Diaspora 25
2.2.1 The Italo-Somali Egg 25
2.2.2 Two Somalias and Two Italys 30
2.2.3 Being 2G, or Italian in Another Way 32
2.2.4 Italian, but My Mind and Heart Are in Eritrea 35
2.2.5 The Italian Missione 37
2.2.6 Italians but Eritreans 40
2.2.7 Recognizing the Eritrean Part, but Not the
Italian One 42
2.2.8 Anfez 44
2.2.9 Hamar and the Italian Generation 46
2.2.10 The Egg’s Son: A Double Culture 48
2.3 Outside the European Map 49
Bibliography 53

xiii
xiv Contents

3 Postcolonial Memories of Colonialism 57

3.1 Theoretical Framework 59
3.2 Remembering the Law that Discriminated Against People
of Mixed Races 61
3.2.1 The Eaters of Cows 64
3.2.2 Are You of Mixed Race? 66
3.2.3 Black Eritrea 67
3.2.4 Being “Half and Half”; Being Sons of Italians:
sciarmutte and asuk (the Lost People) 69
3.2.5 Carne d’uomo 70
3.2.6 Today’s Yesterday: People to Enslave 72
3.2.7 Gaal, terroni, and polentoni 73
3.2.8 Five Years of Fear 74
3.2.9 Patriotism and Corruption 75
3.2.10 Destruction, War, and Exploitation 76
3.2.11 Insabbiati, Slaves, and Masters 77
3.2.12 Mussolini’s Gas 78
3.2.13 Examining the ascaro’s Heritage: Yesterday and
Today 79
3.2.14 Looking for Ghosts 81
3.2.15 Italian Apartheid 82
3.3 Colonialism as a Mirror 83
Bibliography 89

4 The Black Mediterranean 91

4.1 Theoretical Framework 92
4.2 The Black Mediterranean’s Stories 93
4.2.1 As New Slaves in the Mediterranean 93
4.2.2 The Color Line at Lampedusa 95
4.2.3 Lampedusa-Brindisi, “Picking Tomatoes” 97
4.2.4 Europe Is a Culprit, in the Mediterranean 99
4.2.5 Lampedusa, Crossroad of Transnational
Geographies101
4.2.6 Imagery of Europe off the Map103
4.2.7 Colonialism and Bodies of Desire105
4.2.8 The Site of Responsibility107
4.3 Blackness Across the Mediterranean110
Bibliography114
 Contents  xv

5 Geographies of Emotions119
5.1 The Autonomy of Migration and Counter-Geographies121
5.2 Theorizing a “Geographies of Emotions”122
5.3 A Geography of Fragments: Emotions in Diaspora129
5.3.1 Homeland as Lost Land129
5.3.2 Journeys as Metaphors of Feelings137
5.4 Fragments of Memories for a New Europe150
Bibliography158

Index 163
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Malika/Angela’s map 29

Fig. 3.1 Dabar’s map 88
Fig. 5.1 Meron’s map 148
Fig. 5.2 Rachid’s map 149

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book is the outcome of my efforts to elicit the oral tales of black
people from the former Italian colonies in the Horn of Africa, namely
Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia, as well as those of “second-generation”
individuals born in Italy to mixed families, or whose parents migrated to
Europe from the Horn of Africa. It delves into this diasporic context,
focusing on salient topics that emerged during the oral interviews that I
conducted in Italy. My aim in writing it is to show how subjectivities and
memories were and continue to be pertinent for the proposal and affirma-
tion of new postcolonial positionalities and diasporic geographies across
Europe, as well as globally. Within this interpretive framework, I consider
Italy, specifically, not just as a national territory but as part of a transna-
tional and global space of mobility. Through their narratives and within
diasporic archives that reveal mobility, these black voices depict slices of
life in Europe, centering on personal connections and social linkages oper-
ating across borders. In this sense, these stories are not only representa-
tions of particular places and times; they are practices that are actively
changing Europe and its sociocultural territories, which are being crossed
by black bodies and shared memories.
Since 2014, as a member of a research project led by Professor Luisa
Passerini, I collected in excess of eighty interviews conducted with men
and women holding different citizenship statuses (refugees, asylum seek-
ers, Italians, etc.), and of different ages (teenagers, adults, and elders),
who are culturally affiliated with and/or from the Horn of Africa. The

© The Author(s) 2020 1

G. Proglio, The Horn of Africa Diasporas in Italy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58326-2_1
2 G. PROGLIO

interviews took place in a host of cities across Italy: Turin, Milan, Padua,
Asti, Pavia, Rome, Bologna, Modena, Verona, Venice, Florence, Naples,
and Palermo. The interviews focused on various topics, such as the respon-
dents’ memories of their homelands, their journeys to Europe, their
Mediterranean crossings, and the conditions they encountered in Italy. All
of these fragments of memory were conjoined within the same narrative,
entailing different objects of recall and different temporalities and experi-
ences. Accordingly, in this book, the chronological time of the interview
and its transcription can be understood as the field within which tales that
deal with multiple aspects of being black in Europe have been gathered
and translated within a scientific framework. It was necessary to preserve
the multidimensionality of this process relating to time, space, feelings,
practices, and expectations—which differed for each life trajectory, from
person to person, and from interview to interview—within these opera-
tions. This approach and intersubjectivity, which are integral to the oral
historian’s work, have important implications from the perspective of
intersectionality, illuminating how each subjectivity is crossed by many
positionalities according to the sociocultural contexts of reference, typolo-
gies of relations, and emotions and imaginaries evoked during an interview.
The research project, “Bodies Across Borders in Europe: Oral and
Visual Memories in Europe and Beyond” (known by the acronym, BABE),
was based at the Department of History and Civilization of the European
University Institute in Florence and was funded by the European Research
Council through a starting grant.1 The project’s aim was to engage with
both native and “new” Europeans in an exploration of intercultural con-
nections within contemporary Europe. These connections, which focused
on Italy and the Netherlands, were woven through memory, visuality, and
mobility, which are the faculties of embodied subjects, and related to the
movements of people, ideas, and images across the borders of European
nation states, with a focus on Italy and the Netherlands.
Within this framework, the research team developed several subproj-
ects. All of these were interconnected and were implemented synergisti-
cally, based on a common aim of sharing reflections and theoretical
thoughts. Intersubjectivity was both the context of meanings elaborated
during the cultural exchange that occurred between the interviewer and
the interviewee and a memory process entailed in the invention of new
ways of staying and living in Europe as Afro-descendants. We, the research-
ers, were always connected with two kinds of intersubjectivity during our
investigations. The first one was created through dialogue as an ongoing
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

interchange of narratives and an exchange of meanings between subjectivi-

ties. By contrast, the second was indirectly approachable through relation-
ships forged with the interviewees through the movements of meanings
and practices that are reconfiguring the geography of Europe around the
condition of being black and in diaspora. Parts of these acts of resignifica-
tion were and are strategies and methods for providing a contrast to or
resisting white hegemony and its genealogies in various contexts (societal,
border crossings, the private sphere, and public contexts). Evidently, we
were only able to engage with a small portion of this wider field of signifi-
cation and to develop a limited understanding through the interview
process.
Focusing on two countries, Italy and the Netherlands—two countries
bearing resemblances to each other in terms of migration and their colo-
nial pasts, but also evidencing differences relating to their cultural policies
and sociopolitical contexts—the BABE project explored relationships
among borders, mobilities, and Europe from many perspectives. Many
research pathways were created: Luisa Passerini and Giada Giustetto
worked with students in the Centri Territoriali Permanenti (Italian
schools for adults and migrants) mapping oral and visual memories of
migrations to Europe through single and group interviews. Working with
students at various Italian high schools across the peninsula from north to
south, stretching from Turin to Palermo, Graziella Bonansea focused on
the topic of the border in relation to bodies in movement, paying particu-
lar attention to the theme of generation. Liliana Ellena explored the idea
of the colonial archive through an analysis of various works (documenta-
ries, video-installations, and movies) by visual artists who have problema-
tized European borders. She examined the story of Eva Nera, a movie
directed by Giuliano Tomei that explores the postcolonial condition of
those who were formerly colonized. Milica Trakilović investigated certain
categories deployed in the Netherlands to describe the condition of
migrant people. Iris van Huis’ research project was devoted to a study of
migrations from Indonesia to the Netherlands through collected inter-
views. Lastly, Leslie Hernández Nova’s investigation focused on the
Peruvian diaspora in Europe. Specifically, she examined the use of memory
within migrant subjectivities in the narration of the history and geography
of this South American country.
My aim in this book is to illuminate a portion of Italy and Europe that
has remained largely invisible—that of the Horn of Africa diasporas. In
doing so, I show how the cultural memory of the interviewees is
4 G. PROGLIO

embedded in an intersubjective context and linked to cultural practices

that could change, among other things, the face of Italianness and
Europeanness. Therefore, these interviews should be read both as traces of
a past that is either silent or largely unknown in Europe and as signs of an
impending future that is not yet fully visible. In this future, Italy and
Europe will no longer conform to the prevailing contemporary imaginary
that is being promoted by white people across Europe of national and
communitarian communities that are exclusively white, Western, and
Christian. This is because despite the xenophobic rhetoric that has per-
vaded both the public and private spheres over the last three decades,
transnational migration flows have redesigned and reformulated the geo-
political scenarios and have infiltrated cultures, bringing into question the
centrality of key core concepts—nation, state, citizenship, and masculin-
ity—mobilized in descriptions of who belongs to a community and the
alterity of the rest.
This book examines a cross-section of Italy and Europe that is linked in
the collective imaginary to notions such as foreigner, non-EU, black/
African, asylum seeker, or refugee. The collected narratives reveal the exis-
tence of another Italy and another Europe through stories that cross
national and European borders and unfold within transnational and global
relational and affective networks. They tell of multiple identities within the
diaspora and reconceptualize the geography of the continent—and, we
might say, of the world—in terms of experienced emotions and close rela-
tionships. Adopting a shifting perspective, they reinterpret the history of
Italian colonialism in relation to continuities and discontinuities with the
present. Last, they map out the Black Mediterranean—a space of crossing
between worlds and cultures of Africa, Asia, and Europe—which begins
thousands of miles away and entails stories of escape from oppressive con-
ditions, of violence suffered in Sudan, of detention in Libyan prisons, of
illegal border crossings, of disguises and survival strategies, and, finally, the
epic tales of those who made it but who face the constant worry of ending
up like the identity-less thousands at the bottom of the sea.
The book is organized into five chapters. The following chapter, which
focuses on diasporic identities and subjectivities, opens with some theo-
retical reflections by Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall on the formation of cul-
tural identities that simultaneously arise from an initial condition of
subordination and relate to a subsequent condition in which rethinking
the self, the imagined community, and the world is still possible. Here,
Gilroy’s concept of “double consciousness,” which was firstly elaborated
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

by W.E.B. Du Bois, finds a new application in a completely different con-

text from that of the Black Atlantic, slavery, and the condition of African-­
Americans (Gilroy 1993). All of the interviewees described themselves as
being poised between several cross-cultural, geographical, and relational
worlds, revealing an abundance of positionings: Italian-Somalian, Italian-­
Ethiopian, Italian with a foreign-looking appearance, Italian-Tigrinya,
Black African-Italian, second generation, Ambescià, Oromo-European,
and so forth. Each of these definitions refers to a subjectivity that is articu-
lated within two or more cultural contexts.
In the last three decades, several social theories have attempted to
approach and describe postcolonial conditions in Europe, positioned
between assimilation and multiculturalism. The first is an ideological
approach for France’s management of colonies and continuing migrations
from former French domains. It entails reassembling the idea of empire,
after its fall, through a process of inclusion within French society that
requires migrants to conform with and adapt to specific criteria. This
adaptation process begins with a moment of desocialization from the cul-
tural context of origin, followed by resocialization framed by the norms,
moral decrees, and ethical precepts of French society. By contrast, the
English assimilation model is based on the colonial experience of the
Commonwealth, which gathers together, under the Union Jack, diverse
societies and cultures. The concept of multiculturalism has been intro-
duced to describe a society that welcomes and includes people from other
cultures, offering them the possibility of conserving their habits and tradi-
tions, if not in opposition with the general mandates of the community,
while simultaneously involving them in a process of inclusion. Both
approaches are characterized by a European idea of superiority, privileging
the role of whiteness and the centrality of masculinity in defining the posi-
tionality of the “other” within society. It is possible to graphically repre-
sent these models, which, despite their different approaches, ensure that
alterities remain far from the center—both symbolically and physically—in
relation to their subjectivities and the combination of race, class, gender,
sexual identity, and political and religious belonging.
Since the end of the1980s, multiple migration flows have converged at
the southern European borders and at Italian shores for millions of people
coming from Eastern Europe—Albania, Romania, and the former
Yugoslavia—and from Maghreb. Since that time, new trajectories for
reaching Europe have opened up across the entire Mediterranean route.
Libya has become one of the pivotal points for entering the European
6 G. PROGLIO

Union through Italy. Flows originating from the east and south have been
contained through prevailing norms on citizenship, border protection
mechanisms, and the expulsion and detention of non-Italian subjects.
Following a first moment entailing the introduction of a procedure for
regularizing illegal migrants in Italy through the Martelli law enacted in
1990, several normative measures were applied to define the status of
migrants in Italy. The Turco-Napolitano law, which was approved in 1998,
led to the establishment of “Temporary Residence Centers” (the Italian
acronym is CPTs) where “illegal” migrants were jailed while awaiting
repatriation. This and other aspects relating to both the acquisition of citi-
zenship and the struggle around migration were at the core of further
legislation such as the Bossi-Fini and Minniti-Orlando laws that entered
into force in 2002 and 2017, respectively. In the last two decades, the situ-
ation has worsened with the criminalization of illegal migration, the pro-
gressive militarization of EU and national borders, and police deportations
of migrants across the country, from the north to the south. Moreover,
the last “left-wing” government, led by Matteo Renzi, refused to approve
a citizenship reform that would have extended Italian citizenship to
second-­generation family members of migrants. At the conclusion of the
BABE research project in May 2018, the condition of migrants had dete-
riorated further, with the election of the new Salvini-Di Maio govern-
ment, the introduction of a prohibition on the rescue of stranded people
in the Mediterranean by nongovernmental organization (NGO) associa-
tions, and the consequent rise in deaths at sea of people trying to reach
Europe through Lampedusa, and the closing of Italian ports to ships and
makeshift dinghies. Moreover, two Security Acts (Decreto Sicurezza 1 and
2, in Italian) have been approved, and the Italian government, emulating
the trend of anti-migrant policies in Europe (in Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, and Slovenia), has decided
to withdraw from the Global Compact for Migration in Marrakech.
Further, xenophobia, racism, and sexism in the public and private spheres
continue to be on the rise as a direct consequence of the toxic narratives
of politicians, journalists, and institutions.
In spite of these continuities and the adoption of a common approach
by governments of different political orientations toward migration origi-
nating from outside of the EU borders and toward non-white bodies in
the EU and Italy, a unique Italian model of integration is still not discern-
able. Connecting this issue with Italy’s colonial past in Africa and Asia is at
the core of my interest. The Italian empire, which was the last of the
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

twentieth-century empires, was declared by Benito Mussolini on May 9,

1936. Reflecting on the history of colonialism in Italy, and its end after
World War II, several historians—here, I would like to mention Angelo
Del Boca (2008) and Nicola Labanca (2002)—have observed how memo-
ries of the colonial past were repressed (rimossa in Italian) in the post-war
period. My approach has been to problematize this interpretation and to
analyze the heritage of overseas territories in terms of representations and
practices of discrimination imposed on new subjects and bodies that
arrived as part of the first migration flows. I would like to put forward an
interpretation derived from the theoretical concept of the archive pro-
duced through several narrative discourses and practices. Some of these
discourses and practices were active before the colonial conquest, notably
scientific research (anthropology, medicine, sociology, etc.), while public
and popular narratives and practices resisted otherness and various forms
of discrimination through oral tales and songs. As Antonio Gramsci has
suggested, folklore “is a conception of the world and life” (Gramsci 1975),
which could be counterpoised to an official conception of this word.
Positing a separation between discourses and practices of science and folk-
lore implies the position that there was no repression. There are several
reasons why Italians forgot about the colonial empire, which include the
difficult post-war context and feelings of embarrassment associated with
recollections of the Fascist regime. At the same time, the archive of other-
ness and extracted representations and biopolitical practices of discrimina-
tion deployed in the subjectivation of the new not-white, and not
considered Italian-European bodies arriving in the country through
migration have been preserved.
In this context, the approach I have taken regarding the oral interviews
that I collected is aimed at decolonizing the narrative infrastructure that
grounds scientific and academic forms of naming, nomenclature, and
interpretation. I will not talk of “hybrid identities” in relation to the indi-
viduals whom I interviewed because that terminology is derived from a
specific conception of what is Italian/European and what is not. My goal
is to shift attention away from research on cultural identity toward subjec-
tivity in order to analyze, in the case of each interviewee, individual and
collective life trajectories and memories of moving from the Horn of Africa
to Europe. This approach may reveal a new gaze on the world both as an
actual perception of the present, a memory of the past, and imaginaries
about the self and others along with practices of resistance toward border
regimes and forms of segregation. From a historical perspective, mapping
8 G. PROGLIO

and tracing the relationships among subjectivities and human geographies

may reveal connections with other life paths, national and diasporic com-
munities, and forms of resistance concerning subjects who were subju-
gated by colonial powers in Africa and by postcolonial conditions
in Europe.
The third chapter investigates postcolonial memories of colonialism.
The theoretical reflections of several scholars in different fields on the
memory of colonialism—Ann Laura Stoler, Sandro Triulzi, Luisa Passerini,
and Sandra Ponzanesi—serve to introduce the chapter. My aim in present-
ing these reflections is to construct a theoretical framework within which
to situate the testimonies that I collected.
This chapter is devoted entirely to a re-reading of colonialism by sub-
jectivities that in all respects can be defined as postcolonial. Whereas the
concept of memory repression has been applied within the historiography
of Italian colonialism to explain how “the Overseas” was eclipsed in the
memory of Italians after the period 1945–1960, I collected the testimo-
nies of people who had experienced or heard about that period differently
as ex-colonized peoples who formed a resilient and patriotic community
that had been invaded but not conquered.
In light of Hirsch’s (2014) reflections on post-memory, this chapter
examines how a colonial past has been reworked by the sons and daugh-
ters of colonized subjects. My analysis of oral sources focuses on two key
topics: the role of generational transmission in describing the heritage of
violence inflicted by Italian soldiers on black bodies in the Horn of Africa
and problematizing the role of the line of color in order to propose another
way of remembering the colonial period, the decolonization process, and
the postcolonial condition from the perspective of black subjectivities in
Europe. I explore the embodied memories—both of migrant people and
those of the second generation—to shed light on processes of recognition
and identification, strategies for eluding border controls, and ways of
organizing society and labor. Additionally, I explore the subversive role of
these subjectivities in foregrounding other facets of history that up to now
have been excluded from mainstream narratives. For instance, the embod-
ied memories of these black subjectivities scrutinize another archive,
namely one constituted by oral tales of oppression and resistance against
the colonial invasion and forms of segregation enacted within postcolonial
settings in Europe. This change in perspective is a powerful way of expand-
ing and connecting the human geography expressed by a black subjectivity
with a larger complex story constituted through my own life trajectory
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

and experiences of black people. From a historical perspective, the reuse

and resignification of a collective memory of a shared and violent event
from the past—such as colonialism or slavery—could be considered a
means of confirming belonging to the black diaspora in Europe and to the
entire world.
During the research process, many accounts of the genealogies of non-­
Italian subjectivities in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea emerged: those of
differences between the colonialisms in the Horn of Africa; of metissage; of
the paternalism inherent in Italian domination; of resistance against the
invasion; and of the myth of a nation independent from Europe and
attached to the Ethiopian royal family. This chapter presents a rereading of
several imperialist myths, such as that of the Italians building roads, houses,
and cities with the opposite aim, namely that of asserting the rights of the
people of the Horn of Africa.
The fourth chapter presents an analysis of memories of the Black
Mediterranean. In light of some introductory reflections of Alessandra Di
Maio (2012), Timothy Raeymaekers (2014), and several other scholars, I
propose the notion of the Black Mediterranean as a site of the memory of
crossings but also as the site of silence and forgetfulness surrounding those
who did not make it to another shore. This “geography of emotions” (see
Chap. 5) is particularly complex because it is not just about the physical
sea but, more generally, it is about the journey that leads to Europe. In the
accounts of my interviewees, the Black Mediterranean begins in areas of
Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia, many of which are situated along migra-
tion routes. Each of these oral memories should be read along an intersec-
tional plane that reveals possibilities contingent on sex, income, social
class, religious and ethnic identity, age, and employment status.
The Mediterranean emerges as the place where the legacies of colonial-
isms meet postcolonial conditions; a boundary that must be overcome to
find salvation, that is, a present that is unattainable in the Horn of Africa
but is hoped for in Europe. At the same time, the Mediterranean is also a
site of silence and of the impossibility of speech. Its waves reflect the faces
of the interviewees and, in their memories, the faces of those who did not
make it, before or during the crossing. It is preceded by Libyan jails, the
crossing of the Sahara, and sales of migrants transacted between smug-
glers—one to another—in Sudan and Libya. The Mediterranean is
emblematic of a context in which everything is permissible and humanity
reverts to its beastly form. But it is also the space of reunion with Ethiopian,
Eritrean, and Somalian cultures in Europe; with Pan-Africanism and
10 G. PROGLIO

Pan-Islamism; with the idea of liberation from Europe; with identities

proclaiming their blackness and Africanness; and with the myth of Ras
Tafari and Ethiopian resistance.
Here, the Black Mediterranean is understood as an “excess space of
signification” (Proglio 2017) in relation to narratives concerning social
unity and the diversity of cultures that have evolved in the region adjoin-
ing the Mediterranean Sea. As Edward Said (1979) and some other schol-
ars who have engaged with postcolonialism and decolonialism have
suggested, European nations have evoked and invented the colonial else-
where: in literature, cinema, newspapers, novels, and the visual arts in
order to conquer those lands and bodies. Hence, the narrative conquest
preceded military actions. A similar process is unfolding in the contempo-
rary context of the Mediterranean, which is managed for the EU by pri-
vate organizations, such as Frontex, and embedded within a complex
geopolitical context. Political and military instability in Libya, a repressive
regime in Egypt, and a post-revolutionary society with glaring contradic-
tions in Tunisia are just some examples of this complexity. My aim, once
again, is to focus on those oral narratives that deal with or concern the
journey to Europe; narratives that tell of violence in Libya and people
drowned at sea.
The fifth chapter, then, focuses on the geographies of emotions. It
opens with a conceptual framing of geography, narration, and representa-
tion, drawing on reflections from the fields of cultural studies (Edward
Said 1979), border studies (Anzaldua 1987; Mezzadra and Neilson 2013;
Mignolo 2012), philosophy, and the history of emotions. In light of this
discussion, “geographies of emotions” are defined as intersubjective rep-
resentations of territories that do not conform to the canons of official
geographical representation, wherein memory is articulated both orally
and visually.
I apply the concept of a “geography of emotions” in the context of the
Horn of Africa diaspora to deprovincialize the place of arrivals and to
describe Europe, and Italy as being among the first lands of arrival; as
places where it is easy to go astray and lose sight of a future. Moreover, I
use this term to describe emotions such as feelings of nostalgia for Asmara,
fear of the Mediterranean, happiness and wonder at the sight of snow in
Milan, the experience of disappointment in a long-dreamed-of country,
Italy, which turned out to be hostile and racist and also the tragic irony of
those who no longer have a country to return to.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

These geographies of emotions reveal the existence of another geogra-

phy based not just on maps but also one that is constitutive of an axis
around which revolve social relations within the diaspora; the movement
of migrants across African and Asian borders on their way to Europe along
with their notions of the past and of the future. My study of oral testimo-
nies is intertwined with an analysis of visual representations—in particular,
the maps drawn by the interviewees—with the aim of showing how such
geographies are changing the faces of Italy/Europe as well as those of
Africa and Asia.

1.1   The Methodological Approach

and Ethical Issues

I would like to focus now on methodology. I feel that it is pertinent here

to discuss the role of critical theory in this book. Tools and reflections
derived from oral history and critical studies were important—I would say
essential—for sketching, projecting, organizing, and finally accomplishing
this research. My perceptions changed with the theoretical lens that I
adopted throughout the research process: collecting interviews was the
first step in my attempts to rethink the present and past geographies of
Europe. Here, geography has a wider meaning that extends beyond carto-
graphic representation (Farinelli 2009). The meaning of this term, as it is
used throughout this book, conveys a shared imaginary of the world. This
approach is similar to that proposed and adopted by Edward Said (1979)
in theorizing orientalism and perceptions of the West in Europe and by
Europeans.
Critical theories influenced the ways in which I conceptualized and
developed my methodological approach. In this context, the typology of
meanings and their movements from the realm of ideas to investigative
practice is particularly striking, as it reveals a sort of correlation and recip-
rocal influence between philosophy and action upon the field. Whereas
postcolonial studies and critical theory, more generally, have highlighted
relevant lines of enquiry for rethinking the positioning of the subject
between subalternity and agency, the question of how to combine theory
and methodology in this field has not yet been explored in depth. In
adopting this perspective, the focus of my attention is once again on sub-
jectivity. Consequently, intersubjectivity reveals a scholarly path that
enables an engagement with critical thought as well as with the tales of
12 G. PROGLIO

respondents that change the perspective that frames the investigation and
that of the researcher. More generally, I suggest that the act of decoloniz-
ing the gaze performed by researchers in the humanities entails becoming
aware of and seeking forms of resistance to the knowledges underpinning
the double partitioned rule between the world of ideas and that of every-
day life. In the course of my research, I have reconsidered this boundary,
which is the place from where unofficial geographies of diaspora are elabo-
rated and disseminated.
An underlying premise of this work concerns the shared role of ideas
and practices in interrogating hegemonic discourses and as important
dimensions of the decolonization of universities (Boaventura 2017),
which are unique sites of knowledge production. The introduction of crit-
ical thought and action beyond the confines of the academy can be suc-
cessfully accomplished only after the scholar has undergone a process of
mirroring relating to the subjectivity and positionalities adopted in the
course of fieldwork. This ongoing process of delocalizing their centrality
in the context of scholarly pursuits and instead choosing peripheral and
liminal positions—deciding to listen rather than to ask, to stay connected
rather than to extract private memories—is integral to the process of oral
history relating to the creation of the source. To adopt this approach
necessitates tuning into words and silences, gestures and gazes, while
resisting the urge to organize and classify all of them within a clear colloca-
tion using categories and languages that belong to the scholar.
Before conducting this fieldwork, I collaboratively developed a “grid of
questions” with my fellow researchers, and especially with Leslie
Hernández Nova, who worked on the same topic in the context of
Peruvian migrants in Europe. The reasons for my choice of a semi-­
structured interview format are multiple. First, my aim was to approach
people whom I encountered neither as informants nor as interviewees.
Evidently, there is a disparity in the position of the individual who is in
charge of a research project and those who are involved in interviews. In
my case, this disparity was marked not only by my academic position but
it was also “embodied” within me as a white man born in Italy, receiving
economic recompense for my work. A central part of my reflective process
entailed approaching this disparity with awareness. Subsequently, my
intention was to lose myself in the other, symbolically forgetting and eras-
ing topics identified before beginning the fieldwork, and following the
discourse generated through dialogues as opposed to reproducing an
aseptic context with “cold questions” and timid or embarrassed replies.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

I approached each interview as a dialogue, without asking questions

and proposing a topic that I wished to focus on. This choice was the out-
come of my reflection on the privilege that determines who can ask and
the obligation of subjects to reply. In order to transform and subvert this
unequal relationship, I began by attending to my own positionality,
explaining to the person in front of me what my work and goals were, why
I had decided to focus on certain topics rather than others, the locations
of my interviews, and the other subjects with whom I had met. At that
point, the interview was transformed into a dialogue with a new person
whom I had met some hours earlier.
Another important question concerned my choice of sample. I decided
to live in the different places in which the diaspora from the Horn of
Africa live and where their presence is more vibrant to develop a better
understanding of them. For example, I spent several weeks in San Salvario
and Porta Palazzo, which are two popular living quarters of this diasporic
population in Turin; in the central railway station and Porta Venezia in
Milan; and in the streets close to the Roma Termini Railway Station in
Rome. In these contexts, it was important to talk with many individuals to
understand the genealogical stratifications among people originating from
the same country, adopting an intersectional point of view, that is, account-
ing for differences of gender, color, class, age, and variations in journeys
and in religious and political beliefs. At that point, starting with some
previous contacts within the diaspora that I had prior to conducting field-
work and others that I developed on site, I decided who I would inter-
view, trying to construct a larger composite panorama encompassing
people with different positionalities both within the society and the dias-
pora. This approach enabled me to problematize an imaginary based on a
unique vision of black people coming from the Horn of Africa and to
foreground complexity relating to the social genealogy of diaspora. In
addition, this practice could prove powerful for testing how various migra-
tory paths as well as social conditions, and, correspondingly, multiple
responses to the same topic coexist within the same national diasporic
context.
As I have previously argued (Proglio 2018), the role of empathy is
closely linked to the approach adopted in fieldwork. My own approach
during fieldwork was to meet people and talk with them to learn more
about their expectations and lives. But, first of all, I prioritized people and
relationships, setting aside my own research goals. This process of decolo-
nizing history and its sources entailed reflecting on my own
14 G. PROGLIO

representations and stereotypes of the other. In particular, I tried to move

away from the identification of the subject(s), constructed during the for-
mulation of the research project, to an investigation of their subjectivity,
first during the interview and thereafter in the interpretive process. For
this reason, each interview is considered representative also of other peo-
ple who share the same life trajectory and positionality within a particular
social context (see Passerini 1985).
I perceived the interviews as mutual exchanges. From an intersubjective
perspective, the production of the source—historically speaking—entails
more than the interactions between two or more subjectivities. Conducting
an interview with empathy provides a unique opportunity to be led to
unforeseen horizons of memory, which entails feeling the estrangement
resulting from the loss of reference points within a dialogue with another
voice. In this process, the body is in the real place—while also being an
archive of subjective and collective memories—where connections with
the other subjectivities, beyond words, may be experienced. For instance,
when silence arises, several meanings can be imparted to the act of produc-
ing silence or remaining silent. Hence, empathy is an important research
method within oral history: it offers an effective practice for calling into
question categories and attributions of representations and interpretations
that, as scholars, we are generally unaware of (Proglio 2018).
Finally, I would like to highlight the connection that exists between the
memory of the body, on the one hand, and the body of memory on the
other. By “memory of the body,” I mean the role of the body in preserv-
ing and enclosing, concealing, and narrating, embodying and fragmenting
personal and collective memories inherent within both the public sphere
and in private contexts. In this sense, the “memory of the body” consti-
tutes an archive, that is, a place designed for the preservation of narratives
and practices, gestures and non-verbal discursive forms. By “body of
memory,” I mean the interweaving of narratives derived from different
archives and from the multiple memories of bodies. As noted above, each
individual subjectivity is considered representative of a specific positional-
ity and life trajectory.
Concerning ethical issues, all of the interviews and related transcripts in
this book have been included with the permission of the interviewees. I
have used pseudonyms whenever I was requested to do so.
I can recall the faces of the people whom I met, the tears and laughter
during the interviews, and tales that were recorded but not authorized
because they were too intimate, too detailed. Only a portion of the
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

collected material was used in the writing of this book. I hope that the
choices made, those that concern me as an oral historian and as a person,
reflect, at least in part, those of the people whom I met during my field-
work, and who generously opened for me the doors of their memory.

Acknowledgments First of all, I would like to thank Luisa Passerini, who, over
the years, has taught me the trade of the oral historian not by affirming but by
formulating questions. The academic freedom that she granted me is something
profoundly revolutionary and disarming in light of what can be a stifling environ-
ment within the academy. From her, I learned that historical research is, first of all,
an investigation of the self. In addition, I extend my thanks to her, and to the
entire BABE collective, for offering me conceptual tools to reflect with, for placing
my certainties in a state of crisis, and for giving me the keys to access reading and
processing sources, strategies for approaching the “historical fact,” and method-
ologies for engaging with memory. Specifically, I thank Lilliana Ellena, Milica
Trakilović, Graziella Bonansea, Leslie Hernández Nova, Giada Giustetto, and Iris
van Huis. I also thank Laura Borgese for her work in organizing BABE activities.
I would like to thank you Radhika Johari for her precious work of editing of
this volume.
I would like to thank my loved ones: my family comprising my parents, Angela
and Giancarlo; my brother, Alessandro and his wife, Chiara, with their daugh-
ters—Irene, Lucia, and Susanna—and their son, Arturo; and my comrades and
friends from yesterday and today, in Italy and across the world. Thanks to each of
these individuals for what they have taught me, for staying close and supporting
me in difficult moments when things were not going well, and for giving me the
strength to smile at the end of a dark day.
Above all, my heartiest thanks go to the individuals whom I met during my
fieldwork, who chose to recount their stories to me, introducing me to some of
their memories and to their ancestors, and sharing with me their emotions and
time. I am deeply grateful to them for teaching me many things, ranging from
profound lessons, such as how to stay in and to live in and with time, with all of its
contradictions, to simple gestures affirming a connection and a relation between
two persons through conversations shared over a cup of tea.

Note
1. For more information about the research project, please visit the BABE
website: http://www.babe.eui.eu/. The BABE project was funded by the
European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh
Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement
n. 295854.
16 G. PROGLIO

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 CHAPTER 2

Diasporic Identities and Subjectivities

The impacts of mass migration, displacement, deportation, and relocation

that are characteristic features of globalization have changed processes of
identity construction. In their work on postcolonial vocabularies titled The
Empire Writes Back, Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (1989) explain that the
term “diaspora” is indicative of the role of colonialism and slavery in the
construction of the post-Empire era. They state, “The descendants of the
diasporic movements generated by colonialism have developed their own
distinctive cultures which both preserve and often extend and develop
their originary cultures” (Ashcroft et al. 1989, p. 62). In light of the fact
that the rise of colonialism, entailing ideas of nation, Europe, gender, and
race, was organized around and from the concept of the border, they
argue that a diasporic culture necessarily questions essentialist models,
“interrogating the ideology of a unified, ‘natural’ cultural norm that
underpins the centre/margin model of colonialist discourse” (p. 62).
Understood in this sense, the notion of a “diasporic identity” has been
adopted by many scholars and writers as a synonym for hybridity.
Ashcroft, Griffins, and Tiffin (1989) further note that “diaspora does
not simply refer to geographical dispersal but also to the vexed questions
of identity, memory and home which such displacement produces” (1998,
p. 218). Postcolonial writers re-image the world through other gazes.
Their texts are “the most powerful means of re-examining the historical
past and re-configuring our contemporary world-wide cultural concerns”
(p. 219). They cross borders through diasporic writing that “opens up the

© The Author(s) 2020 17

G. Proglio, The Horn of Africa Diasporas in Italy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58326-2_2
18 G. PROGLIO

horizon of place” (p. 219). Past colonialisms and slavery are questioned
and reinterpreted in novels and other writings by those whose subjectivi-
ties and bodies have directly experienced prejudices, racisms, and other
forms of violence, exclusion, and differential inclusion. Some scholars have
contended that their hybrid identity provides an antidote to the forces of
globalization and capitalism. I endorse the view that a diasporic condition
is not immediately and directly connected with a critique of the system.
What is of salience is the positionality of “being-in-between” (Bhabha
1994) for producing knowledge and meanings that can disclose other
visions of the world as a whole.
More generally, the debate on diaspora and identity has made a signifi-
cant contribution to understanding the “culture making” that occurs
within a liminal space that belongs neither to contexts of the self nor to
those of the other. Several scholars have attempted to problematize the
role of the boundary and more generally the notion of a meaning that is
generated in the realm of the “in between” (Bhabha 1994) within the
folds of a world that is represented geographically as being smooth and
linear (Farinelli 2009). The act of “writing back” to the center performed
by diasporic intellectuals (Rushdie 1982) and postcolonial writers
(Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1989) entails a “conscious effort to enter
into the discourse of Europe and the West, to mix with it, transform it, to
make it acknowledge marginalized or suppressed or forgotten histories”
(Said 1993, p. 216).
The writings of several scholars on the relationship between mobility
and identity have contributed to the debate on diaspora and identity. Paul
Gilroy reflected on the identity of black people in diaspora beyond the
color line (Gilroy 2000). Ali Behdad drew attention to the double rela-
tionship that exists between migrants and European states. Thus, on the
one hand, individuals in diaspora reshape their identities at the transna-
tional level, and on the other hand, the construction of “citizenship” and
the notion of national belonging framed by nations—and I would add
Europe—is contingent on the presence of diasporic groups (Bedhad
2005). Arjun Appadurai has emphasized that ethnocide is based on a spe-
cific perception of a community: it is triggered when an ethnic minority is
perceived by a large majority as an obstacle to the creation of “a pure and
untainted national ethnos.” This perception provokes what Appadurai
refers to as a “fear of small numbers” (Appadurai 2006). A second notable
aspect of Behdad’s theorization concerns the production of cultural
knowledge by people who have experienced a journey of migration.
 2 DIASPORIC IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES 19

Diasporic differences seem to be counterpoised to the world order

(Behdad 2005). Thus, James Clifford proposed the idea of a culture in
movement that has the ability to renegotiate its meanings and forms.
Journeys and contacts “are crucial sites for an unfinished modernity”
(Clifford 1997, p. 2). Moreover, “practices of displacement might emerge
as constitutive of cultural meanings rather than as their simple transfer or
extension” (Clifford 1997, p. 3). Within this theoretical framework, “the
making and remaking of identities takes place in the contact zone, along
the policed and transgressive intercultural frontiers of nations, people,
locales” (Clifford 1997, p. 7).
The condition of being-in-diaspora has been analyzed from many dif-
ferent perspectives. These include referential values, focusing on the
reshaping role of the homeland (Clifford 2005; Safran 1991) and the cul-
ture of origin in the places of arrival; trauma, viewed as acts connected
with displacement and forms of violence to which migrant people were
subjected during the journey (Clifford 1997; Gilroy 1993); a sense of loss
(Liao 2005; Dutta-Bergman and Pal 2005); and an ongoing reference to
a sense of community (Peters 1999).
Migration and mobility are two pivotal topics around which the con-
cept of diaspora has been framed. Some scholars who were and are mostly
engaged in the field of gender studies have approached the study of identi-
ties in diaspora through the concepts of liquidity and nomadism (Ahmed,
Castaneda, Frotier, and Sheller 2003), postcoloniality (Spivak 1999), mes-
tizia (Anzaldua 1987), womanism (Walker 1984), the inappropriate other
(Trin-Minh Ha 1990), and the homeless and rootless (Appadurai 1994).
Another central question concerns the role of memory in diaspora. A
volume edited by Radha Sarma Hegde and Ajaya Kumar Sahoo on the
Indian diaspora contains a collection of essays that includes a contribution
by Vijay Mishra on the role of oral narratives in writing history (Mishra
2017). This author suggests that two different diasporic migrations from
India have occurred, each characterized by specific ways of remembering
associated with social status. Although historically separate, these two dia-
sporas share a common connective memory and should therefore be con-
sidered as interlinked. A large number of scholars have claimed that a
collective memory derived from a shared consciousness that is required to
enable membership of a community (Werbner 2004) is typically found
within diasporas along with a culture that opposes hegemonic and institu-
tional narratives, as in the case of Thatcherite England (Gilroy 1993).
20 G. PROGLIO

2.1   Seeking Revealing Movements

Common to the above described theorizations around diaspora is the
attempt to change the paradigm of identity, culture, and knowledge pro-
duction, with the aim of shifting Europe from its barycenter. This strand
of critiques can be considered to offer a revealing movement for two differ-
ent reasons. First, prevailing norms and rules are rendered visible, disclos-
ing connected genealogies and dichotomies, such as those of North/
South, white/black, West/the rest of the world, and heterosexuality/
homosexuality. Second, diasporic subjectivities invent and lay claim to a
narrative space that did not previously exist.
I would like to demonstrate revealing movements that relate to the dia-
sporic identities of people from the Horn of Africa who now live in Europe,
where they are not considered totally—or even partially in some cases—
European. This state of being suspended between there and here is entailed
in the act of being-in-diaspora. Such identities are considered out of place;
they are interpreted as unexpected and sometimes unacceptable in light of
common sense and within the public imaginary. They exceed European
dichotomies (e.g., native and foreign) and are located outside of the map
of what is considered possible and known through national languages
(i.e., citizen and migrant, refugee, asylum seeker). In fact, these identities
are generated through a process of re-signifying and inventing words used
to define an individual’s condition. From the perspective of the “norm,”
however, these identities are irreverent or even insolent.
To render visible such revealing moments, I will “work theoretically”
with the writings of Stuart Hall, who personifies the diasporic intellectual.
Moreover, he himself devoted a significant proportion of his research to
investigating this topic. My aim is to extract some parts of Hall’s theoriza-
tion to construct a paradigm for reading and interpreting the diasporic
identities of the individuals whom I interviewed. Before proceeding fur-
ther, however, I would like to clarify at the outset that this theoretical
work is resonant with the oral narratives collected from individuals from
the Horn of Africa. However, whereas the former entails efforts to
approach, translate, and decodify the world through dialogues on knowl-
edge and its forms, the latter reflects the shift of individuals’ subjectivities
from holding a status within a society to actively taking a position in the
world. It is useful to direct these different gazes on to the same topic to
discover what is moving outside of the confines of a mapping of what is
 2 DIASPORIC IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES 21

already known and codified through a language, with its entailed

dichotomies.

2.1.1  Playing with Subtraction and Addition

Renowned as a theorist of cultural studies, Hall’s research on the diaspora
in the UK was introduced in two of his works: The Young Englanders
(1967) and Black Britons (1970). These works are dedicated to illustrating
how young people live in a context of exclusions and inclusions in Great
Britain. As Claire Alexander has pointed out, they are situated between
“formal acceptance and informal segregation” (Alexander 2009). In light
of his investigation of the place of newly arrived settlers within a postcolo-
nial nation, Hall suggested that black youth were “stranded ‘between two
cultures.’ ” Hall expressed this theorization, which is clearly linked with
the idea of double consciousness espoused by W.E.B. Du Bois, as follows:

There is an identity which belongs to the part of him that is West Indian, or
Pakistani or Indian… there is also the identity of ‘the young Englander’
toward which every new experience beckons… somehow he must learn to
reconcile his two identities and make them one. But many of the avenues
into [the] wider society are closed to him… The route back is closed. But so
too is the route forward. (Hall 1967)

In Policing the Crisis (1978), Hall shifted his attention from the “dis-
course on migration” to the concept of crisis. He explained that the book
“tries to examine why and how the themes of race, crime and youth—con-
densed into the image of ‘mugging’—also come to serve as the articulator
of crisis, its ideological conductor” (Hall et al. 1978, p. VII). From this
point on, he worked to elaborate useful tools for mapping the multiple
identities of diasporic subjects in Europe. In Gramsci’s Relevance for the
Study of Race and Ethnicity (1986a), he applied some of the ideas concep-
tualized by the Italian politician and intellectual, such as the distinctions
between state and civil society, and between hegemony and subalternity
and common sense. In particular, Hall proposed a conceptualization of
discourse as a body of intertwined narratives, always lacking a prearranged
order. He explained this as follows:

He [Gramsci] shows how the so-called ‘self’ which underpins these ideo-
logical formations is not a unified but a contradictory subject and a social
22 G. PROGLIO

construction. He thus helps us to understand one of the most common,

least explained features of ‘racism’: the ‘subjection’ of the victims of racism
to the mystifications of the very racist ideologies which imprison and define
them. He shows how different, often contradictory elements can be woven
into and integrated within different ideological discourses; but also, the
nature and value of ideological struggle which seeks to transform popular
ideas and the ‘common sense’ of masses. All this has the most profound
importance for the analysis of racist ideologies and for the centrality, [and]
within that, of ideological struggle. (1986a, p. 27)

I would like to consider all of these theoretical reflections for conceptu-

alizing diasporic identity as elaborated through processes of subtraction
and addition, when not in juxtaposition, to the hegemonic narrative in
and of Europe. By “subtraction and addition” I mean that the meaning
associated with this identity does not respect what Foucault termed the
“order of discourse.” Specifically, Foucault emphasized that discourse is
not simply “what shows or hides desire,” “what translates fights and domi-
nation systems” (Foucault 1972 [1970], p. 10). In his opinion, the pro-
duction of a discourse is simultaneously controlled and selected to avoid
potential danger.
To suggest that diasporic identities are elaborated through processes of
subtraction and addition to the order of discourse is to affirm that the
production of meanings does not adhere to the role of a language. In
more concrete terms, individuals and groups in diaspora formulate a new
lexicon, giving new meanings to common words (black, migrant,
European, etc.) or introducing terms from their cultures of origin, as I will
show in the following pages. This is strictly connected with the condition
of migrants in diaspora which has been analyzed in depth by Abdelmalek
Sayad, in La double absence (1999).
The self can be considered an “unstable subject” that engages with
numerous discourses that are diverse, entailing forms and representations
that are not necessarily uniform and homogeneous. For instance, diasporic
subjects could potentially have access to multiple identities, sometimes for
reasons relating to strategic essentialism (Spivak 1988). Within this theo-
retical framework, Gramscian “common sense” may be understood both
as a sense of belonging to a group/community and as reflections of the
self through the daily interactions of people in diaspora.
A final point to be considered is that this is an ongoing, continuous,
permanent and “non-linear” process, as described by Hall in The Problem
 2 DIASPORIC IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES 23

of Ideology (1983). In his discussion of the work of Gilroy, Grossberg, and

McRobbie, he coined the term “determinacy” as a way of conceptualizing
research by applying an “open horizon” perspective and an approach
“without guarantees” (p. 43). This last definition can be interpreted both
as a reference to the fallibility of the scholar investigating the diasporic
identity and as a way of approaching the study that does not entail a mod-
elizing approach.
Hall proposed the concept of “articulation” in relation to this second
meaning, which he described as “a complex structure in which things are
related, as much through their similarities as through their differences”
(Hall 1980, p. 325). “Articulation” differs markedly from Marc Bloch’s
concept of “context” (Bloch 1949). It focuses on the narrative process,
conceived as “a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions.
It is a linkage that is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for
all time” (Hall 1986b, p. 53).
Hall simultaneously introduced another insight connected with the
positionality of the subject and of subjectivities. Writing about the new
cinema of the Caribbean, he explored the question of enunciation. In his
opinion, there are at least two different ways of thinking about “cultural
identity.” The first conception is one of a shared culture, a sort of collec-
tive “one true self” that reflects a common historical experience such as
colonialism or slavery. The second one, conversely, is based on differences,
or, more accurately, on differences within the same unity. Hall specified
that these differences are connected with “what we really are… and what
we have become” (Hall 1990, p. 225). He elaborated further as follows:

Cultural identity, in this second sense, is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of

‘being’. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something
which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural
identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which
is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being grounded
in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which,
when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are
the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position
ourselves within, the narratives of the past. (Hall 1990, p. 225)

In Minimal Selves (1987), Hall argued that identity is “formed at the

unstable point where the ‘unspeakable’ stories of subjectivity meet the
narratives of history, of a culture” (Hall 1987, p. 44). In particular, “the
24 G. PROGLIO

trouble is that the instant one learns to be ‘an immigrant,’ one recognizes
one can’t be an immigrant any longer: it isn’t a tenable place to be” (Hall
1987, p. 45). Hence, he discovered what it was to be black through the
insight that “constituting oneself as ‘black’ is another recognition of self
through difference” (Hall 1987, p. 45). This kind of identity is conceived
as fiction and as a production of a self-reflexivity that is constitutive of
“politics in the recognition of the necessary arbitrariness of the closure
around the imaginary communities” (Hall 1987, p. 45). In the following
excerpt, Hall demonstrates how it is possible to have a shared identity
based on the idea of being black:

The fact is ‘black’ has never been just there either. It has always been an
unstable identity, psychically, culturally and politically. It, too, is a narrative,
a story, a history. Something constructed, told, spoken, not simply found.
People now speak of the society I come from in totally unrecognizable ways.
Of course Jamaica is a black society, they say. In reality it is a society of black
and brown people who lived for three or four hundred years without ever
being able to speak of themselves as ‘black’. Black is an identity which had
to be learned and could only be learned in a certain moment. (Hall
1987, p. 45)

In New Ethnicities, Stuart Hall shifted from the idea of difference as a

way of recognizing the self as other in relation to something else to the
Derridian concept of différance in which the deliberately misspelled “a”
connotes a “sliding” of the signifier that leads to the idea of the other
being multiplied within many others. Whereas Derrida had intended the
term to convey an infinite sliding of the signifier, Hall reconceptualized it
as a strategy for demonstrating the process of attributing meaning based
on a binary system, as described by Spivak, Fanon, and many other intel-
lectuals. He elucidates this as follows:

We still have a great deal of work to do to decouple ethnicity, as it functions

in the dominant discourse, from its equivalence with nationalism, imperial-
ism, racism and the state, which are the points of attachment around which
a distinctive British or, more accurately, English ethnicity have been con-
structed. (Hall 1996, p. 257)

He coined the term “diaspora-ization” denoting a cultural process

relating to the politics of representation of black people in diaspora “and
the consequences which this carries for the process of unsettling,
 2 DIASPORIC IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES 25

recombination, hybridization and ‘cut-and-mix’” (Hall 1996, p. 257).

With reference to the question of memory, I have already pointed out
how, in Stuart Hall’s theorization, the past is reshaped in unstable and
uncertain ways, with the subject suspended between the loss of the home-
land and an inhospitable place of arrival; between the dream of roots and
the nightmare of the present. Diasporic memory plays a role in the pro-
duction of subjectivity, which, in turn, is involved in the production of
memory (Proglio 2020) and operates within multiple temporalities, sub-
verting the nomenclature of the hegemonic discourse.

2.2   Ways of Being-in-Diaspora

Following this introduction to the theoretical framing and pathways of
interpretation that I will apply in this work, I will now analyze the oral
narratives and their revealing movements relating to the diasporic identities
and subjectivities. In this section, I would like to highlight some descrip-
tions of subjectivity that emerged during the interviews. As I have noted
above, these identities are elaborated based on a “discourse” that is rein-
terpreted through processes of addition and subtraction as a new language
of being-in-diaspora. As the following pages will reveal, some individuals
like Angela/Malaika reinvented themselves using external categories. The
concept of identity played an important role during the production of the
drawing that I asked each interviewee to make at the end of these meet-
ings. We, members of the BABE research project team, referred to this
artifact as a “map,” but perhaps a more useful conceptualization is that of
a geography of emotions associated with each interview as I explain in
more detail in Chap. 5. Our intention in the project was to ask interview-
ees to depict various typologies of memories evoked during the interview.
Representations of cultural memory assume various forms and representa-
tions when depicted on a sheet of paper, most of which are determined by
feelings and emotions. An appropriate interpretation of the resulting
“map” requires a combined consideration of this source of cultural mem-
ory along with interview transcripts.

2.2.1  The Italo-Somali Egg

I met Angela in a bar, not far from Milan Central Railway Station. The trip
I took to reach our meeting venue was a short one: I boarded the metro
from the railway station, arriving after two stops. During this short
26 G. PROGLIO

journey, I had the opportunity to reflect on what I had witnessed just

before undertaking this trip. Upon arriving at the station in Milan, the
traveler leaves the boarding area and goes down to the ground floor of the
station where the entrance of the metro is located. I knew from documen-
taries and articles that Milan Central Station is a key hub for people seek-
ing to reach and cross the Italian border, namely the great majority of
migrant people. Hence, I decided to make a detour. I went downstairs
and, on the middle floor, I saw many people camped there with blankets,
water bottles, t-shirts, shoes, and socks. Five feet away from me lay two
sleeping bags. On the white marble floor, I saw the remains of the last
meal providentially distributed by Caritas, an association working to pro-
vide aid to migrants. I was struck for two reasons that related neither to
the condition of these people nor to the place. My attention was captured
by the silence; the silence that prevailed between Italians immersed within
the chaotic metropolitan rhythms and these other individuals, who were
black-skinned and dark-skinned: so visible as to be rendered invisible
within the white person’s gaze. The second observation that struck me,
which was connected to the first, was the lack of empathy. These people
resembled ghosts with a large majority of white Italians avoiding contact
and proximity with them. I remember speaking to Amal, a pregnant
woman from Eritrea. I spent some minutes with her, during which she
recounted her journey across Africa to Europe. Her eyes were clear. She
uttered one sentence that will remain etched forever in my mind and in my
heart: “We have left our future behind in Africa.”

* * *

In the metro, I was thinking about Amal. Her pain was evident when she
told me about her experience of leaving her country and her concerns
about the future. When I arrived at the stop, I wanted to turn back and go
home. I hardly know what force—or perhaps simply the inertia of my
present—led me to the meeting with Angela. I had connected with her
through some contacts I had within the Somali community, who provided
me with a conduit to the diaspora.
I reached the bar first and asked the barman for a large coffee and a
glass of water. I then sat down at a round table across the room in a corner.
From this location, I had two views: to the left, I could see a large part of
the square outside the window, which was located just a few feet away
from me. I could also see what was happening inside the bar.
 2 DIASPORIC IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES 27

This double view is of particular salience for understanding what hap-

pened when Angela and Nuurta arrived. The two women, both of whom
I had arranged to interview, spent a few minutes greeting someone at the
entrance of the bar. Inside, a group of white men began making sexist and
racist comments about the “black women,” calling them faccette nere
(“little black face”); an expression derived from a popular marching song
associated with the Fascist regime. One of them, in particular, quoted a
line from a song composed by Faccetta Nera that spoke about aspetta e
spera (“wait and hope”) as a way of marking the superiority of the white
man in relation to black colonized people. The words “wait and hope” in
the song refer to the conquest of Ethiopia, alluding to the body of the
Ethiopian woman that is compared with the land of Ethiopia. Specifically,
the “wait” is for colonization by Italy that brings liberation from the
oppression associated with conditions of barbarism; “hope” is for the mas-
culine predatory action of conquest, the implications of which extend
beyond the sexual domain.
I was horrified by these people and all the more by how they were
reshaping the colonial past in the present. This process reverberated across
every aspect of daily life, entering directly into the ambit of my research
even before it had commenced.

–– Good morning, my name is Gabriele!

–– Hello, Gabriele, I am Angela and she is Nuurta [these were her first
words as she shook my hand].

* * *

We sat down at the table and I began to introduce myself and my research.
Within a few minutes, we had jointly decided how to organize our time.
First, I would interview Angela and next I would interview Nuurta.
Angela began to tell me about her past. She was born in Mogadishu
and now lives in Milan. She said to me: “Mogadishu is the city where I was
born and lived for several years.” She was fifty-two years old at the time of
the interview, which took place in October 2015. “I was raised . . . let’s say
. . . within a culture . . . [where] we had the possibility to travel; to visit
other parts of the world, during holidays.” She went on to explain that it
is the place of origin, and especially the neighborhood where she lived for
fourteen years, that was important in shaping her identity.
28 G. PROGLIO

Then it was eh . . . behind the Juba Hotel . . . this Juba Hotel was the most
important hotel in Mogadishu. . . . Mogadishu is the capital of Somalia and
. . . there were gatherings, that is, they came . . . there were parties, those
that they did not have in the various embassies . . . it was an international
context and we were . . . let’s say . . . we lived behind the Hotel Juba. At the
back, there was a main road and . . . that was an area . . . let’s say . . . rich in
consulates and embassies . . . full of offices, it was a very, very lively center.
But beyond that, the most beautiful memory that I have is this eh . . . the
place where I was born . . . an ultra-fancy condominium.

She continued to talk to me about her neighborhood using words that

defined her positionality:

There were two- or three-story buildings where we lived . . . a lot of Italo-­

Somali families, eh . . . I told you, I’m Italo-Somali . . . Italian father and
Somali mother . . . and some Somalis too, very few, but elite people . . . let’s
say the owners of real estate. The Italo-Somali families were doing a little . .
. let’s say . . . it’s like they were a small tribe.

I remember the “and” that followed after she said that her father was
Italian, which sounded like an attempt to dislocate herself within the two
different contexts. At the time, I was struck by her usage of the term
“tribe”: although we were having a conversation outside of Somalia, she
was reproducing an essentially Somali way of classifying people based on
their ethnicity and clan membership. Specifically, she went on to note the
condition of women in Italo-Somali families: “They were . . . I don’t know
how to say it . . . [they were] sidelined from their tribe of ownership. I
don’t want to say outcasts because it is a very heavy term . . . but it was
basically like that . . . because, obviously, the white man was still seen as a
colonizer, a former colonizer.”
When we talked about the colonial period, the theme of the Italo-­
Somalis remained important: “Italians had that small [sexual] vice . . . and
we were all Italo-Somali.” In this case, I interpreted “all” as signifying the
ability of a colonial power to control people’s bodies and, through them,
the entire imagined Somali community. I was therefore very upset when
she uttered the word “all.” Later, upon reflection, I understood that my
feelings were not only about Italy’s colonial past. Angela was producing an
emotional geography, which is the topic of Chap. 5, simultaneously work-
ing on the past and the present. I should note here that in her conception
of “my ‘past’ and ‘present,’ ” the colonial past and postcolonial present
 2 DIASPORIC IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES 29

inhabited the same place within her memory. After discussing colonialism,
she told me about her present life in Milan. She spoke of her love for
Milan and all of the opportunities it offers, but in the final part of the
interview, she pointed out that she—like other Italo-Somali people—is
neither white nor black. She asserted that “first of all, I am Italo-Somali.”
In her “map” (see Fig. 2.1), she illustrated the Italo-Somali concept.
There is a circle; she used two colors—brown and black—and drew an “S”
between them. Commenting on this, she said, “I used the brown color
because it is the intersection of black and white, as I am.” For her, the “S”
is a metaphor of her identity. She wrote Malaika/Angela in the center.
Malaika is her Arabic name that she used in Somalia and means “angel”;
Angela is its Italian equivalent. Then she explained that the circle also rep-
resented an egg: “something that can protect me.” She continued: “The
white part is the Somalia in me; the black part is the Italy.” I was struck by
her reversal of the colors: “Don’t you mean the white is Italy and the black
is Somalia?” She confirmed that she meant what she had said because “I

Fig. 2.1 Malika/Angela’s map

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
mesmo se podra dezir en todas
las otras espeçies y differencias
desta virtud de continençia.—
Pues en lo que toca al apetito del
comer es ansi, que los honbres
todas las cosas que comen y
beben es por deleyte y
complacençia de la suauidad.
Pero las fieras todo quanto gustan
y comen es por neçesidad y fin de
se mantener. Y ansi los honbres
se engendran en sus comidas
infinitos generos y especies de
enfermedades: porque llenos
vuestros cuerpos de excesiuos
comeres, es neçesario que á la
contina haya diuersidad de
humores y ventosidades: y que
por el consiguiente se sigan las
indisposiçiones. Á las fieras dio
naturaleza á cada vna su comida
y manjar conueniente para su
apetito; a los vnos la yerua, á los
otros rayzes y frutas; y algunos ay
que comen carne, como son
lobos y leones. Pero los vnos no
estorban ni vsurpan el manjar ni
comida á los otros, porque el leon
dexa la yerua á la oueja y el
cieruo dexa su manjar al leon.
Pero el honbre no perdona nada
constreñido de su apetito, gula,
tragazon y deleyte. Todo lo gusta,
come, traga y engulle;
pareçiéndole que solo á el hizo
naturaleza para tragar y disipar
todos los otros animales y cosas
criadas. Quanto á lo primero,
come las carnes sin tener dellas
necesidad alguna que á ello le
constriña, teniendo tantas buenas
plantas, frutas, rayzes y yeruas
muy frescas, salutiferas y
olorosas. Y ansi no ay animal en
el mundo que á las manos
puedan auer que los honbres no
coman. Por lo qual les es
neçesario que para auer de hartar
su gula tengan pelea y contienda
con todos los animales del
mundo, y que todos se publiquen
por sus enemigos. Y ansi para
satisfazer su vientre tragon á la
contina tienen guerra con las
aues del cielo y con las fieras de
la tierra y con todos los pescados
del mar; y á todos vuscan como
con industrias y artes los puedan
caçar y prender, y han venido á
tanto extremo, que por se preçiar
no perdonan ninguna criatura de
su gusto acostumbran ya á comer
las venenosas serpientes,
culebras, anguilas, lampreas, que
son de vna mesma especie;
sapos, ranas, que son de vn
mesmo natural, y han hallado
para tragarlo todo vnas maneras
de guisados con ajos, especias,
clauo, pimienta, y açeyte en ollas
y cazuelas, en las quales hechos
çiertos conpuestos y mezclas se
engañan los desuenturados
pensando que les han quitado
con aquellos coçimientos sus
naturales ponçoñas y veneno,
quedandoles avn tan gran parte
que los bastan dar la muerte
mucho antes que lo requiere su
natural. ¿Pues qué si dezimos de
los animales y cosas que de su
vascosidad y podridunbre
produce la tierra; hongos, turmas,
setas, caracoles, galapagos,
arañas, tortugas, ratones y topos?
Y para guisar y aparejar esto
¿quantos maestros, libros,
industrias y artes de cozina vsan
y tienen, tan lexos del
pensamiento de las fieras? Y
despues con todo esto quéxanse
los desuenturados de su
naturaleza, diziendo que les dió
cortas las vidas, y que los lleua
presto la muerte. Y dizen que los
medicos no entienden la
enfermedad, ni saben aplicar la
mediçina. ¡Bobos, neçios! ¿Que
culpa tiene su naturaleza si ellos
mesmos se corronpen y matan
con tanta multitud de venenosas
comidas y manjares? Naturaleza
todas las cosas desea y procura
conseruar hasta el peryodo y
tiempo que al comun les tiene
puesto la vida[307], y para esto les
tiene enseñados çiertos remedios
y mediçinas por si acaso por
alguna ocasion heridos de algun
contrario viniessen á enfermar.
Pero es tanta la golosina, gula y
desorden en su comer y
mantenimiento de los hombres,
que ya ni ay mediçina que los
cure, ni medico que curarlos sepa
ni pueda. Porque ya las artes
naturales todas faltan para este
tiempo: porque bastan más
corronper y quebrar de sus vidas
con sus comidas que puede
remediar y soldar la philosophia y
arte de naturaleza. Pero las fieras
no hazen ansi: porque si al perro
dió naturaleza que viba doze años
y treçientos á la corneja: y ansi de
todas las otras fieras: si los
honbres no las matan, naturaleza
las conserva, de manera que
todas mueran por pura vejez;
porque á cada vna tiene
enseñada su propria mediçina, y
cada vna se es á sí mesma
médica. ¿Quién enseñó á los
puercos quando enferman yrse
luego á los charcos á comer los
cangrexos con que luego son
sanos? ¿Quién enseñó al
galapago quando le ha mordido la
vibora paçer el orégano y sacudir
luego de si la ponzoña? ¿Quién
enseñó á las cabras montesas
siendo heridas del caçador comer
de la yerua llamada dítamo, y
saltarle luego del cuerpo la saeta?
¿y al çieruo en siendo herido yr
huyendo á vuscar las fuentes de
las aguas porque en vañandose
son sanos del veneno? y á los
perros fatigados del dolor de la
cabeça, quién los enseñó á yr
luego al prado y paçer yerua
porque luego son sanos con ella?
Naturaleza es la maestra de todo
esto para conseruarlos: en tanta
manera que no pueden morir sino
por sola vejez, si la guerra que les
da vuestra gula insaçiable
çesasse. ¿Pues qué si
hablassemos de las bebidas, los
vinos de estrañas prouinçias
adobados con coçimientos de
diuersidades de espeçias,
despues de aquellas curiosas y
artifiçiales bebidas de aloxa y
cerbeça? Y sola la fiera
mantenida en todo regalo y
deleyte sana y buena con el agua
clara que naturaleza le da y le cria
en las fuentes perenales de la
concauidad de la tierra. Pues
aquellas agudeças, industrias y
vibezas que saben y vsan las
fieras qué diras dellas? El perro al
mandado de su señor salta y
vayla y entra çien vezes por vn
aro redondo que para ganar
dineros le tiene enpuesto y
enseñado el pobre peregrino. Los
papagayos hablan vuestra
mesma lengua, tordos y cueruos.
Los cauallos se ponen y vaylan
en los teatros y plazas públicas.
¿Paréçete que todo esto no es
más argumento de vso de razon
que de flaqueza que aya en su
naturaleza? Por çierto que no se
puede dezir otra cosa sino que
todos estos doctes les venga del
valor y perfeçion de su natural; en
el qual con tanta ventaja os
exçeden las fieras á los honbres.
Á lo qual todo sino lo quisieres
llamar vso de razon, buen juizio,
virtud de buen injenio y prudençia:
vista aquella façilidad con que son
enseñadas en las mesmas artes y
agudeças que vosotros, en tanta
manera que en las fieras parezca
verdaderamente que nos
acordamos de lo que por nuestra
naturaleza sabemos quando nos
lo enseñan, lo que vosotros no
aprendeis sin grande y muy
contino trabajo de vosotros
mesmos, y de vuestros maestros.
Pues si á esta ventaja no la
quisieres llamar vso de razon, con
tal que la conozcas auerla en las
fieras, llamala como más te
pluguiere. Yo á lo menos téngola
tan conoçida, despues que en
cuerpos de fieras entré, que me
marauillo de la çeguedad en que
muchos de vuestros philósophos
estan; los quales con infinita
diuersidad de argumentos
persuaden entre vosotros á que
creais y tengais por aueriguado,
que las fieras sean muy más
inferiores en su naturaleza que
los hombres; diziendo y afirmando
que ellos solamente vsan de
razon; y que por el consiguiente á
ellos solos conuenga el exerçiçio
de la virtud. Y ansi por esta causa
llaman á las fieras brutos. Añaden
á esto afirmando que solos los
hombres vsen de la verdadera
libertad; siendo por esperiençia
tan claro el contrario. Como
vemos que las fieras á ningunas
leyes tengan subjeçion ni
miramiento mas de a las de su
naturaleza; porque por su buena
inclinaçion no tuuieron de más
leyes neçesidad. Pero vosotros
los honbres por causa de vuestra
soberuia y anbiçion, os subjetó
vuestra naturaleza á tanta
diuersidad de leyes, no solamente
de Dios y de vuestros prinçipes y
mayores: pero aueis os
subjetado[308] al juizio y sentençia
de vuestros vezinos amigos y
parientes. En tanta manera que
sin su pareçer no osais comer, ni
beber, vestir, calçar, hablar ni
comunicar. Finalmente en todas
vuestras obras soys tan subjetos
al pareçer ajeno, tan atentos a
aquella tirana palabra y manera
de dezir (que diran) que no puedo
sino juzgar los hombres por el
más miserable animal y más
infeliz y descontento de todos los
que en el mundo son criados.
Agora tú, Miçilo, si algo desto que
yo tengo alegado te pareçe
contrario á la verdad arguye y
propon, que yo te respondere si
acaso no me faltasse á mí el vso
de la razon con que solia yo en
otros tiempos con euidente
efficaçia disputar.
Miçilo.—¡O Gallo! quan admirado
me tiene esa tu eloquençia, con la
qual tan efficazmente te has
esforçado á me persuadir esa tu
opinion. Que puedo dezir, que
nunca gallo cantó como tu oy. En
tanta manera me tienes contento
que no creo que ay oy en el
mundo hombre más rico que yo
pues tan gran joya como á ti
poseo. Pero de lo que me as
dicho resulta en mi vna dificultad
y dubda que deseo saber[309]:
cómo anima de fiera bruta pueda
ver y gozar de Dios?
Gallo.—Y agora sabes que las
vestias se pueden saluar? Ansi lo
dize el Rey Dauid[310]: Homines
et jumenta saluabis Domine. Dime
qué más bruta vestia puede ser
que el honbre ençenagado en vn
viçio de la carne, o auariçia, o
soberuia, o yra, o en otro
qualquiera pecado? Pues ansi
teniendo Dauid á los tales por
viles brutos vestias ruega por
ellos á Dios diziendo en su
psalmo o cançion: yo, Señor, por
quien vos sois os suplico que
salueis honbres y vestias. Y por
tal vestia se tenia Dauid con ser
Rey quando se hallaua pecador
que dezia[311]: Ut iumentum
factus sum apud te. Yo señor soy
vestia en vuestro acatamiento. Y
ansi quiero que entiendas que en
todos mis cantos pretendo
mostrarte como por el viçio son
los honbres conuertidos en brutos
y en peores que fieras.
Miçilo.—Dime agora yo te ruego,
Gallo, dónde aprendiste esta tu
admirable manera de dezir[312]?
Gallo.—Yo te lo dire. Sabras que
demas de ser asessor de
Mercurio, el más eloquente que
fue en la antigüedad, y ser el gallo
dedicado a Esculapio, que no fue
menos eloquente que muchos de
su tienpo, y demas de criarme yo
a la contina entre vosotros los
honbres, quiero que sepas con
todo esto que yo fue aquel
philosopho Pythagoras, que fue
vno de los mas facundos que la
Greçia çelebró; y prinçipalmente
as de tener por aueriguado que la
mayor eloquençia se adquiere de
la mucha esperiençia de las
cosas, la qual he tenido yo entre
todos los que en el mundo son de
mi edad.
Miçilo.—Por çierto, yo me
acuerdo que quando yo era niño
oy dezir vna cosa que no me
acordaua: que fueste vn paje muy
querido de Mars: y que te tenia
para que quando yua á dormir
algunas noches con Venus muger
de Vulcano le velasses la puerta
que ninguno le viesse[313]: y
prinçipalmente se guardaua que
venida la mañana el sol no le
viesse siendo salido: porque no
auisasse á Vulcano. Y dezian que
el sol te echó vna mañana vn
gran sueño[314]: por lo qual,
viendolos el sol juntos auisó a
Vulcano, y viniendo donde estaua
el adultero de tu amo los tomó
juntos en vna red de hierro y los
presentó á Jupiter que los
castigasse el adulterio.—Y Mars
enojado de tu descuido te
conuertió en gallo, y agora de
puro miedo pensando que
siempre[315] estás en guarda
velando al adultero de tu amo
cantas a la mañana, despertando
a todos mucho antes que salga el
sol[316]. Y esto te dio Mars en
pena de tu descuido y sueño.
Gallo.—Todo eso es fabula y
fingimiento de poetas para ocupar
sus versos: que tambien me han
hecho asesor de Mercurio: y los
antiguos me dedicaron á
Esculapio. Pero la verdad es que
yo fue aquel filosofo Pythagoras
que fue vno de los mas facundos
que la Greçia çelebró, y
principalmente es de tener por
aueriguado, que la mayor
eloquencia se adquiere de la
mucha esperiencia de las cosas:
la qual he tenido yo entre todos
los que en el mundo son de mi
edad.
Miçilo.—Pues[317] dizes que
fueste philosopho Pytagoras
dime [318] algo de philosophos, de
su vida y costumbres: porque de
aqui adelante teniendo tan buen
preceptor como á ti me pueda
preçiar de philosopho: y
philosophe entre los de mi çiudad
y pueblo. Y muestrame como
tengo de vsar de aquella
presunçion, arogançia, y
obstentaçion, desden y sobreçejo
con que los philosophos tratan á
los otros que tienen en la
republica estado de comunidad.
Gallo.—De todo te dire, de sus
vidas y costumbres. Pero porque
se me ofreçen otras cosas que
dezir, mas á la memoria, querria
eso dexarlo para despues. Pero
por no te desgraçiar quiero te
obedeçer. Y ansi te quiero dezir
de vn poco de tiempo que fue
clerigo: la qual es profesion de
philosopho[319] cristiano: donde
conjeturarás lo que en la vna y
otra philosophia son los honbres
el dia de oy. Y pues es venida la
mañana abre la tienda: y en el
 canto que se sigue te dire lo
demas.

Fin del segundo canto del gallo de Luçiano.

 NOTAS:
[307] Éstas y las demás palabras que vayan en letra bastardilla
se encuentran en el manuscrito que fué de Gayangos y faltan en
el de La Romana. Éstos irán designados en lo sucesivo con las
iniciales G. y R.
[308] R., subjado.
[309] G., pero vna dificultad y dubda tengo en el alma, que
resulta de lo que has persuadido hasta aqui; lo qual deseo
entender.
[310] R. Psalm. XXXV.
[311] Psalm. LXXII.
[312] G., porque solamente me acuerdo auer oydo quando yo era
niño.
[313] G., y le despertasses venida la mañana, porque.
[314] G., de manera que los tomó juntos y truxo alli a Vulcano, el
qual los tomó como estauan, en vna red,
[315] G., aun.
[316] G., cantas ordinariamente antes que venga el dia y salga el
sol.
[317] G., pero pues.
[318] G., ruegote me digas.
[319] G., clerigo.
 ARGUMENTO
DEL TERÇERO
CANTO DEL
GALLO

En el terçero canto que se sigue

el auctor imita á Luçiano en
todos sus dialogos: en los
quales siempre reprehende á
los philosophos y Religiosos
de su tiempo[320].

Miçilo.—Esme tan sabrosa tu

musica, o gallo, que durmiendo te
sueño, y imagino que á oyrte me
llamas. Y ansi soñando tu cançion
tan suaue muchas vezes me
despierto con deseo que mi
sueño fuesse verdad o que
siendo sueño nunca yo
despertasse. Por lo qual agora
avn no has tocado los primeros
puntos de tu entonaçion quando
ya me tienes sin pereza muy
despierto con cobdiçia de oyrte:
por tanto prosigue en tu graçiosa
cançion.
Gallo.—Neçesitado me tienes o
Miçilo á te conplazer pues tanto te
aplaze mi dezir. Y ansi yo
procurare con todas mis fuerças á
obedeçer tu mandado. Y pues me
pediste te dixesse algo del estado
de los philosophos, dexemos los
antiguos gentiles que saber agora
dellos no hará á tu proposito, ni a
mi intinçion. Pero pues en los
cristianos han professado y
suçedido en su lugar los
eclesiasticos por ser la mas
incunbrada philosophia la
euangelica: por tanto quiero
hablar deste proposito: y dezirte
de vn poco de tiempo que yo fue
vn clerigo muy rico.
Miçilo.—¿Y en qué manera era
esa riqueza?
Gallo.—Serui a vn obispo desde
mi niñez: y porque nunca me dio
blanca en todo el tienpo que le
serui hizome clerigo harto sin
pensarlo yo: porque yo nunca
estudié, ni lo deseé ser.
Miçilo.—Tal clerigo serias tú
despues.
Gallo.—La vida que despues
tube te lo mostrará. En fin
procuróme pagar el obispo mi
amo con media dozena de
beneffiçios curados que me dio.
Miçilo.—Por cierto con gran
carga te pagó[321] odiaslos tú
todos tener y seruir?
Gallo.—No que descargauame
yo: porque luego hallaua quien
me los tomaua frutos por pension.
Miçilo.—Por Dios, que era ese
buen disimular. Para mi yo creo
que si tú ordeñas la leche y
tresquilas la lana, quiero dezir:
que si tú gozas los esquilmos del
ganado tú te quedas el mesmo
pastor. O me has de confessar
que los hurtas al que los ha de
auer.
Gallo.—Por Dios, gran theologo
eres. No querria yo çapatero tan
argutivo como tú. A la fe pues
sabete que passa eso
comunmente el dia de oy. Y ansi
yo me lleué de seys beneffiçios
curados los frutos por pension
cada año que montauan mas de
treçientas mil marauedises. Con
esto sienpre despues que mi amo
murio vibi en Valladolid vna
villa[322] tan suntuosa en Castilla,
donde sienpre[323] reside la corte
real. Y tanbien concurren alli de
todas differençias de gentes,
tierras y naçiones por residir alli la
Cançilleria audiençia principal del
reyno. Traya á la contina muy
bien tratada mi persona con gran
aparato de mula y moços. Y con
este fausto tenia cabida y
conuersaçion con todos los
perlados y señores, y por me
entretener con todos con vnos
fingia negoçios, y con otros
procuraua tenerlos verdaderos,
propios o agenos. En fin con
todos procuraua tener que dar y
tomar, y ansi en esta manera de
vida passé mas de treynta años
los mejores de mi edad sobre
otros treynta que en seruiçio del
obispo passé.
Miçilo.—Por cierto no me pareçe
esa vida: sino morir.
Gallo.—En este tienpo yo gozé
de muchas fiestas, de muchas
galas: y inuençiones. Era de tanta
dama querido, requerido y tenido
quanto nunca galan cortesano lo
fue. Porque demas de ser yo muy
auentajado y platico en la
cortesania tenia más, que era
muy liberal.
Miçilo.—Por Dios, bien se
gastauan[324] los dineros de la
iglesia: que dizen los
predicadores que son hazienda
de los pobres.
Gallo.—Pues dizen la verdad;
que porque la hazienda de la
iglesia es de los clerigos se dize
ser de los pobres porque ellos no
tienen ni han de tener otra
heredad: porque ellos suçedieron
al tribu de Leui: á los quales no
dio Dios otra posesion.
Miçilo.—Por Dios[325], Gallo,
mejor argumentas tú que yo, y
avn esa me parece grandissima
razon para que los señores
seglares no deuan lleuar los
diezmos de la iglesia, pues ellos
tienen sus mayorazgos y rentas
de que se mantener.
Gallo.—Y avn otra mayor razon
ay para eso, y es: que los
diezmos fueron dados a los
sacerdotes porque rueguen a
Dios por el pueblo, y por la
administraçion de los[326]
sacramentos. Y ansi porque[327]
los seglares no son habiles para
los administrar, por tanto tengo
yo[328] por aueriguado que no
pueden comer[329] los diezmos. Y
que ansi de todos los que lleuaren
seran obligados a restituçion.
Miçilo.—O valame Dios, qué
praticos estais en lo que toca a la
defensa destos vuestros bienes y
rentas tenporales, cómo mostrais
estar llenos de vuestra canina
cobdiçia. ¡Si la meytad de la
cuenta hiziessedes de las almas
que teneis a vuestro cargo!
Gallo.—Pues sienpre es esa
vuestra opinion, que los seglares
no querriades que ningun clerigo
tuuiesse nada, ni avn con que se
mantener.
Miçilo.—Pues qué malo seria?
Antes me pareçe que les seria
muy mejor, porque más
libremente podrian entender en
las cosas spirituales para que
fueron ordenados, sino se
ocupassen en las temporales; y
avn yo os prometo que si el
pueblo os viesse que haziades lo
que deuidades a vuestro estado,
que no solo no os lleuassen la
parte de los diezmos que dezis
que os lleuan, pero que os darian
mucho más. Y avn si bien
miramos el papa, cardenales,
obispos, curas y todos los demas
de la iglesia[330], ¿cómo hallas
que tienen tierras, çiudades y
villas y rentas sino desta manera?
Porque los enperadores y reyes y
prinçipes passados vista su
bondad les dauan quanto querian
para se mantener. Y pues ansi lo
tienen y poseen, ya que los que
agora son se lo quitasen ¿porqué
con pleytos y mano armada lo
han de defender?[331]. Que estan
llenos los consejos reales,
audiençias y chançillerías de
frayles y clerigos; de
comendadores y religiosos. Que
ya no ay en estos publicos y
generales juizios otros pleytos en
qué entender sino en[332]
eclesiasticos. Veamos ¿si a
Jesucristo en cuyo lugar estan le
quitaran la capa estando en el
mundo, defendierala en juizio o
con mano armada?
Gallo.—No, pues avn la vida no
defendio, que antes la ofreçio de
su voluntad por los honbres.
Miçilo.—Pues por eso reniego yo
de vosotros[333] que todos
quereis[334] que os[335] guarden
vuestros[336] preuillegios y
exençiones; ser tenidos
honrrados y estimados de todos,
diziendo que estais[337] en lugar
de Cristo[338] para lo que os[339]
toca de vuestra[340] propria
estima y opinion, y en el hazer
vosotros[341] lo que soys[342]
obligados, que es en el
recogimiento de vuestras [343]
personas y buena fama y santa
ocupacion; y en el menospreçio
de las tenporales haziendas y
posesiones no diferis[344] de los
más crueles tiranos soldados que
en los exerçitos ay.
Gallo.—Valame dios, quan
indignado estas contra los
eclesiasticos que los conparas