The Augustan Exhibition of Romanità, held in Rome's Palazzo delle Esposizioni between 1937 and 1938, exemplifies the aestheticisation, ritualisation and sacralisation of politics during the Fascist era in Italy. This article conducts a multi-layered spatial analysis of the exhibition that considers space as passively experienced, as an agent to re-map memory, as a mediator between intention and reception and as having both physical and mental characteristics. The relative sizes of the spaces, their sequence and their axial placement within the Palazzo's plan were the most powerful forces that conveyed the exhibition's overall political and social aims. The Mostra Augustea della Romanità (MAR) is here analysed as a form of historical representation with a specific narrative which is played out within an orchestrated space in order to create and reinforce a (Fascist) political identity. The idea of Rome took on material aspects through a kind of ‘recognition effect’ for the visitor by presenting Romanità as a collective mirror in which to view an image of their own social visage. Thus an active connection would, according to the organisers, be forged between a Roman past and a Fascist present, and its two leaders and creators, Augustus and Mussolini, as well as between the individual and society. The MAR also demonstrates the prevalence of the cult of Il Duce in Fascist society and its importance for maintaining high levels of consent. With its focus on a particular view of the ancient world, the MAR was an ephemeral event that acted as teleological justification for the advent and supposed permanence of Fascism, which at the same time presented itself as a unique archaeological, scientific and educational document of the Roman world.

This article explores the issue of elite representation through photography during the 1930s in Italy. It examines how modern technology affected representation and refers specifically to the work of Ghitta Carell, a photographer who became very successful by portraying prominent Fascist men and women in Italy, including the Duce. Images of the dictator had been continually developed since the late 1920s and frequent and various representations of his person, including the face, were pervasive. Carell's idealised style was much appreciated by high society and Fascist officials alike, while her work also has a darker emotional content that borrows from a painterly tradition. Although not engaged directly by the regime, Carell's work has to be considered as both separate from and complementary whilst also adding to the Fascist aesthetic. She was complicit with the cult of the Duce while revealing aspects of Mussolini's personality that other photographers avoided or missed.

Fascism saw education as a key way to ‘make Italians’ both at home and in its colonies. Schools for Italians and for the indigenous population in Africa were a key part of this project. These educational institutions were set up, partly, to convince young Italians of their role as colonisers and bearers of an idea of ‘Italian civilisation’. A small minority of Africans, who were permitted to attend schools created for a section of the local population, were given an education that was designed to reinforce their role as inferior and as targets for an idea of a superior ‘Italian civilisation’. This article will analyse the role of the schools set up in the colonies both for Italians and for the local population, as well as their use of politics, propaganda and their educational techniques. The article looks at continuities and breaks with the pre-Fascist period, as well as the radicalisation of racist educational policies after the proclamation of the empire.

While caution, tactics and compromise characterised the political practice of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement in post-war Italy, a section of the Italian press took a less guarded approach to the 20-year regime (Fascism) and to fascism as a political idea (fascism). A lively debate began immediately after the death of Mussolini; Italians sympathetic to fascism opposed the new Italian republican settlement and their opinions were freely expressed in newspapers and magazines. Neo-fascism in Italy was represented by three main ideological currents (left-wing, moderate and right-wing), and this article gives an account of the different views of the issues of democracy and corporatism that were held by fascist loyalists. An extensive number of articles published in the period 1945–1953 are used as primary sources.

Other Spaces is a collaborative creative arts exhibition project that explores visual and material expressions of cultural identity with a particular focus on museum collections. This project aims to provide a rich examination – visual, emotional and intellectual – of the multiple cultural narratives that contribute to the social fabric of Australia through a unique marriage of contemporary photomedia and creative writing practice. This project explores the ways that migrants and refugees have found to express their cultural identity through the material objects they have brought with them to Australia. Many of these objects are not only of great personal value but often of cultural, historical and religious significance. Some are very ordinary everyday objects but they can be highly evocative and symbolic of the relationship between culture and identity, and between the places of origin and an individual's present home in Australia. This article, through a combination of photography, creative text and scholarly discussion, will focus specifically on Italo-Australian migrants and on some of the material objects that they have donated to museum collections, and use these objects to explore notions of cultural belonging and identity.

In recent years in Italy there have been numerous conflicts related to locally unwanted land use (‘Lulu’). Some have taken on a political dimension that goes beyond the local, becoming ‘trans-territorial’, as they link with similar conflicts elsewhere. This article analyses the role of various left-wing parties and groups (moderate, radical, antagonist) in these conflicts, examining four specific Lulu movements: those against the high-speed rail line (TAV) in Val di Susa; those against the bridge over the Strait of Messina; those against the extension of the US military base in Vicenza (Dal Molin); and those against the construction of a refuse site in the district of Chiaiano (Naples). Analysis of these cases shows that independent variables related to the well-established ‘political opportunity structure’ (POS) model do not fully explain the role played by the various organisations of the left. Other factors ultimately have greater explanatory power: the policy-making that triggers Lulu conflicts, from which emerge both a new centre/periphery political cleavage (national majoritarian democracy vs. local participatory democracy) and a new economic cleavage (growth/economic development vs. alternative models of development); policies and cleavages in their turn determine the splits between leftist parties nationally and locally and, ultimately, shifts in the Italian party system.

This paper explores how im/migrant women coming to Italy from all corners of the world and from very different backgrounds in terms of class, education and work experience are transformed into home eldercare assistants. The paper explores how these workers are created through discourses and every day practices enforced at different levels: from the state to the employers, from the mediators to the workers themselves. The creation of these workers has a double function: one is to fill the needs of a welfare state that otherwise would have to radically transform itself in order to provide effective services to the elders and, the other, is to alleviate the pressures of those of the family caregivers, mostly women, who otherwise would collapse under the burden of extended care.

This article surveys the state of the research undertaken to date on Calabrian organised crime, now known as the 'Ndrangheta. Using continuous reference to the historiography of the Sicilian Mafia, and prompted in particular by a preliminary review of various documentary sources, it also poses questions and develops theories that will need further study and reflection. The first section addresses the classic image of the 'Ndrangheta, as crime linked to the traditional values of the Calabrian rural world. It is suggested that the interweaving of this criminal phenomenon and traditional society is more complex than a relationship of identification between the two, and results from the deliberate pursuit of criminal objectives such as legitimisation and social control. Further problems are highlighted as attention is turned from issues regarding values to the socio-economic features of the ‘Picciotteria’, as the 'Ndrangheta was known prior to the 1950s. There is a discussion of the reasons for its success, the economic parasitism practised using positions of social intermediation, and the existence of formal structures distinct from traditional family bonds and community ties. The article's final section focuses on the relationship between the 'Ndrangheta and politics in the period after the Second World War. The paucity of research that specifically addresses the period between the war and the 1970s is highlighted; linked to this, approaches are suggested for investigating the nature of crime's penetration of politics, the relationship with the parties at the local level, and the ways in which the 'Ndrangheta was interpreted by these same political parties.