Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T07:32:59.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Good workers: television documentary, migration and the Italian nation, 1956–1964

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2016

Mark Hayward
Mark Hayward*
Affiliation:
Department of Global Communication, American University of Paris, Paris, France
*
∗ Email: mhayward@aup.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines a series of documentaries produced in the period between 1956 and 1964 that document the activities of Italian migrants around the world (a corpus of more than 100 films and programmes altogether). These films, which record the dedicated and laborious nature of Italians around the globe, play a double role. On the one hand, they serve as a necessary adjunct to the establishment of a ‘labour culture’ in Italy, a central aspect of the compromise between labour unrest and the demands of capital in which the figure of the worker is continually praised. At the same time, they serve to obscure and rewrite the Italian collective memory concerning the legacy of Fascist imperialism and Italian involvement in colonial expansion, in the process recasting the Italian coloniser as the ‘good worker’.

Keywords

migrationtelevision documentarypublic memorymodernisationlabour
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 3 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anheier, H.K. and Isar, Y.R. 2008. Cultures and globalization: The cultural economy. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Baldi, P. 1951. La mostra italiana nel museo di Brooklyn. Italiani nel mondo, February 10: 13–14.Google Scholar
Barbicinti, B. 1964. Gli Italiani nel mondo. Radiocorriere, Maggio 24–30, 35.Google Scholar
Ben-Ghiat, R. 1996. Envisioning modernity: desire and discipline in the Italian Fascist film. Critical Inquiry 23, no. 1: 175–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben Ghiat, R. 2005. Unmaking the Fascist man: masculinity, film and the transition from dictatorship. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10, no. 3: 336–65.Google Scholar
Cadin, F. 1964. Annotazioni sui programmi e sul pubblico della Radiotelevisione negli Stati Uniti, no. 1963–1964. New York: R. Corporation.Google Scholar
Cadin, C.M. 1957. La mostra ‘Italia produce’ inaugurata a Città del Messico. Italiani nel mondo, March 25, 16–18.Google Scholar
Crainz, G. 1996. Storia del miracolo italiano: culture, identitáa, trasformazioni fra anni cinquanta e sessanta. Rome: Donzelli.Google Scholar
Curtin, M. 1995. Redeeming the wasteland: Television documentary and Cold War politics. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press..Google Scholar
Del Boca, A. 2005. Italiani, brava gente?: un mito duro a morire. Vicenza: N. Pozza.Google Scholar
del Giardino, G. 1957. L'attività nel Venezuela della Colletività Italiana. Italiani nel mond, January 10: 2–4.Google Scholar
Direttore Generale dell'emigrazione e degli Affari Sociali 1970. Problemi del lavoro italiano all'estero (Relazione per il 1969). Rome: Ministero degli Affari Esteri.Google Scholar
Du Gay, P. and Pryke, M.. 2002. Cultural economy: Cultural analysis and commercial life. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Ellis, J.C. and Mclane, B.A.. 2005. A new history of documentary film. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Fontani, A. 1962. Gli emigrati: L'altra faccia del ‘miracolo economico’. Rome: Editori Riuniti.Google Scholar
Foot, J. 2001. Milan since the miracle: City, culture, and identity. Oxford and New York: Berg.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginsborg, P. 2003. Italy and its discontents: Family, civil society, state, 1980–2001. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gundle, S. 2000. Between Hollywood and Moscow: The Italian communists and the challenge of mass culture, 1943–1991. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, S. 1996. The West and the rest: Discourse and power. In Modernity: An introduction to modern societies, ed. Hall, S., Held, D., Hubert, D. and Thompson, K., 184–228. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mini, P.V. 1968. Capital imports and economic growth: The Italian experience. Economic Development and Cultural Change 16, no. 2: 261–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricci, S. 2008. Cinema and Fascism: Italian film and society, 1922–1943. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rinauro, S. 2005. Social research on Italian emigration during reconstruction years. Studi Emigrazione/Migration Studies XLI, no. 155: 518–25.Google Scholar
Ruffilli, W. 1966. Gli italiani e l'industria. Radiocorriere, May 8–14: 13.Google Scholar
San Giovanni, A. 2006. Tute blu. La parabola operaia nell' Italia repubblicana. Rome: Donzelli.Google Scholar
Tasca, L. 2004. The ‘average housewife’ in post-World War II Italy. Journal of Women's History 16, no. 2: 92–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasi, S. 1964. Review of 'Gli emigrati: L'altra faccia del ‘miracolo economico’. International Migration Digest 1, no. 1: 92–94.Google Scholar
Ventresca, R. 2004. From fascism to democracy: Culture and politics in the Italian election of 1948. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar