Within the context of the transformation of Turkey from a country of emigration to an immigration and transit country, the migration scene is becoming more heterogeneous, with both the formal and informal labor markets being increasingly internationalized. This paper focuses on de-qualification, defined as migrants taking on jobs that do not match their skills, which is a neglected issue within the migration literature on Turkey with the potential for further research. Based on open-ended interviews and participant observation in İstanbul, the paper elaborates on the different instruments of de-qualification. De-qualification is considered here as an important element of precariousness in the labor market, with different mechanisms functioning simultaneously; namely, accreditation problems, a language disadvantage, lack of information, and identity-based discrimination.

Since the war erupted in Syria in 2011, Turkey has followed an “open door” policy toward Syrian refugees. The Turkish government has been promoting this liberal policy through a humanitarian discourse that leads one to expect that Syrian refugees have not been securitized in Turkey. This article, however, argues that a security framework that emphasizes control and containment has been essential to the governance of Syrian refugees in Turkey, despite the presence of such non-securitarian discourses. To develop this argument, the article first builds an analytical framework based on a critical engagement with the theory of securitization, which was originally developed by the Copenhagen School. Unlike the Copenhagen School’s theory emphasizing “speech acts” as the vector of securitization, this article applies a sociological approach to the analysis of the securitization process by focusing on both discursive and non-discursive practices. In carrying out this analysis, securitizing practices, both discursive and non-discursive, are defined as those that: (1) emphasize “control and containment,” especially in relation to societal/public security concerns (here, specifically, the labor market and employment); and (2) establish a security continuum about various other issues—including criminality, terrorism, socioeconomic problems, and cultural deprivation—and thereby treat migrants as “risky” outsiders. Subsequently, in line with this analytical framework, the article seeks to trace the securitization of non-camp Syrian refugees, especially in the labor market. Finally, the article demonstrates that this securitization process is likely to conceal structural and political problems, and to close off alternative public and political debate about the refugees.

In the context of the series of civil wars that have struck the Middle East since the 1980s, the politico-economic changes in the post-Soviet geography of Eastern Europe and the Russian states, and the continuous turmoil in those parts of Africa and Asia where access to Turkish soil has been possible, Turkey emerged as a regional hub for receiving continuous flows of forced migration. As suggested by ample evidence in recent work on migration flows into Turkey, many of these “irregular migrants,” “stateless peoples,” or “asylum seekers” eventually become continuously employed under very unstable circumstances, thus fitting into the definition of the “precariat” or precarious proletariat. This paper examines the context within which such pervasive precarity takes root, directly affecting vulnerable groups such as the Syrian forced migrants arriving in Turkey in successive waves. The marked qualities of the Syrian case in terms of social precarity, combined with the degrees of disenfranchisement and economically precarious conditions for survival, indicates an institutionalized paradigm shift in the Turkish state’s management of irregular migration.

In this paper, I examine the unpublished First World War diaries of Giovanni Pirelli – heir to the helm of the Pirelli tyre company – for their account of how the war and fall of Fascism may have catalysed his dissociation from his family, his class, and his ideological foundation. In the post-war period, Pirelli traced the source of his rejection of his inheritance to his experiences during the Russian retreat, but in the moment, the expression of this kind of transformation is fragmentary and complex. Scholars often look to war diaries and letters for their testimony to the state of the individual in combat. Through close reading, I trace how Pirelli’s writings negotiate his immense privilege and his attempt to construct a moral identity in the midst of war. I consider how they demonstrate his break with his wartime ideals and Fascism and how they anticipate his later transition from industrial heir to socialist activist. My examination of these diaries reveals the ambiguities inherent in this transformation of Fascist and bourgeois subjectivity.

This article examines the most important documentary film about the Italian ‘victory’ in Ethiopia, Il cammino degli eroi, by Corrado D’Errico (1936), the primary aim being to shed light on its complex iconographic system of representation. The first part examines the representation of the ‘African Mussolini’. In the second part, the article analyses the ‘conqueror’s gaze’ in the visual perspective employed by D’Errico in his account of the new Italian colony. The third part is devoted to arguing the juxtaposition between ‘Italian Creation and Ethiopian apocalypse’. Finally, the last part of the article deals with the reasons for the Ethiopian war.

From the end of 1955 to the middle of 1959, the quiz programme Lascia o raddoppia? transformed the way that Italians watched television, attracting a mass audience and appealing to viewers of different class backgrounds and levels of education. The quiz, watched by 15 million Italians at its peak, was more than Italy’s first successful television show: Lascia o raddoppia? also reflected the social and cultural transformations of Italy’s economic ‘miracle’, and confirmed the growing importance of mass culture and education in modern Italy. Yet, the role and response of the viewer in this television phenomenon has been largely overlooked. Viewers, if discussed at all, are often represented as an ‘Everyman’, mediocre, or the victims of Americanisation. This article examines the audience responses to the quiz by connecting the Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) broadcaster’s audience enjoyment ratings to the programme transcripts, specific contestants and media coverage. The audience data, when linked to individual programmes and contestants, reflects important changes in society and education and challenges the myth of the passive viewer, demonstrating even that 1950s television audiences were not as malleable or as conservative as contemporary commentators and many histories suggest.

Used at first with their original (definite) article, the phrases exception française and fin de l'exception française gained instant notoriety after the publication of Furet, Julliard and Rosanvallon's 1988 book La République du centre: La fin de l'exception française. Before too long, the shorter phrase, which (contrary to what is sometimes asserted) was already in existence, also started occurring without the article, with other determiners, and in the plural. This paper details some of the splendeurs et misères (including progressive trivialization) of both the longer and the shorter phrase, thought of as exponents of a single formula.

Largely in response to Epicurus’ famous challenge, philosophers have been quite imaginative in coming up with ways in which death is bad. Most often, death is described as an instrumental bad. Given that I would have obtained additional welfare benefits had I not died when I did, my death causes me to miss out on intrinsic goods I might otherwise have obtained. In this article, however, I argue that the standard account (and its corollaries) misses an important feature of the dis/value of death. I argue that some deaths can be good – intrinsically good – for the person who dies.

In 2011, Edoardo Nesi – a former industrialist in the Prato textile district – won the most prestigious Italian literary prize for his autobiographical novel Storia della mia gente, a book centered on the contrast between Prato’s past industrial success and present decline. Nesi has since become a regular contributor to Corriere della Sera, among other newspapers, and with his following book, Le nostre vite senza ieri, he has further emphasised his role as a public intellectual. In Nesi’s view, Italy’s participation in the global economy has exposed Italian manufacturers to a level of competition that they were not ready to meet. This disadvantage, Nesi contends, was exacerbated by the adoption of the euro, which put an end to the former practice of using monetary policy to offset trade deficits. As a result, many firms lost market shares, and the Prato textile district ended up being largely taken over by Chinese businesses. This paper criticises Nesi’s account of the Italian industrial decline. In particular, it argues that his sympathetic view of the former political-industrial system is mostly an expression of self-complacency and does not positively contribute to the current debates on the Italian economic crisis.

Decolonization challenged people across the globe to define their place in a new postcolonial order. This challenge was felt in international political and economic affairs, but it also affected daily lives across the globe. The history of fair trade activism as seen from the Netherlands highlights how citizens in the North grappled to position themselves in a postcolonial consumer society. Interventions by fair trade activists connected debates about the morals of their society to the consequences of decolonization. They reacted to the imbalances of the global market in the wake of decolonization, joining critics from the South in demanding more equitable global relations. It was around this issue of “fair trade” that a transnational coalition of moderate and more radical activists emerged after the 1960s. This coalition held widely dissimilar views regarding the politics of the left and the use of consumer activism. The analysis of their interventions demonstrates that during the postwar era attempts at transforming the global market were inextricably interwoven with visions of a postcolonial order.