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Between a curse and a resource: the meanings of women’s racialised sexuality in contemporary Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2017

Elena Zambelli
Elena Zambelli*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
*
*Email: Elena_zambelli@soas.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article explores the racialisation of women’s sexuality in contemporary Italy at the intersection between the national imagination and transnational cultural and commodity flows. Starting from the experience of a young Italian woman whose work centres on the commodification of her sexual desirability and who is recurrently classified as ‘foreign’, it discusses the roots as well as effects of the racialised male gaze under which she negotiates her agency. In so doing, it examines the meanings of her failure to be recognised as an Italian citizen as she navigates between contempt and desire, stigma and praise, alienation and pleasure. On the one hand, the article traces the thread between her experience and the othering processes underpinning the construction of Italy as a nation state and an empire, and whose legacies persist in the country’s postcolonial present. On the other hand, the article explores women’s racialisation as a process which can magnify the social and economic value of their desirability in a context increasingly characterised by the sexualisation of culture and trade. Based on ethnographic research undertaken in 2012–2013, this article contributes to the emerging body of postcolonial scholarship and intersectional studies on women’s sexuality in contemporary Italy.

Italian summary

Questo articolo esplora la razzializzazione della sessualità nell’Italia contemporanea, all’incrocio tra l’immaginazione nazionale e flussi culturali e commerciali transnazionali. A partire dall’esperienza di una giovane donna italiana il cui lavoro è incentrato sulla mercificazione della propria desiderabilità sessuale e che è frequentemente classificata come ‘straniera’, esso discute le radici e gli effetti dello sguardo maschile razzializzato sotto il quale negozia la propria agency. Esamina pertanto i significati del suo fallito riconoscimento quale cittadina italiana, mentre naviga attraverso disprezzo e desiderio, stigma e lode, alienazione e piacere. Da una parte, l’articolo traccia una linea tra la sua esperienza ed i processi di alterizzazione sui quali si è poggiata la costruzione dell’Italia come stato nazione ed impero, e la cui eredità permane nel presente postcoloniale. Dall’altra parte, l’articolo esplora la razzializzazione delle donne come un processo che può esaltare il valore sociale ed economico della loro desiderabilità in un contesto sempre più caratterizzato dalla sessualizzazione della cultura e del commercio. Basato su una ricerca etnografica intrapresa nel 2012–2013, questo articolo contribuisce agli studi postcoloniali ed intersezionali sulla sessualità nell’Italia contemporanea.

Keywords

sexualityracenationalismcolonialismrespectabilityerotic capital
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 23 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue: Sexuality and Power in Contemporary Italy: Subjectivities Between Gender Norms, Agency and Social Transformation , May 2018 , pp. 159 - 172
Copyright
© 2017 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

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