Le altre Italie: identita geopolitiche, genealogie razzializzate e storie interculturali

Joseph Pugliese's paper proposes a strikingly innovative area in the field of Italian Australian studies by investigating an aspect of a long-term but largely unexplored cultural dichotomy represented by the Italian presence in Australia. Traditionally the minority of Australians who have displayed interest in Italian culture have done so exclusively in relation to Italy's institutionally promoted high culture while the majority of Italian migrants in Australia embody a complex and heterogeneous cultural tradition that has developed in their region of origin over many hundreds of years. Pugliese examines the different ways Southern Italian migrants in an Australian context have mapped their own non-hegemonic cultural assertions against representations of the Italian nation by its own high cultural agencies. The concerns of this paper pivot on the point of intersection generated by the visual politics of using copies of Michelangelo's David to represent Italianness within an Australian context.