Suchergebnisse

Con questo saggio, Mette Rudvin ci porta alle funzioni del primitivismo nelle cronache odierne, esaminando le occorrenze del paradigma "immigrato/ straniero = primitivo" in un piccolo corpus di testi scritti e orali tratti dai media – che comprendono telegiornali, articoli e anche talk show politici italiani che vertono sul fenomeno dell'immigrazione – e mostrando come i miti occidentali del primitivismo vengano rappresentati linguisticamente. Lo studio, saldamente ancorato nelle teorie postcoloniali, rivela come il discorso popolare e giornalistico sull'immigrato si forgi sui più svariati e soventi contradditori miti occidentali del primitivo – da quello del "buon selvaggio" in armonia con la natura, a quello del 'selvaggio bestiale e incivile', fino a quello del 'selvaggio irrazionale e/o sensuale', tutte modalità di rappresentazione dell'altro come subalterno. L'analisi documenta non solo come il 'mito' del primitivismo si concretizzi nelle rappresentazioni dell'immigrazione che emergono sia dai discorsi di carattere apertamente razziale che da quelli presunti 'liberal', ma anche i modi in cui tali rappresentazioni contribuiscono a riproporre e istituzionalizzare i pregiudizi stereotipati di lettori, la cui dieta giornaliera di 'notizie' alimenta timori dell'altro, piuttosto che offrire narrazioni positive di individui appartenenti a civiltà differenti, che potrebbero costituire il potenziale per la creazione di rinnovati e migliori paradigmi culturali da contrapporre ad antichi ed anacronistici miti.

In the last decade, the Sierra Leone's diamond mines have been the focus of an intense debate among analysts and experts of the development. Two main interrelated issues have been at stake in this debate: first, to understand the economic and political reasons that had supported the civil war from 1991 to 2002 and, second, to understand how to convert a potential "conflict commodity" in a resource for peace and prosperity. In this paper, I intend to highlight some recurring stereotypes of this debate. In particular, I will focus on a constellation of representations that depict the artisanal miners either as workers poorly organized and prone to irrational economic behavior, or as workers subjected to forms of exploitation akin to slavery. Based on fieldwork conducted in the diamond mining areas of Sierra Leone (2007-2011), this article intends to analyze the main forms of working organization and distribution of earnings among the miners. By challenging some stereotypes characterizing the development discourse, my aim is to show the cultural complexity and the historical density of the practices through which the miners face the risks and uncertainties of their job.

Ethiopia has been ever the icon of sovereignty for Africa and the blacks of the whole world. The process of formation of modern statehood paved the way to a born-again state reinforcing the central authority and absorbing the proto-states of the southern regions. The territorial expansion undertaken by Menelik in the last decades of XIX century encompassed into a multination Empire peoples and nations who didn't share the same values, religions and languages with the dominating stock. Hence, the image of a an alien occupation in order to exploit the work of the groups out of power and often deprived of the lands. Actually the Christian elites dwelling the highlands, the so-called Abyssinians, treated the "indigenous" peoples, especially of the south, with arrogance and paternalism as backward and pagan ones. Besides, tension between Islam and Christianity was a permanent factor in the history of Ethiopia. The oppression has been more visible as far as the eastern frontier, which has been garrisoned employing force instead of flexibility and assimilation. In such a context a special issue of contention has been the role of Amhara, who according to some historical versions and in the grievances of the communities put in a subject or servile condition were responsible to exercise an hegemony in their exclusive advantage. The Amhara themselves deny to be an ethnic group and pretend to be actually the true Ethiopian nationals. Amhara can be seen rather as a metaphor for power whereas Oromo (Galla in the Italian colonial sources) is a metaphor for the relative lack of it. Any way, it should be a mistake to draw analogy with European colonialism even at the level of stereotype. Adapted from the source document.