New questions for "la questione meridionale"

Keywords: Italy, Gramsci, Subaltern, "The South"
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

What can Antonio Gramsci’s “Some Aspects of the Southern Question” offer research on Southern Italy today? Gramsici’s musing on the “South” as a geographic imaginary born from uneven power relations spoke not only of the historic uneven development of the region but also of the “North” as a bloc that reproduced and reinforced subalternity: economically, politically, and culturally. Thus, when researching historical, political-economic processes in Southern Italy, Gramsci’s work--and especially his writings on the south and subaltern social groups--remains ever present. This paper combines recent fieldwork on illegally set wildfires in north-central Sicily with Gramsci’s writings on “la questione meridionale” to see how dynamics at play in Gramsci’s work are revealed in critical human geographic research today.