Fiori Berhane

This is a multi-sited ethnography of refugee political activism situated in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. Drawing on over 20 months of fieldwork, the manuscript engages in an analysis of both transformations in Eritrean state power and Italy’s migration regimes from the 1970s to the present. By considering two distinct historical conjunctures—the hegemony of the Italian Communist Party during the 1970s and Italy’s recent descent as a laboratory for the radical right—Dr. Berhane demonstrates that Eritrean migrations to Italy have been inextricably enfolded in larger questions over the meaning of the colonial past, the transformation from state socialism to neoliberalism globally, and racial nationalism.