Aesthetic and Anthropological Representations as Evidence of Racism: from Italian Unification (1861) to the Fall of Fascism (1943)

Project Information

ARER

Grant agreement ID: 896185

DOI

10.3030/896185

Project closed

EC signature date 4 March 2020

Start date 1 November 2020

End date 31 October 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 175 673,28

EU contribution

€ 175 673,28

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ARER (Aesthetic and Anthropological Representations as Evidence of Racism: from Italian Unification (1861) to the Fall of Fascism (1943))

Reporting period: 2020-11-01 to 2022-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

My research project entitled Aesthetic and Anthropological Representations as Evidence of Racism: from Italian Unification (1861) to the Fall of Fascism (1943) (ARER) aimed to study the role of visual and material culture in the formation of an African racial identity during Italy’s national unification and its colonial conquests up to the fall of fascism.
The overall objective consists of understanding how material and visual representations of the body reify theories such as identity and race–which are vague and inconsistent–into tangible and operative ontologies, in the scientific field as well as in the collective imaginary.
The main goal of my project is to have an impact on society. If the first racial judgment is made through the way we look at Others, the deconstruction of the notion of race will necessarily require an expertise in visual and material studies. This is precisely what my work seeks to develop. Thus, my project aims to have not only an impact on the scientific community but a wider visibility that can raise awareness on the issue of race participating in the construction of a more egalitarian community.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Despite the pandemic situation, I was able to complete some of the research objectives listed in my project. I have adapted my work program to the constraints imposed by the health restrictions. In particular, I decided to concentrate my research on anthropological facial casts. I accumulated enough archival material and thoughts to design a book. I finalized this project before the end of the fellowship and took the necessary steps to find a publisher. The German publisher De Gruyter accepted my application for open access publication. I had the opportunity to study the collection of 350 facial casts of Lidio Cipriani and his archives preserved in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology of Florence.
The reading of the anthropologist’s travel notebooks allowed me to reconstruct almost daily how he practiced casting.

- During the period of the project, I participated in five conferences and seminars:

‘Fabriquer ‘l’italianité’: culture visuelle et matérielle à la croisée des visual studies et de l’anthropologie (XIXe- XXe siècles)’, seminar, Communautés imaginées et mise en images des communautés: cultures visuelles et matérielles des nationalismes, Université Paris-Cité, October 14th 2022.

‘Fabbricare le alterità: agency, visual e material culture’, conference, Bibliothèque Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome, May 17th 2022.

‘On Facial Casts Forms and Authority’, Plaster face casts and the Heritage of colonialism and Racial Science, Knir Colloquium, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, October 18-19th 2021, organized by Fenneke Sysling (Leiden University).

‘Impronte dell’umanità. Storia della collezione fiorentina di maschere facciali antropologiche’, Le colonie in riva d’Arno. Studi intorno al patrimonio coloniale a Firenze, June 21-22, 2021, symposium organized by Beatrice Falcucci, Convegno dell'unità di ricerca Modern Transcultural Studies (MTS), SAGAS, Università degli Studi di Firenze (online).

‘Museum, facial casts and race’, conference, Black History Month Florence, February 22th 2021 (online).

- I published an article and four other publications (a book, two articles and an editing of a journal issue) prepared during this fellowship period will be publish during 2023:

- «Black Faces in Italian Colonialism: Mobil Essentialism (1936-1943) », C. Belmonte and L. Moure Cecchini (eds.), Modern Italy (Journal of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy), n° 27, 2022, pp. 375-396.

- Impressions of humanity: Anthropological facial moulds and racial science in Italy, Berlin, De Gruyter, forthcoming 2023.

L. Piccioni and K. Boyer Rossol (eds.), ‘Crânes, cerveaux et têtes moulées : penser les collections sciéntifiques des empires (fin XVIIIe-XXe siècles)’ [provisional title], Artefact, forthcoming 2023.

‘On Facial Casts Circulation and Authority’, F. Sysling (ed.), Nuncius. Plaster Face Casts and the Heritage of Colonialsm and Racial science, forthcoming 2023.

‘Immagini delle alterità nelle prime opere italiane di antropologia: specificità locali e circolazione europea (1870-1881)’, Visual History. Rivista internazionale di storia e critica dell’immagine, forthcoming 2023.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

My research on facial casts fills an important gap in both historical and anthropological historiography. I was also able to implement an experimental method in the article ‘Black Faces in Italian Colonialism: Mobil Essentialism (1936-1943)’ [in C. Belmonte and L. Moure Cecchini (eds.), Modern Italy (Journal of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy), n° 27, 2022, pp. 375-396] that consists in taking into account both visual and material sources.

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