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FrancoAngeli Journals

Studies and research

Vol. 297 No. Supplemento (2021)

In the Name of Science. Limits and Aporias of Italian Scientific Anti-Racism

  • Francesco Cassata
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/IC2021-297-S1OA-008
Submitted
febbraio 24, 2022
Published
2022-04-07

Abstract

The article focuses on two specific moments in the recent history of Italian scientific antiracism: first, the 2008 San Rossore “Manifesto of the Anti-Racist Scientists”; secondly, the campaign for the elimination of the word “race” from the Constitution of the Italian Republic that developed between 2014 and 2018. Through these examples, it will be apparent how the memory of the 1938 “Manifesto of the Racial Scientists” still casts a shadow over current Italian anti-racism, by restricting its discourse and action to the anachronistic condemnation of Nazi-styled biological racism. The article shows how this political and ideological configuration presents two main shortcomings: on the one hand, it contributes to the actual de-historicization of fascist racism and antisemitism; on the other, it is instrumental to the parallel de-historicization of scientifi c anti-racism. In the conclusion, the article opens a window on the possible ways for reshaping anti-racism in Italy, by making it free from the mimetic relationship with 1930s racism and antisemitism as well as by adapting it to the challenges of the post-genomic era.

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