"Se il partito piu caritatevole non sarebbe di 'chiudere' l'Africa?" Stereotipi, esotismo e discorso coloniale nel resoconto africano di Emilio Cecchi


BEDIN C.

ROMANCE STUDIES, cilt.39, sa.4, ss.233-248, 2021 (AHCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 39 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/02639904.2021.2002556
  • Dergi Adı: ROMANCE STUDIES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Periodicals Index Online, MLA - Modern Language Association Database
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.233-248
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Emilio Cecchi, Africa, colonialism, stereotypes, exoticism, RACE, REPRESENTATIONS, ITALIANA
  • İstanbul Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

The article aims to analyse Appunti per un periplo dell'Africa (1954), a travel book written by Emilio Cecchi that narrates the writer's impressions and experiences in some Portuguese African colonies. The text is influenced by fascist propaganda, linked to imperialism, and shows the tendency to present African populations as the object of colonization. We consider the various stereotypes and images that Cecchi uses in the representation of the colonized people of the Portuguese territories in Africa, in particular in discourses focused on race, women, dance and the colonial system. It turns out that Cecchi's work is fully inserted into the ideological context of the early twentieth century, reaffirming a colonial discourse that supports the primacy of the civilized European over the primitive African and giving into the fascination for the exotic, typical of colonial literature.