Arcangelo Ghisleri and the “Right to Barbarity”: Geography and Anti‐colonialism in Italy in the Age of Empire (1875–1914)

Abstract

International audienceThis paper addresses the work of early critics of colonialism and Eurocentrism within Italian geography in the Age of Empire. At that time, a minority but rather influent group of Italian scholars, influenced by the international debates promoted by the anarchist geographers Reclus, Kropotkin and Mečnikov, fumed publicly at Italy’s colonial ambitions in Africa. Their positions assumed, at least in the case of Arcangelo Ghisleri, the character of a radical critique of both political and cultural European hegemony. These approaches were linked to a similar critique of ‘internal colonialism’, both Austrian in the Italian-speaking regions of Trento and Trieste, and Piedmontese in Southern Italy. Based on primary sources, and drawing on the international literature on imperial geography and colonial and postcolonial sciences, this paper conjures up the Italian example to discuss how some European geographers of the Age of Empire were also early critics of racism, colonialism and chauvinism, and how these historical experiences can serve current debates on critical, radical and anarchist geographies

Applying Friedrich Ratzel's political and biogeography to the debate on natural borders in the Italian context (1880–1920)

“…Not by chance and in line with the above ultranationalist cultural-political framework, most Italian geographers adhered to a nationalist and reactionary ideology that was sceptical of liberal democracy and parliamentarism, a position which, later, drove them to wholesale acceptance of the Fascist regime (Gambi, 1994). There were only a few notable exceptions, such as the anti-colonialist geographer Arcangelo Ghisleri (1855-1938, a political thinker and activist who condemned any form of aggressive nationalism against other European nationalities as well as the colonial politics of conquest and domination in overseas countries (Ferretti, 2016). But for the vast majority, the connection between biological evolutionism, developments in physical geography, and the rise of nationalism were fuelled by the uptake of strongly positivist approaches, in which geography's theories and methodologies were borrowed from the life and earth sciences even in application to human geography.…”

“Europe Is No Longer Europe”: Montaging Borderlands of Help for a Radical Politics of Place

“…However, such anti-imperial arguments, especially led by the figure of Arcangelo Ghisleri (1855-1938), a geographer/activist working outside the University and teaching in public schools and publishing scientific texts in non-academic circles, also fed irredentist movements aiming to 'free' Italian-speaking regions. While condemning Italy's expansions in Africa against the anti-geographic visions of 'the scramble for Africa', nevertheless such approaches claimed for a 'geography of home' and the northern border of Italy within 'pure linguistic borders' and social geographies rooted in Italian cultures (Ferretti 2016).…”

Rediscovering other geographical traditions

“…An example of the importance of anarchism in inspiring works on different geography's pasts is geographies of anti‐colonialism. Recent scholarship has rescued the neglected role of early anarchist geographers as European authors performing radical anti‐colonialist and anti‐racist agendas in imperial ages (Ferretti, , ), extending interdisciplinary work on the “transnational turn” in anarchist studies (Bantman & Altena, ). Similar topics have been addressed by historical geographers working on geographies of radical histories from perspectives not strictly identifiable with the anarchist ones (Davies, ; Featherstone, ; Griffin, ) and by a burgeoning literature on de‐colonisation, Black internationalism, and solidarity networks (Craggs & Wintle, ; Hodder, ; McGregor, ).…”