Showcasing Italianness through migration governance: the ‘refugee crisis’ in postcolonial Italy

Discourse played a crucial role in upholding the “Border Spectacle” throughout the “refugee crisis”. This essay seeks to explore the discursive components of migration governance throughout the “refugee crisis” in Italy by drawing on Sayad’s observation that the state thinks about itself when it talks about migration. The analysis shows that the national categories through which states think about immigration are significantly influenced by the colonial legacy. I rely on discourse analysis approaches to explore the speeches of the two Ministers of the Interior who oversaw migration governance between 2013 and 2018. I argue that the “crisis” offered Italy a key opportunity to showcase its national community as a good-natured and selfless one, while also emphasizing its unique performance within the Mediterranean space. As the Italian case demonstrates, unpacking the national categories through which states conceive migration can contribute to exposing and challenging the historical sanitization of migration governance discourse throughout the “refugee crisis”.