Connecting-Africa | Find publications

Advanced search

Find:


Title Italy's Colonial Futures: Colonial Inertia and Postcolonial Capital in Asmara
Full text http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4mb1z7f8
Date 2011
Author(s) Fuller, Mia
Abstract The core of Asmara, Italy's former colonial capital in Eritrea, is widely known as a unique repository of 1930s Italian architecture. In addition, its Italian food and other traces of the colonial era lend it the semblance, to foreign eyes, of a still-colonial city. This article describes this apparent colonial inertia with respect to Eritrean citizens' and government's interests in sustaining the illusion, and argues that they use their past as Italian colonial subjects - specifically, their postcolonial cultural capital - to fortify their sense of separateness from Ethiopians, and celebrate their independence from their African neighbor.
Subject(s) African Studies; Italian colonialism; postcolonial Eritrea; Asmara; African Languages and Societies; Historic Preservation and Conservation; Other Italian Language and Literature; Other Race, Ethnicity and post-Colonial Studies; Social and Cultural Anthropology; City/Urban, Community and Regional Planning
Language english
Publisher eScholarship, University of California
Type of publication article
Format application/pdf
Source Fuller, Mia. (2011). Italy's Colonial Futures: Colonial Inertia and Postcolonial Capital in Asmara. California Italian Studies, 2(1). Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4mb1z7f8
Rights public
Identifier qt4mb1z7f8
Repository Berkeley - University of California
Added to C-A: 2014-04-09;09:45:04