In The World Refugees Made, Pamela Ballinger explores Italy's remaking in light of the loss of a wide range of territorial possessions-colonies, protectorates, and provinces-in Africa and the Balkans, the repatriation of Italian nationals from those territories, and the integration of these "national refugees" into a country devastated by war and overwhelmed by foreign displaced persons from Eastern Europe. Post-World War II Italy served as an important laboratory, in which categories differentiating foreign refugees (who had crossed national boundaries) from national refugees (those who presumably did not) were debated, refined, and consolidated. Such distinctions resonated far beyond that particular historical moment, informing legal frameworks that remain in place today. Offering an alternative genealogy of the postwar international refugee regime, Ballinger focuses on the consequences of one of its key omissions: the ineligibility from international refugee status of those migrants who became classified as national refugees.

The presence of displaced persons also posed the complex question of who belonged, culturally and legally, in an Italy that was territorially and politically reconfigured by decolonization. The process of demarcating types of refugees thus represented a critical moment for Italy, one that endorsed an ethnic conception of identity that citizenship laws made explicit. Such an understanding of identity remains salient, as Italians still invoke language and race as bases of belonging in the face of mass immigration and ongoing refugee emergencies. Ballinger's analysis of the postwar international refugee regime and Italian decolonization illuminates the study of human rights history, humanitarianism, postwar reconstruction, fascism and its aftermaths, and modern Italian history.

About the Author

Pamela Ballinger is Professor of History and Fred Cuny Chair in the History of Human Rights at the University of Michigan. She is author of History in Exile and La Memoria dell'Esilio.

Reviews

Pamela Ballinger has authored a densely documented, conceptually strong, and beautifully written book that compellingly proves the point made by Peter Gatrell and others: Putting the histories of migration center-stage opens up new and productive vistas onto the nations and, indeed, the world refugees made.

* H-Africa *

While Ballinger's book hopefully encourages more research on this inner-Italian topic, it is already indispensable for the study of twentieth-century internationalism, the postwar refugee regime, and the beginnings of European decolonization. It brilliantly locates Italian decolonization in the context of the emerging postwar international order that redrew borders, redefined citizenship, and handled the global displaced-persons crisis.

* American Historical Review *

In her recent book, The World Refugees Made, Pamela Ballinger offers a pathbreaking study of how the process of decolonization shaped and affected Italy after 1945. The methodological approaches and arguments developed in The World Refugees Made will certainly inspire a new generation of studies on postwar Europe and refugees.

* Contemporanea *

The World Refugees Made is a complex and fascinating work that demonstrates how necessary it is to analyze Italy's post-World War II reconstruction as an international and colonial/postcolonial history. It will be informative and intriguing to students and nonspecialists, and challenging and provocative to scholars of its relevant fields.

* Journal of Modern History *


Awards
Winner of Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize (AHA) 2020 (United States) and American Association for Italian Studies Book Prizes 2021 (United States). Short-listed for Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies (History and Social Sciences) 2022 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781501747588
Author Pamela Ballinger
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm