From the European South

a transdisciplinary journal of postcolonial humanities

Forgotten and popular. Sonic memory and colonial imagery in today’s Italy

Emilio Tamburini

Abstract

Listening to Italian Colonialism is a collective research project, first developed in 2021-2022 by the scholar Gianpaolo Chiriacò to foster debate around a collection of popular songs about Ethiopia, which were produced as gramophone records and broadcast during the Italian invasion of the country. This paper aims to contribute to the debate that originated within that project by proposing reflections on how to approach these colonial songs, and to problematize sonic memory as a conceptual framework within which to critically deal with the re-activation of this historical repertoire in the present.

Keywords

Italian colonialism, sonic memory, embodiment/disembodiment, sonic whiteness, racial inequality, listening practices

Pages

24-47

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