Setting the Stage of Contemporary Migration in the Italian Hostile Environment

This chapter argues for an understanding of the hostile environment for asylum seekers constructed in Italy in recent decades that recognizes the cultural specificity of the regime. Official narratives, populist rhetoric, legal norms, media discourse, and stereotyped interpretations have produced diverse locally hostile environments for asylum seekers. They are rooted in the specific context of the nation’s culture and history and have developed through time. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to revisit the whole history of Italy, even since unification in 1861, but it is useful to observe the nation’s cultural formation and development in order to identify some of the peculiarities and discrepancies that characterize the Italian context and the ways in which the nation has responded to recent migration flows.