The settlers’ ‘right to return’: Alessandro Pes, ‘Colonists or Migrants? The Political Debate on Returns From the Former Colonies in Post-war Italy’, in Sarah Oberbichler, Eva Pfanzelter, Valerio Larcher (eds), Return and Circular Migration in Contemporary European History, De Gruyter, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

The settlers’ ‘right to return’: Alessandro Pes, ‘Colonists or Migrants? The Political Debate on Returns From the Former Colonies in Post-war Italy’, in Sarah Oberbichler, Eva Pfanzelter, Valerio Larcher (eds), Return and Circular Migration in Contemporary European History, De Gruyter, 2024

28Oct24

Abstract: After World War II, the end of Italian colonialism was marked by the1947 Peace Treaty and subsequent UN resolutions in 1949. From 1946 to 1949, post-war Italian governments sought to regain control of their lost colonies by craftingnarratives emphasizing Italian colonists’efforts to establish a“right”to“return toAfrica.”This chapter, drawing from a range of sources including diplomatic ar-chives and colonists’associations, examines how labor emerged as the focal pointin the reconstruction of Italy’s colonial history from 1946 onward. The narrativesportrayed Italian colonialism as a migration of proletarians and lower-class indi-viduals, distinguishing it from other European colonial powers’exploitative prac-tices. Examining the evolution of thesenarratives, this chapter assesses theirimpact on how post-war Italian society perceived its colonial history and depictedItalian former colonists as migrants.

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