Giovanni Cazzetta, “Patria senza territorio? Emigrazione e retorica dello stato-nazione”, in Studi in onore di Luigi Costato, III, I multiformi profili del pensiero giuridico, Napoli: Jovene, 2014, pp. 145-161.

Also available in Spanish translation: Giovanni Cazzetta, “¿Patria sin territorio? Emigración y retórica del estado-nación”, in Javier Espinoza De Los Monteros Sánchez, Raúl Pérez Johnston, Ricardo Sodi Cuéllar (eds.), Tendencias constitucionales para el siglo XXI en materia de derechos humanos, Ciudad de México: Porrua, 2018, 769-791.

Abstract

The paper deals with discourses elaborated by the Italian legal culture committed to nation-building processes, both before and after the political unification of 1861. A particular analysis is dedicated to the legal rhetoric used to support and legitimize the 1888 emigration law, presented as an instrument to strenghen the ties between Italian emigrants abroad and the homeland, spread the Italianness abroad through a kind of ‘soft and pacific colonization’, and consolidate on the international arena the identity of the newborn nation.