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COLONIAL SUBJECTS. RACIAL DISCOURSE AND INSTITUTIONAL SEGREGATION DURING THE ITALIAN RULE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA. [Abstract ID: 0701-03]
Writing the history of citizenship in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in modern age can't be done without also taking into account the years of foreigner domination during the Italian colonial rule (1880s-1940s). These years left long-lasting traces in the societies of the region. The Italian colonial rule was based on a racial discrimination of the native population, which was strictly excluded from the metropolitan citizenship. The native population was supposed to be – according to the dominant ideology of the time – inferior with respect to its race and its civilisation. This principle was the milestone of the colonial rule of the Italian kingdom, in this not being the Italian rule different from other European colonial powers. The present contribution will focus on the temporal and spatial dimension of the citizenship regulation during the Italian rule in the Horn of Africa. Recent research have shown how the costruction of racial hierarchies didn't begin during the Fascist era, as has been long asserted, but continued along at a constant speed since as early as the conquest of the African territories in the 1880s. The origin and development of the racial segregation, that the citizenship regulation pursued, will be analysed in its different temporalities. Besides, the investigation will address the different territories of the Horn of Africa with reference to the citizenship regulation (Eritrea was established as colony in 1890, Somalia in 1908). The purpose is to offer a comparison of the citizenship policy whithin the Italian colonial empire of the „Africa Orientale Italiana“ (established in 1936). The paper aims to anser the questions who was a subject of the Italian colonial rule, what did it mean to be a colonial subject of the Italian kingdom and what did remain of the colonial citizenship policy.