Vol. 25 (2021): his special issue aims to explore the en- vironmental dimension and engagement of Mediterranean fascist regimes inclusive of their colonial possessions. Methodologically, this has firstly implied to go beyond the narrow under- standing of environmental history as a discipline putting at the centre of its analysis natural or eco- logical elements and, secondly, to bridge environ- mental history with political and social history, and other historical subfields. Among the many themes touched in this volume, we would like to stress three more significant and overarching issues: reclamation as a material and ideological regeneration of people and places; modernity as the ideology through which fascist regimes em- ployed science and technology to create socio- ecologies at the service of their goals; and colo- nization (internal and external) as the concrete laboratory where reclamation and modernity were experimented as forms of control, regime-building, and oppression. Blending fascist studies and environmental history sounds like an unconventional scholarly enterprise. Seemingly, this is because the for- mer addresses complex and contradictory mix- tures of traditionalism, racial and scientific pos- itivism, anti-liberalism, corporatism, authoritari- anism, but also modernist ideologies and innova- tive forms of mass communication and mobiliza- tion. Whereas the latter is an academic discipline attentive to processes of natural depletion and conservation, and also considered quite progres- sive, we might argue. Even more than that, fascist studies and environmental history form an odd couple because the first line of enquiry is actually one of the most well-established areas of interest for historians of modern times, while the latter is often seen as a rather marginal or emerging field of studies, especially in the Mediterranean coun- tries. Finally, fascist and environmental histories form an unusual combination because according to traditional sub-disciplinary boundaries, envi- ronmental historians should not be concerned about themes like fascism. Quite the opposite, they should dedicate themselves to the confined niche of "the environment" (Armiero 2016). In this sense, our special issue questions the narrow understanding of "the environment" and propose a vision of our discipline not in terms of themes but rather of perspectives. The articles hosted in this special issue help clarify our vision. Not all of the authors would in fact define themselves environmental historians and, rather than checking disciplinary IDs at the borders of this special issue, we have opted for welcoming whoever was interested in looking at the fascist histories in their intertwining with nature and for learning from these mixed
The Volume 25 is a Special Issue of Perspectivas - Journal of Political Science contains two articles that address issues relating to Spanish colonization. The first is about Colonization in Badajoz Province, and the second about the Environmental Coloniality in Francoist Spain.
The other two articles focus on European Countries. One of them analyzes the Italian fascist modernization and colonial landscape in Albania and the other one makes us reflect about Greece under Metaxas’ Regime.
The last two articles concern fascist colonialism in Libya and Mozambique.
Publicado:
2021-12-17
