Civic Discourse: Representing Immigrants in the Italian Far Right

Abstract

The Italian far right has been gaining increasing electoral support and has been associated with xenophobic discourse casting the immigrant as the Other opposed to the Italian Self. Xenophobia, however, is deeply imbricated with civic discourse, which is deployed by Italian far right parties in order to appear more credible and legitimate in the political arena. Through the Critical Discourse Analysis of original interviews with Italian far right representatives and intellectuals carried out between 2016 and 2018 and of Italian far right manifestos from the 1990s to 2013, this chapter unveils the imbrication of xenophobic and civic tones inherent to the discursive construction of the immigrant, who is problematized, differentiated, criminalized and inferiorized.