Laura Di Fiore
Laura Di Fiore is currently Associate Professor of History of Political Institutions at University of Naples "Federico II". (https://www.docenti.unina.it/laura.difiore).
She has been Researcher in History of Political Institutions at University of Naples "Federico II", ResearchFellow at the University of Bologna (Department of History and Cultures) with a research about “Food as identity heritage”, within the frame of the Horizon 2020 Project “Cohere”.
She has previously been Research Fellow at the Neapolitan Society of Homeland History with a project on the transnational organization of Bourbon political police after 1848, in European and Mediterranean perspective. She has also been Thyssen Stiftung Research Fellow at Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom with a project on 19th-century European borders and Research Fellow at University of Naples “Federico II”, analysing issues related to control of the territory and identification systems in 19th-century Southern Italy.
She holds a Phd in “History and Social Sciences” (2009) at SUM (Istituto italiano di Scienze Umane) and a Phd in “European modern and contemporary history” (2012) at University of Naples “L’Orientale”.
Her research interests include the historical making of borders in Europe, global history,
police history, identification practices in 19th century and British imperial history (19th and 20th century).
She is author of two monographs, L’Islam e l’Impero. Il Medio Oriente di Toynbee all’indomani della Grande Guerra (Roma, Viella, 2015), focused on Arnold Toynbee’s political advisory service concerning the settlement of the Middle East after the first WWI, and Alla frontiera. Confini e documenti d’identità nel Mezzogiorno continentale preunitario (Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2013), an analysis of the construction of borders and the introduction of identification practices in the Kingdom of Naples before Italian unification. She is also co-author, with Marco Meriggi, of a volume on global history, World History. Le nuove rotte della storia (Laterza, Roma-Bari 2011). With Marco Meriggi she also edited a book on the borders in pre-unification Italy, Movimenti e confini. Spazi mobili nell’Italia preunitaria (Viella, Roma 2013).
She published several essays in peer-reviewed Italian and international journals and presented her research in many international conferences and invited lectures in international universities and advanced schools.
She has been Researcher in History of Political Institutions at University of Naples "Federico II", ResearchFellow at the University of Bologna (Department of History and Cultures) with a research about “Food as identity heritage”, within the frame of the Horizon 2020 Project “Cohere”.
She has previously been Research Fellow at the Neapolitan Society of Homeland History with a project on the transnational organization of Bourbon political police after 1848, in European and Mediterranean perspective. She has also been Thyssen Stiftung Research Fellow at Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom with a project on 19th-century European borders and Research Fellow at University of Naples “Federico II”, analysing issues related to control of the territory and identification systems in 19th-century Southern Italy.
She holds a Phd in “History and Social Sciences” (2009) at SUM (Istituto italiano di Scienze Umane) and a Phd in “European modern and contemporary history” (2012) at University of Naples “L’Orientale”.
Her research interests include the historical making of borders in Europe, global history,
police history, identification practices in 19th century and British imperial history (19th and 20th century).
She is author of two monographs, L’Islam e l’Impero. Il Medio Oriente di Toynbee all’indomani della Grande Guerra (Roma, Viella, 2015), focused on Arnold Toynbee’s political advisory service concerning the settlement of the Middle East after the first WWI, and Alla frontiera. Confini e documenti d’identità nel Mezzogiorno continentale preunitario (Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2013), an analysis of the construction of borders and the introduction of identification practices in the Kingdom of Naples before Italian unification. She is also co-author, with Marco Meriggi, of a volume on global history, World History. Le nuove rotte della storia (Laterza, Roma-Bari 2011). With Marco Meriggi she also edited a book on the borders in pre-unification Italy, Movimenti e confini. Spazi mobili nell’Italia preunitaria (Viella, Roma 2013).
She published several essays in peer-reviewed Italian and international journals and presented her research in many international conferences and invited lectures in international universities and advanced schools.
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Nel Mezzogiorno, all'indomani del Decennio francese, la polizia fu al centro di un'intensa riflessione, incline a ripensarla al di fuori del modello napoleonico, il cui esito non era affatto scontato. I nodi problematici emersi in questo contesto riguardo alla natura e ai limiti del potere di polizia erano destinati a restare, nei decenni successivi, oggetto di un dibattito sviluppato nel più ampio quadro della penisola italiana. I fermenti rivoluzionari che attraversarono il Regno delle Due Sicilie, in particolare a seguito delle rivoluzioni quarantottesche, posero tuttavia in primo piano l'urgenza di dispiegare dispositivi e strumenti idonei in primo luogo a fare della difesa dello status quo il compito prevalente del controllo poliziesco. Inoltre, a fronte del respiro globale della minaccia liberal-democratica, la polizia borbonica riarticolò la sorveglianza politica in senso transnazionale, ricorrendo ad agenti segreti e spie, ma anche a consoli e diplomatici, sulle tracce di esuli e cospiratori in una dimensione europea e mediterranea.
During the nineteenth century, the police control represented, for the European continent, first one of the pivotal components of the international system developed by Metternich and then a function to be reshaped in view of the political crisis due to the events of 1848.
In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in the aftermath of the French Decade, the police were the focus of an intense reflection, inclined to rethink it beyond the Napoleonic model, whose outcome was not at all obvious. The issues that emerged in this context concerning the nature and limits of police power were destined to remain, in the following decades, the subject of a debate developed in the broader framework of the Italian peninsula. The revolutionary turmoil crossing the Kingdom, in particular following the 1848 revolutions, nevertheless placed in the foreground the urgency of deploying suitable devices and instruments to make the prevailing task of police control a defense of the status quo. Moreover, facing the global scale of the liberal-democratic threat, the Bourbon police rearranged political surveillance in a transnational sense, resorting to secret agents and spies, but also to consuls and diplomats, on the trail of exiles and conspirators in a European and Mediterranean dimension.
Papers
a reconstruction of the reflections on the power of the police which developed in
the various pre-unification states of Italy, from the Restoration up until national
unification. This periodization demonstrates, it is argued, the connection
between the development of the modern police and a new concept of “security”,
both aspects of the larger process of state building in the nineteenth century.
The analysis draws upon a series of memoirs and manuscripts produced in
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, integrating them with a broader treatise and
pamphlet literature which flourished in the Italian peninsula during the first
half of the nineteenth century. The comparison of manuscript with published,
literary sources enables the identification of common themes. These include:
the complex relationship between the police and politics, and between security
and power (particularly, the discretionary power of the police, its relationship
with the law and the risk of arbitrary recourse to espionnage tactics)
been the focus of a recently renewed historiography. The essay aims to contribute
to this new research thread from a peculiar perspective, that of the articulation of
the state in a Mediterranean dimension, investigated though a specifi c case study:
the intelligence activity for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies carried out by the
diplomatic mission in Constantinople. The latter turned out to be a crucial node
of the Bourbon network of the state abroad as well as of a conservative inter-state
network with the common aim of political surveillance. Moreover, the analysis sheds
light on the intersection of state apparatuses with the network of exiles moving
across the Mediterranean. Shifting the point of view from the national Italian movement to the modernization of one of the conservative states in the peninsula,
framed in a transnational context, the article shows a more politically complex and
plural nineteenth-century Mediterranean than usually outlined.
gestione del controllo statale. Il primo attiene alla dialettica tra la dimensione territoriale,
caratteristica della nuova geografia del potere sovrano e del suo rapporto
con i sudditi, e quella extra-territoriale in cui gli stranieri, in virtù del proprio status,
tendevano a gravitare. Il secondo aspetto riguarda invece l’emergere, proprio
a partire dalla cesura rivoluzionaria e napoleonica, della connotazione politica
come centrale nell’ambito del controllo, nelle forme in cui esso venne declinato
nel corso dell’Ottocento. Il saggio si propone, ricostruendo le forme della
sorveglianza sugli stranieri dispiegate nel Mezzogiorno preunitario, di esplorare
queste due dimensioni della questione su un duplice scenario, volgendo dapprima
lo sguardo all’intero Regno, nella sua parte continentale, per poi restringere
il campo di analisi alla sua capitale, la città di Napoli.
several identity markers. As the topic of heritage is one the most recently addressed within
the wide bibliography of food studies, in particular food history has been analysing how
societies and groups historically produced food heritages.
This essay chooses the Unesco international food labelling as a lens to analyze limits and
critic points of the institutional heritagizazion. Firstly, the essay will examine the territorial
identity paradigms involved in Unesco institutional procedures and their articulation on
different spatial levels, which tend to overlap and intersect each other in complex
geographies. Secondly, it will analyze risks and problems of the constant recourse to past
and history - related to issues of authenticity, tradition, nostalgia - aimed at legitimizing
food heritage and identity claims.
assistenza e supporto ai cosiddetti ‘emigrati veneti e romani’. Questi ultimi, accolti sulla base di riconosciuti contributi alla causa nazionale o di solidarietà politica,
tesero tuttavia a trasformarsi, sovente loro malgrado, in una massa di individui privi di occupazione e al tempo stesso di qualsivoglia sussidio, e perciò potenzialmente pericolosi per i contesti urbani in cui andavano a inserirsi. Per questo ben presto alla cittadinanza politica si chiese di arretrare a fronte della tutela dell’ordine pubblico, determinando un restringimento di fatto
degli orizzonti di cittadinanza politica prospettati a coloro che condividevano idee e progetti del movimento di unificazione.
Nel Mezzogiorno, all'indomani del Decennio francese, la polizia fu al centro di un'intensa riflessione, incline a ripensarla al di fuori del modello napoleonico, il cui esito non era affatto scontato. I nodi problematici emersi in questo contesto riguardo alla natura e ai limiti del potere di polizia erano destinati a restare, nei decenni successivi, oggetto di un dibattito sviluppato nel più ampio quadro della penisola italiana. I fermenti rivoluzionari che attraversarono il Regno delle Due Sicilie, in particolare a seguito delle rivoluzioni quarantottesche, posero tuttavia in primo piano l'urgenza di dispiegare dispositivi e strumenti idonei in primo luogo a fare della difesa dello status quo il compito prevalente del controllo poliziesco. Inoltre, a fronte del respiro globale della minaccia liberal-democratica, la polizia borbonica riarticolò la sorveglianza politica in senso transnazionale, ricorrendo ad agenti segreti e spie, ma anche a consoli e diplomatici, sulle tracce di esuli e cospiratori in una dimensione europea e mediterranea.
During the nineteenth century, the police control represented, for the European continent, first one of the pivotal components of the international system developed by Metternich and then a function to be reshaped in view of the political crisis due to the events of 1848.
In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in the aftermath of the French Decade, the police were the focus of an intense reflection, inclined to rethink it beyond the Napoleonic model, whose outcome was not at all obvious. The issues that emerged in this context concerning the nature and limits of police power were destined to remain, in the following decades, the subject of a debate developed in the broader framework of the Italian peninsula. The revolutionary turmoil crossing the Kingdom, in particular following the 1848 revolutions, nevertheless placed in the foreground the urgency of deploying suitable devices and instruments to make the prevailing task of police control a defense of the status quo. Moreover, facing the global scale of the liberal-democratic threat, the Bourbon police rearranged political surveillance in a transnational sense, resorting to secret agents and spies, but also to consuls and diplomats, on the trail of exiles and conspirators in a European and Mediterranean dimension.
a reconstruction of the reflections on the power of the police which developed in
the various pre-unification states of Italy, from the Restoration up until national
unification. This periodization demonstrates, it is argued, the connection
between the development of the modern police and a new concept of “security”,
both aspects of the larger process of state building in the nineteenth century.
The analysis draws upon a series of memoirs and manuscripts produced in
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, integrating them with a broader treatise and
pamphlet literature which flourished in the Italian peninsula during the first
half of the nineteenth century. The comparison of manuscript with published,
literary sources enables the identification of common themes. These include:
the complex relationship between the police and politics, and between security
and power (particularly, the discretionary power of the police, its relationship
with the law and the risk of arbitrary recourse to espionnage tactics)
been the focus of a recently renewed historiography. The essay aims to contribute
to this new research thread from a peculiar perspective, that of the articulation of
the state in a Mediterranean dimension, investigated though a specifi c case study:
the intelligence activity for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies carried out by the
diplomatic mission in Constantinople. The latter turned out to be a crucial node
of the Bourbon network of the state abroad as well as of a conservative inter-state
network with the common aim of political surveillance. Moreover, the analysis sheds
light on the intersection of state apparatuses with the network of exiles moving
across the Mediterranean. Shifting the point of view from the national Italian movement to the modernization of one of the conservative states in the peninsula,
framed in a transnational context, the article shows a more politically complex and
plural nineteenth-century Mediterranean than usually outlined.
gestione del controllo statale. Il primo attiene alla dialettica tra la dimensione territoriale,
caratteristica della nuova geografia del potere sovrano e del suo rapporto
con i sudditi, e quella extra-territoriale in cui gli stranieri, in virtù del proprio status,
tendevano a gravitare. Il secondo aspetto riguarda invece l’emergere, proprio
a partire dalla cesura rivoluzionaria e napoleonica, della connotazione politica
come centrale nell’ambito del controllo, nelle forme in cui esso venne declinato
nel corso dell’Ottocento. Il saggio si propone, ricostruendo le forme della
sorveglianza sugli stranieri dispiegate nel Mezzogiorno preunitario, di esplorare
queste due dimensioni della questione su un duplice scenario, volgendo dapprima
lo sguardo all’intero Regno, nella sua parte continentale, per poi restringere
il campo di analisi alla sua capitale, la città di Napoli.
several identity markers. As the topic of heritage is one the most recently addressed within
the wide bibliography of food studies, in particular food history has been analysing how
societies and groups historically produced food heritages.
This essay chooses the Unesco international food labelling as a lens to analyze limits and
critic points of the institutional heritagizazion. Firstly, the essay will examine the territorial
identity paradigms involved in Unesco institutional procedures and their articulation on
different spatial levels, which tend to overlap and intersect each other in complex
geographies. Secondly, it will analyze risks and problems of the constant recourse to past
and history - related to issues of authenticity, tradition, nostalgia - aimed at legitimizing
food heritage and identity claims.
assistenza e supporto ai cosiddetti ‘emigrati veneti e romani’. Questi ultimi, accolti sulla base di riconosciuti contributi alla causa nazionale o di solidarietà politica,
tesero tuttavia a trasformarsi, sovente loro malgrado, in una massa di individui privi di occupazione e al tempo stesso di qualsivoglia sussidio, e perciò potenzialmente pericolosi per i contesti urbani in cui andavano a inserirsi. Per questo ben presto alla cittadinanza politica si chiese di arretrare a fronte della tutela dell’ordine pubblico, determinando un restringimento di fatto
degli orizzonti di cittadinanza politica prospettati a coloro che condividevano idee e progetti del movimento di unificazione.
These administrative innovations let the Kingdom of Naples share in an experience which involved all European countries included in the Napoleonic sphere. In this way, it took part to a phenomenon of intense circulation of patterns and knowledge developed on an European scale, recently investigated by a growing international literature.
But how did the installation of new institutional and administrative structures, at the time extensively widespread in Europe, occurred in the specific context of the Kingdom of Naples?
The contribution - through an investigation of sources held at Naples State Archive and Naples Historical Municipal Archive - will aim to highlight how in the Neapolitan case the French innovations interacted on the one hand, with previous identification practices, and, on the other hand, with rooted procedures and geographies for the control of territory and with the figures traditionally in charge of it.
Spatial turn; regional spaces; new national histories; microhistory; social actors
Ma r t e d ì 7 g e n n a i o 2 0 2 0 , o r e 1 5. 0 0
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Nella prima metà dell’Ottocento furono due i processi che, profondamente intrecciati l’uno con l’altro, contribuirono a trasformare il Mezzogiorno continentale in un territorio per la prima volta soggetto al pieno controllo dell’apparato statale. Il primo si espresse nella radicale ridefinizione amministrativa dello spazio interno del Regno, così come nella stabilizzazione del suo unico confine di terra, ovvero quello con lo Stato Pontificio. Il secondo si concretizzò invece nell’affinamento delle procedure di sorveglianza delle frontiere e di controllo del movimento delle persone, alle quali venne imposto di munirsi di inediti documenti di riconoscimento individuale nel momento in cui decidevano di mettersi in viaggio. E tuttavia, non si trattò in alcun modo di un processo unilaterale, dal momento che le istituzioni deputate al controllo del territorio, in primo luogo la polizia, furono costantemente poste a confronto con preesistenti pratiche sociali dello spazio, alternativi orizzonti di identificazione individuale e collettiva, o addirittura appropriazioni “creative”, da parte della popolazione, del nuovo tracciato confinario e dei nuovi dispositivi identificativi di matrice francese. Lasciando affiorare dalle carte d’archivio storie di passaporti scambiati e venduti, di creazione e disvelamento di identità fittizie, di controversie territoriali dalle radici secolari, il libro ricostruisce i modi in cui, attraverso un’interazione dialettica tra istituzioni e società, il Mezzogiorno preunitario prese parte a quei processi costitutivi di una moderna statualità, che erano all’epoca in atto su scala europea.