Rappresentare l'emigrazione italiana. L'Argentina tra mito e «disincanto»

REPRESENTING ITALIAN EMIGRATION. ARGENTINA BETWEEN MYTH AND «DISILLUSIONMENT» This article reflects on the phenomenon of Italian emigration to Argentina, considering its representation, with the aim of understanding which kind of image of the country has been used and diffused; how it has been circulating and how it has been transmitted: in other words, which kind of perception the Italian people had of Argentinian country and people. These are some unavoidable questions to answer when we talk about such a delicate and complex subject, belonging to different areas of study. We will try to give an answer to these questions, making use of those representations typical of a political journalism which, between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, has been particularly interested in publicizing an image of South America and Argentina sometimes positive and sometimes negative. A part of this «emigration literature», in which we find travel reports and memories, guides, periodicals (gazettes and dailies) etc., has been described by the Società Geografica Italiana which, like other scientific institutions of that period, has always had a conciliatory attitude about this phenomenon, always in a very pondered way.