Ethnic and political entanglements of Australia’s Italian migrant press [La stampa degli italiani in Australia e gli intrecci etnici e politici]

Ethnic and political entanglements of Australia’s Italian migrant press [La stampa degli italiani in Australia e gli intrecci etnici e politici]

From modest beginnings in 1885, the Italian press experienced a much smaller presence in Australia historically than that of the more voluminous initiatives from Italian migrant communities around the world. While this can be explained by the comparatively low numbers of Italians making their way to the Antipodes after British colonisation1, Italians nevertheless faced many of the same issues and crises in Australia as elsewhere, which a study of their periodical press reflects. The forces that caused two eras of mass migration, coinciding with colonisation, nation-building processes, imperialism, global catastrophes and, from the 1970s, policies around cultural diversity – in Australia as in other parts of the western world – at times facilitated, but also infringed upon and restricted Italian migrants’ opportunities to establish and maintain community newspapers. Indeed, generally the emergence and folding of the migrant press ebbed and flowed according to assimilation processes and periods of high migration intake. Today, there are 56 known Italian presses in Australia, many short-lived and others directed to a specific audience (such as Italian Catholics or a local suburban readership) and printed in various formats, mainly broadsheets but also magazine, bulletin and online styles. This chapter focuses on the ethnic and political entanglements of Italian migrants by mapping their contributions to their communities and Australia through the Italian periodical press within Australian history.

The final English version of this chapter was translated into Italian for publication.