Small-mindedness writ large: On the migrations and manners of prejudice

Abstract

Globalisation is not only about commercial goods. It is also about the migration from centres of cultural authority of increasingly standardised but locally inflected forms of racism and other varieties of prejudice. It is often marked by disclaimers that, while appearing to mask racist attitudes with reason and etiquette, actually accentuate their destructive implications by rendering them rhetorically palatable, especially within the intimate spaces of local and national society. Using examples from Italy and elsewhere, I suggest that both racism and its associated disclaimers have migrated together, reflecting the powerful expansion of a global hierarchy of value as well as of intimate fo..