Colonial Subjects and Others: Racism and Inequality during Italian Rule in the Horn of Africa

In the history of the Horn of Africa, Italian colonial rule came as a new chapter of a long history of foreigner rulers, conflicts, and translocal exchanges. Yet, Italian colonialism left long-lasting traces in the memory of the inhabitants of Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia. The present contribution deals with citizenship policy in the territories of the Horn of Africa during Italian rule (1880s–1940s). It centers on the racialized and instrumentalized form of citizenship, i.e., colonial subjecthood (sudditanza coloniale), created by the Kingdom of Italy to keep local colonial inhabitants outside of the metropolitan legal sphere. The basis for this differentiating policy was the Eurocentric assumption of a racial and cultural superiority of the colonizers vis-à-vis the colonized. Yet, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic differences kept existing in colonial society. The article examines the different meanings and contents colonial subjecthood assumed throughout the years of Italian rule and the reasons of those changes. Furthermore, it looks at how diverse members of local society faced the citizenship policy of the Italian colonizer and how they, if possible, tried to negotiate their legal condition on the spot.