In academic and/or cultural debate, the word «Mediterranean» elicits mixed reactions and is revealing of normative considerations and the role of politics. This chapter explores two different perspectives that emerge from the extensive literature on this subject, and suggests a third, inspired by the contemporary trend of the debate (or rather, its absence). First, the chapter examines conceptions of the Mediterranean as a unitary entity or political actor in and of itself. The Mediterranean as a «cradle of civilization», originally described by Braudel, has been taken up more recently by Horden and Purcell, who emphasized the central role of connectivity between local communities, and by the Italian school of geo-philosophy headed by Bassano, for whom the Mediterranean is a specific value system to be respected. A second perspective emphasizes instead the Mediterranean as an area of conflict, characterized by deep fault lines. Huntington's position, captured by the expression «clash of civilizations», has been taken up and reworked by the post-colonial perspective, which sees the Mediterranean as an area characterized by permanent tensions. The chapter suggests a third option, however, noting that the word «Mediterranean» is disappearing from political vocabularies.
LSE, London School of Economics, United Kingdom - ORCID: 0000-0003-0897-489X
Titolo del capitolo
Il Mediterraneo, tra unità, frammentazione e oblio
Autori
Federica Bicchi
Lingua
Italian
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-595-0.13
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Eirene e Atena
Sottotitolo del libro
Studi di politica internazionale in onore di Umberto Gori
Curatori
Fulvio Attinà, Luciano Bozzo, Marco Cesa, Sonia Lucarelli
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
208
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-595-0
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-594-3
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-595-0
Collana
Studi e saggi
ISSN della collana
2704-6478
e-ISSN della collana
2704-5919