Introduction

Journal title ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA
Author/s Fabio De Ninno, Tommaso Piffer, Tullia Catalan, Norbert Parschalk
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2026/310 Suppl.
Language Italian Pages 15 P. 5-19 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/IC2026-310-S1OA-001
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This special issue examines how Italian borders changed during détente, from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. It considers the border not as a mere geographic line, but as a political, administrative, and symbolic dispositif where security, mobility, control practices, and local experiences intersect. Across different scales, the essays reconstruct transformations in Alpine and Adriatic borderlands (Trieste, Alto Adige/South Tyrol, Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and in the maritime frontiers of the central Mediterranean, where the territorialisation of the sea and disputes over fisheries and energy resources generated new forms of conflict. The collection therefore proposes a non-linear reading of détente: opening and cooperation coexisted with selection, surveillance, and new vulnerabilities. By comparing land and maritime borders, the special issue highlights differentiated temporalities, while identifying the shared historiographical problem of the concrete reconfiguration of Italian borders in the later Cold War.

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Fabio De Ninno, Tommaso Piffer, Tullia Catalan, Norbert Parschalk, Introduzione in "ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA" 310 Suppl./2026, pp 5-19, DOI: 10.3280/IC2026-310-S1OA-001