In the Wake of the Homeric Periples: Escapes, Rejections, Landings and Emergencies in Italy from the Second Post-war Period Up to the Pandemic Times

Abstract

Since preomeric times, the Mediterranean routes have met the largest natural watershed in the Mediterranean, the Italian peninsula. The old and new Ulysses, fleeing from their Ithacas and looking for new homes, daily land on the Italian and European coasts, posing logistical, social, political and cultural problems that were crucial for the past and are equally crucial for the present and for the future. The history of these flows in the time framework going from the second post-war period to the Covid pandemics times of these days can serve to better understand and deal with them. At the same time, the analysis of the italian reactions to the arrivals of immigrants and to the increasing presence of them in the territory, that include also a long chain of emergencies and delayed laws here sketched, must arouse new points of view and encourage new solutions that are more in step with the times. A different and deeper awareness of the migratory phenomenon can also bring to a revaluation of the positive and different contributions of migrants to the complex history of the Mediterranean.