Description
This paper examines the evolving political narratives surrounding confinement and internment in Italy’s relationship with Libya, from the early 20th century to the present. It focuses on two key moments: the use of internment camps during Italian colonial rule in Libya (1910s–1930s), and Italy’s more recent economic and political involvement in the infrastructure of migrant detention camps on Libyan territory. The study traces both continuities and ruptures in how political elites justify the control and containment of populations in Libya. It does so through a critical discourse analysis of Italian parliamentary debates from 1930 to1933 (when Italy created sixteen concentration camps in the Cyrenaica region), as well as those from 2003 (when Italy first financed the construction of a camp for undocumented migrants) to 2023 (when the last Memorandum of Understanding to fund detention centres in Libya).
While Fascist-era narratives were explicitly racialised and framed around civilising missions, colonial pacification, and security imperatives against “nomadic disorder,” contemporary political rhetoric often invokes security concerns, migration management, and international cooperation. However, both periods reveal how Libya has been constructed as a frontier of Italian (and later European) security, and how confinement practices have been legitimised through shifting political vocabularies. The research also shows that Italy’s economic participation in the management and funding of migrant detention camps in Libya echoes earlier material and strategic interests tied to governance through internment.
By comparing the political discourse around colonial camps and today’s outsourced detention regime, the paper contributes to scholarship on colonial continuities in the governance of non-white bodies and the racialised geographies of confinement. It highlights the long-standing Italian political investments in mechanisms of extraterritorial control and explores how ideas of discipline, security, and civilisation have been reshaped—but not entirely discarded—across time.
