The Cartographic Lives of the Italian Fascist Empire

This chapter explores the everyday and obsessive circulation of maps that emerged during the Italian Fascism’s Empire in contexts different from surveys and expeditions. Although the first attempt of colonization occurs after the Italian Unity in 1861, it is under the regime of Mussolini (1922-1943) that a coherent imperial order started to be culturally, politically, economically and socially performed. Moreover, it is under Fascism, that the relation between geography and power strengthen. The cultural and political machine of the Fascist empire relied on different forms of mapping as broader ‘things in action’ that colonised many objects of everyday life with clear propagandistic intent. Considering the bodily practices, the sensory experiences, the protocols and pragmatics developed by different kinds of maps and map-like objects during the fascist empire, the author suggests that without the constant visualisation, listening and circulation of the colonial and imperial mapping in various mundane settings - repetitive enough to become unconscious and unthinking - the empire could have not been imagined, enacted and even contested by ordinary citizens and political actors. In engaging with a sensory cartographic history of the everyday Italian Fascism’s Empire, the author attempts to re-enact past cartographic performances and practices of the empire to understand the epistemic of cartographic artefacts as incubators of everyday imperialism. It also aims to unveil the material power of imperialism operating through cartographic informality’s consumption and interaction.