Ethnic Violence and Riots in Italy: The Case of Rome, 2014

In this article I present an overview of Italian experiences of social unrest and riots, with a focus on the wave of protests and ethnic conflicts that occurred in some areas on the outskirts of Rome during the last months of 2014, when groups of Italian citizens – often led by right-wing politicians and neo-fascist political movements – organized street blocks, set fires in garbage containers, attacked buildings where refugees and asylum seekers were living and chased immigrants in these neighbourhoods. The case explored here, based on the first results of an ethnographic study, is an example of ethnic conflict in which immigrants – and Roma people – are the target of violent actions undertaken by natives, with an important role played by radical right movements in reinforcing the protest and in the decision to engage in rioting. I describe in detail the characteristics and the context of these events, analysing differences from and similarities to past Italian experiences of ethnic conflict and discussing the preliminary results of my work in relation to the main hypotheses discussed in the literature on ethnic conflicts.