The Italian ‘Taste’: The Far-Right and the Performance of Exclusionary Populism During the European Elections
Visualitza/Obre
Autor/a
Altres autors/es
Data de publicació
2020Resum
This article examines populist leaders’ politicisation of food in their social media performances. More precisely, it analyses Matteo Salvini’s Instagram posts during the 2019 European elec-tions, and the way food is mobilized for populist and nationalist purposes. The main argument is that food serves as a cultural trope that confers identi-ty, reinforcing social divisions and the terms of national and class belonging. Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1984) social critique of taste, political leaders have traditionally placed themselves on the side of a distant gastronomic culture; that of a high-end elite. However, populist leaders perform a twofold role, attempting to present them-selves as part of the common people and distancing themselves from the traditional elite. This change in so-cial positioning is reflected in their social media accounts, often posting “authentic” glimpses of their cultural practices, such as cooking and eat-ing. Methodologically, this paper uses a mixed-methods concurrent design, combining digital ethnography and visual rhetoric analysis for examining both the discursive and the aesthet-ic clues that construct Salvini’s social positioning towards taste. Through food, being Italian becomes a matter of constructing Italian authenticity against the national intellectual and political elite, but also against the Eu-ropean value-building project.
Tipus de document
Article
Versió publicada
Llengua
Anglès
Matèries (CDU)
32 - Política
Paraules clau
Eleccions
Europa
Aliments
Populisme
Nacionalisme
Política
Pàgines
21 p.
Publicat per
Universitat Ramon Llull. Facultat de Comunicació i Relacions Internacionals Blanquerna
Publicat a
Tripodos, núm. 49, 2020
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Drets
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