The Southernification of the Pandemic in Italy

Abstract

Starting from February 2020, Italy was the first among the European countries, to experience dramatic rises in daily COVID-19 deaths and contagions. An important aspect that distinguished the first COVID-19 wave (Feb-Jun 2020) from the following waves of infection in Italy was the sheer imbalance, in terms of deaths and contagion, between Northern and Southern regions of the country. Despite the fact that the South was far less hit by the disease, a series of narratives that associated the spread of the epidemic with some sort of Southern infector started to appear, conveyed by social media posts, news pieces, talk shows, and even football banners. In this chapter, there is an attempt to identify and critically analyse the discourses that inscribe a characteristic “Southernification” of the pandemic in Italy, that is a partial and symbolic attempt to (1) discursively transfer the infection to the South; and/or (2) hand over the responsibilities that are behind the particularly violent first wave of infections in the country to Southern communities, polities, and cultural practices.