Books, writings and the market: the 89th edition of the Africa and the Mediterranean dossier examines the current state of African publishing in the global context and the impact it has on the diversity of the local and international publishing industry in this era of globalization.

Work: after years monopolized by the theme of landings and reception management, finally a new theme – one that is concrete, positive, and “normal” – is becoming increasingly relevant in the debate on migration in Europe. For those who arrive on the Continent, integrating into the working environment represents the possibility of contributing to the economic and social life of the host country while rebuilding an independent life.

In most African countries, the presence of contemporary media – even those which are traditional and made global, interactive and social thanks to web 2.0 – means that today, more than ever, people are both independent producers and users of a narratives on social issues, human relationships, politics, and big issues like poverty, corruption, democracy.

They can be intentional or forced, programmed or spontaneous, successful or just wishful thinking. Whatever they be, the returns of migrants to their country of origin are never easy. The migrants call themselves into question as well as their own migration project and expose themselves to the judgements of both the family and community. Increasingly seen as a development opportunity, thanks to the skills acquired abroad and subsequently put into action in the country of origin, voluntary returns are at the centre of a number of national and European programs. These, however, continue to struggle to take off.

African fashion – a generic expression that can include both the actual conception/production on the continent and the Western inspiration from styles and practices of clothing in Africa – takes on a complex and growing role on the international fashion scene and is subject to various influences.

Football pitches, gyms, and sports halls are places for communal living and dialogue, where physical exercise not only strengthens the body but also relationships.

Even today, news reports on the numerous cases of racism, among which that of Balotelli is the most well-known, demonstrate how these meeting places can become environments of discrimination and/or cultural claim.

The uncontaminated and empty African landscapes – idealized in many exotic images and used in different contexts, like the tourism industry – are endangered by the increase of pollution, while political deficiencies and internal and external conflicts add to the worsening of the situation. Building on this image, the Europeans arriving to the African continent […]

For a long time the media studies analyze the representations of migrants and asylum seekers offered by the European media, highlighting the distortions  omissions and tones geared much more to the emergency and the exceptional nature of the migration phenomenon that the awareness of the structurality the same and the need to manage it as […]

Every man has to eat in order to survive. The necessity to get sufficient and always better food has shaped the human behavior along the centuries and has made food a central feature in every culture, assigning great socio-economic and political power to it. Being the power of food so wide, it would be rather […]

In 2014 the movements of forced migrants seem to have assumed historic significance. Syria, Libya, Sahel, Iraq, Somalia and Eritrea, Nigeria, Ukraine… The world is in a state of turmoil and, even if the destabilizing factors are diversified and are rooted in more or less distant causes, the consequence on the affected people always seems […]