Staging work in the corporatist state.Visual propaganda in Fascist Italy and in Peronist Argentina in a transnational perspective (1922-1955)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Alexander Nützenadel
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 225520915

Against the background of the economic crisis, authoritarian regimes in Europe initiated far-reaching reforms of their economic and labor systems inspired by corporatism. The Fascist 'stato corporativo' served as a model for economic reforms in many other countries. When the corporatist model came to spread in Latin America since the 1930s, the Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón drew significantly on the Italian precedent. Not only the economic reforms but also the ideology was at the center stage of the political propaganda in both regimes. The visual propaganda of work and workers has been widely neglected by historical research on Italian Fascism and Argentinian Peronism. By making extensive use of the possibilities of the modern mass media for the first time, visual propaganda served as an instrument to diffuse the new corporatist labor ideology and to obtain consensus among the population.In the transnational comparison of visual representations of work and the worker within the propaganda of Fascist Italy and Peronist Argentina, the project aims at anaylzing the interrelation between propaganda and labour reforms. Furthermore, in the view of the revolutionary and nationalist discourse in Italian Fascism and Peronism, the visual propaganda shall be examined for their relationship with local iconographic traditions as well as contemporary global trends. Taking into consideration the transfer of economic and social concepts and their propagandistic representation, the project aims at elaborating a comparative political iconography of work. Thereby, national specifics and transnational entanglements in the propagandistic mise-en-scène of the corporatist model as an important stabilizer of both regimes will be explored.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants