UC Berkeley

The word convivenza is used to describe peaceful ‘co-existence’ between diverse communities, particularly religious communities. The idea that convivenza is central to Sicilian identity has become commonplace in local discourse, and is often used to distinguish the island from mainland Italy and Europe. “Every Sicilian has Arab DNA,” I am often told during research in Sicily, “because Sicily was once an Islamic Emirate.” “While Jews were being persecuted in central Europe,” some argue, “they thrived in Sicily for centuries.” This narrative is neither new nor universally accepted – it is based on contested interpretations of Sicily’s past and present – but has acquired additional meanings in the twenty-first century, with Sicily now a point of arrival for migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Whereas numerous scholars have analyzed the contemporary effects of Américo Castro’s famous convivencia thesis in Spain (1948), the construction of a similar narrative in Sicily merits closer attention than it has thus far received. I focus on Palermo, Sicily’s regional capital, where this narrative is especially influential. I blend cultural studies and ethnography, both in-person and digital, to study the cultural memory of Palermo’s Jewish and Islamic past; its contemporary repercussions for the heritage sphere, and for the city’s religious landscape; and the role of the convivenza narrative in political rhetoric.

I first ask how the convivenza narrative encourages ‘rediscoveries’ of Palermo’s multi-religious heritage. I study how Palermo’s Jewish history has been emphasized in the past twenty years, over half a millennium after Sicily’s Jews were expelled in the late fifteenth century. I examine the emergence of Jewish ‘sites of memory’ in Palermo, including a medieval Jewish quarter; a pool that some believe was once a miqweh (ritual bath); and a former inquisitorial prison. I then turn my attention to two mosques and a planned future synagogue in Palermo, all located in former churches, arguing that heritage-based narratives are used to weave these into the contemporary city’s fabric. Finally, I analyze political messaging by one of the most vocal proponents of a ‘cosmopolitan’ Sicilian identity: Leoluca Orlando, Mayor of Palermo until 2022. I evaluate how Orlando uses history-based rhetoric to make pro-immigration arguments, framing Mediterranean ‘hospitality’ as an inherently Sicilian value. I build on studies of nostalgia, heritage, and cultural memory, critically examining the construction of a ‘cosmopolitan’ Mediterranean identity. I analyze how the stereotyped image of Sicily as ‘not quite European’ – once used within Italy to disparage Sicilians – is being celebrated by some in the twenty-first century, particularly by those who look at Italy’s anti-immigrant central government with trepidation.