Racialised Italians’ response to #BLM: Forms of solidarity, activism and community building on digital spaces

Following the rise of the #MeToo movement, the social isolation that followed the Covid-19 pandemic and the global ascent of the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been an increase in discussions and initiatives on digital platforms. In Italy, the alignment of these various phenomena has created a new fertile ground that helped the proliferation of discussions on race related issues arguably for the first time. These have been mainly led by second generation/ racialised Italians (the terminology used to define this group is still being debated in Italy, within the community itself). This article considers the forms of digital activism that developed in Italy, specifically in the years between 2020-2023, and how these tried to disrupt forms of structural racism, epistemic violence, silencing and question the concept of allyship. It draws upon postcolonial feminist theory and the concept of intersectionality to explore how the #BLM movement provided an opportunity to address various forms of oppression in Italy.The research combines autoethnographic analysis of the sociological podcast ‘Sulla Razza' [On Race] with interviews to four prominent female activists in Milan