Romano Alquati (11 February 1935 – 3 April 2010) was an Italian sociologist, political theorist and activist. He was known for his work for Operaist journal

Quaderni Rossi ''Quaderni Rossi'' (Italian for "Red Notebooks") was an Italian political journal founded in 1961 which became one of the primary sources of autonomist Marxism. The journal had a pro-Chinese stance. Its first issue appeared on 30 September 1961. ...

and his Marxist analysis of labour practices at Italian companies

FIAT Fiat Automobiles S.p.A., commonly known as simply Fiat ( , ; ), is an Italian automobile manufacturer. It became a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2014 and, in 2021, became a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division, Stellant ...

and

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been owned b ...

Early life

Alquati was born in 1935 in

Klana Klana is a municipality in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in northwestern Croatia. Geography The municipal area is situated in the densely forested Gorski kotar mountains, about north of Rijeka and the Kvarner Gulf, close to the border with Sloven ...

, Croatia, where his father had been exiled because of his left-wing stance within the

Italian Fascist party The National Fascist Party (, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, Italian Fasces of Combat. Th ...

. When Alquati was 10, his father was executed by partisans in

Vercelli Vercelli (; ) is a city and ''comune'' of 46,552 inhabitants (January 1, 2017) in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, around 600 BC. ...

in northern Italy. Alquati grew up in

Cremona Cremona ( , , ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po (river), Po river in the middle of the Po Valley. It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local city a ...

, where he shaped his political consciousness through meeting left-wing political militants, including Danilo Montaldi.

Operaismo

Before moving to Turin, he lived in Milan, at the political commune at via Sirtori 2. He moved to Turin when he was 25, where he joined the editorial staff of the political journal

alongside

Raniero Panzieri Raniero Panzieri (14 February 1921 – 9 October 1964) was an Italian politician, writer and Marxist theoretician, considered as the founder of operaismo. Biography Raniero Panzieri was born in Rome in 1921. He lived in Sicily and was active i ...

, and in 1963 founded the journal

Classe Operaia ''Classe Operaia'' (Italian for "Working Class") was a Marxist monthly magazine which was published in Italy for three years between 1964 and 1967. Its subtitle was "political monthly of the workers in struggle." History and profile ''Classe Ope ...

('Working Class') with

Mario Tronti Mario Tronti (24 July 1931 – 7 August 2023) was an Italian philosopher and politician, considered one of the founders of the theory of operaismo in the 1960s. An active member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) during the 1950s, he was, ...

and

Antonio Negri Antonio Negri (; ; 1 August 1933 – 16 December 2023) was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of ''Empire (Hardt and Negri book), Empire'' with Michae ...

Alquati's work studying labour practices in the

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A., commonly known as simply Fiat ( , ; ), is an Italian automobile manufacturer. It became a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2014 and, in 2021, became a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division, Stellant ...

factory in Turin was an early contribution to the sociology of work in Italy. He was influenced by the methodology of Danilo Montaldi and the barefoot researchers: he worked at the factories he was studying and lived with other workers. In this way, Alquati studied labour practices at the FIAT Mirafiori factory and at an

factory. His work stressed the nuances of and differences in the working class, and contributed to the idea of class composition developed by Operaist thinkers.

Academic career

In the early 1970s, Alquati left the factories to teach in universities, and continued to teach throughout the 1980s. His work anticipated deindustrialisation and the emergence of the service sector. During this period, his political thought diverged from earlier allies such as

Toni Negri Antonio Negri (; ; 1 August 1933 – 16 December 2023) was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of ''Empire (Hardt and Negri book), Empire'' with Michae ...

and

. He produced a study of the relationship of universities to the working class, and taught a course on the subject at the University of Turin until 2003. His academic work focused on globalisation and its possible alternatives; the thought of

Zygmunt Bauman Zygmunt Bauman (; ; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish–British sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. ...

on the liquid society; and women's history and politics.

Bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alquati, Romano 1935 births 2010 deaths Autonomism Labor studies scholars Workerism