Between commodification and politicization: the social invention of Bella Ciao

This paper explores the intricate relationship between popular music, popularity and politics, using the song Bella Ciao as a focal point. Through the notion of ‘social invention’, i.e. grasping a complex and contradictory process of social production/consumption and mediation, the analysis examines how Bella Ciao functions as a particular cultural commodity, adapting to shifting cultural contexts. I argue that the song’s fortune can be explained in terms of the constitutive tension between processes of commodification and processes of politicization, which is mirrored in the parallelism between its use and exchange value and populist logic of difference and equivalence. Ultimately, Bella Ciao operates as a flexible platform for the constitution of the political agent ‘people,’ thus fostering a sense of shared identity and embodied historical agency.