Massimiliano Verde & Fatou Diako
Accademia Napoletana and HAMEF Association
Dr. Massimiliano Verde is the Director of the Open Chair of Neapolitan Language and Culture at UNLP. He serves as a member of the UNESCO Chair at the University of Matanzas (Cuba) and is a prominent delegate for Linguapax International, coordinating cultural diplomacy initiatives focused on the "Southernization of Languages." Through the "Nuje" (Us) project, Dr. Verde promotes the mother tongue as an inalienable human right, working toward the recognition of ethnolinguistic identities among marginalized groups in Italy and Africa. His work establishes a strategic South-South decolonial bridge, fostering an intersectional dialogue between Neapolitan socio-linguistic realities and the nations of the Global South, with a primary focus on the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire.
Fatou Diako is an Ivorian activist and President of the HAMEF Association (and former President of the Consulta degli Immigrati in Naples), and, since 2022, a spokesperson for the Coordination Committee for Immigrants in Campania, which currently operates under informal guidelines aimed at promoting local associations working within the immigration sector.
She is also the President of the "Articolo 21 Campania", an Association of Journalists, whose primary objective is to promote and develop the principles of freedom of the press. Currently pursuing advanced studies in pattern-making at the IUAD Accademia della Moda (Institute of Universal Art and Design) in Naples, she is also an European Mediator for Intercultural Relations and Social Cohesion at the Community of Sant’Egidio, and a certified Cultural Mediator, accredited by the Campania Region and the European Union, at the GESCO training center.
Talk Information:
Nuje: The Neapolitan as a Decolonial Frontier and a South-South Bridge for Migrant Citizenships
June 12, 2026 | 9:00 AM
In this presentation, Dr. Massimiliano Verde illustrates how the Neapolitan language serves as a critical instrument for unmasking the coloniality embedded within European state structures. Utilizing the "Mendicant’s Perspective," the session deconstructs the hegemonic narrative that relegates Neapolitan to the status of a "dialect," redefining it as a language of resistance that shares a common history of systemic subordination with African languages.
The core of the analysis explores the implementation of a South-South decolonization project that links Naples and Côte d'Ivoire. Within this framework, Neapolitan functions as a "Proximity Language" for immigrant communities. For these new citizens, Neapolitan becomes the primary site for communication, social negotiation, and communal encounters. Through the practice of languaging, migrant minorities acquire a linguistic tool to linguistic citizenship, fading within the Neapolitanidiom a profound echo of their own decolonial struggles.
Supported by the endorsement of the Embassy of Cote D’Ivoire in Italy, the "Nuje" project is presented as a laboratory for urban linguistic ecology, where the synergy between Neapolitan and Ivorian languages constitutes a form of grassroots cultural diplomacy. Dr. Verde demonstrates that "Southernizing the North" entails repositioning Naples as an epistemological crossroads, where decolonization is enacted through the voices of those reclaiming their right to exist and be understood outside the constraints of Western colonial canons.