Giovanna Parmigiani – författare

Can the way a word is used give legitimacy to a political movement? Feminism, Violence, and Representation in Modern Italy traces the use of the word "femminicidio" (or "femicide") as a tool to mobilize Italian feminists, particularly the Union of Women in Italy (UDI). Based on nearly two years of fieldwork among feminist activists, Giovanna Parmigiani takes a broad look at the many ways in which violence inflects the lives of women in Italy. From unchallenged gendered grammar rules to the representation of women as victims, Parmigiani examines the devaluing of women's contribution to their communities through the words and experiences of the women she interviews. She describes the first uses of the word "femminicidio" as a political term used by and within feminist circles and traces its spread to ultimate legitimization and national relevance. The word redefined women as a political subject by building an imagined community of potentially violated women. In doing so, it challenged Italians to consider the status of women in Italian society, and to make this status a matter of public debate. It also problematized the connection between women and tropes of women as objects of suffering and victimhood. Parmigiani considers this exchange within the context of Italian Catholic heritage, a precarious economy, and long-held notions of honor and shame. Parmigiani provides a careful and searing consideration of the ways in which representations of violence and the politics of this representation are shaping the future of women in Italy and beyond.

Can the way a word is used give legitimacy to a political movement? Feminism, Violence, and Representation in Modern Italy traces the use of the word "femminicidio" (or "femicide") as a tool to mobilize Italian feminists, particularly the Union of Women in Italy (UDI). Based on nearly two years of fieldwork among feminist activists, Giovanna Parmigiani takes a broad look at the many ways in which violence inflects the lives of women in Italy. From unchallenged gendered grammar rules to the representation of women as victims, Parmigiani examines the devaluing of women's contribution to their communities through the words and experiences of the women she interviews. She describes the first uses of the word "femminicidio" as a political term used by and within feminist circles and traces its spread to ultimate legitimization and national relevance. The word redefined women as a political subject by building an imagined community of potentially violated women. In doing so, it challenged Italians to consider the status of women in Italian society, and to make this status a matter of public debate. It also problematized the connection between women and tropes of women as objects of suffering and victimhood. Parmigiani considers this exchange within the context of Italian Catholic heritage, a precarious economy, and long-held notions of honor and shame. Parmigiani provides a careful and searing consideration of the ways in which representations of violence and the politics of this representation are shaping the future of women in Italy and beyond.

Based on an ethnographic research among contemporary Pagan communities in Southern Italy (Salento, Apulia), The Spider Dance challenges ideas of historicity, healing, place-making and the experience of time among persons engaged in reviving, continuing, or re-creating traditional Pagan practices. The Spider Dance looks at a specific Pagan group, the sisters of the cerchio (circle), and their ritual practice and interpretation of the traditional dance and music called pizzica. Pizzica, both in the history of Salento and in the scholarly tradition that studied it, is associated with tarantismo, a phenomenon present in that area for centuries and attested until the 1980s. Affecting mostly (but not only) women, tarantismo has been described in the form of malaise and physical suffering—sometimes also as a form of “possession”—thought to be provoked by the bite of tarantula spiders, and cured with pizzica music and dance. At the turn of the century tarantismo disappeared and new forms, called neotarantismi, emerged. Not specifically linked to suffering and healing anymore, they have been interpreted mainly as forms of identity politics. The Spider Dance describes a novel “spiritual” form of neotarantismo, whose relevance is not limited to a description of the cerchio and their Pagan practices. It also makes some key practical and theoretical contributions to the study of contemporary religions, of “historicities,” and to scholarly debates around “well-being,” in Italy and abroad.