Abstract
[Truncated] This research is a feminist, self-reflexive, ethnographic project based on oral history and participant observation aimed at contributing to the Italian feminist record.
The study focuses on the Italian women who migrated to Australia in the 1950s, whose post-WWII departure from the institutionally patriarchal and poverty-stricken state disappeared from the Italian national narrative and is only partially recorded in the Australian. Beginning with the premise that these women left their country of origin when it was on the verge of the social and cultural changes that culminated in teh radical movements of the late 1960s and 1970s, it examins the emancipatory and/or liberatory potential of migration: (how) did the transformation of habitus contribute to allowing these migrant women to acquire the freedom, independence, and sense of entitlement that non-migrated Italian women had meanwhile been achieving (also) thanks to the (predominantly middle class and/or intellectual) Italian feminist movement? How were the (non-white, peasant or workign class) women migrants positioned with respect to both mainstream (white) Australian society and the cultures of their birthplaces? What opportunities did migration give to the subjects of this research to acquire rights, re-arrange gender toles, and detach themselves from patriarchal (self-)framings?
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Qualification | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Supervisors/Advisors |
|
| Publication status | Unpublished - 2015 |
Access to Document
- Download PDF
This work is protected by Copyright. You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own non-commercial research or study. Any other use requires permission from the copyright owner. The Copyright Act requires you to attribute any copyright works you quote or paraphrase.