Introduction Author(s): Italian Core Group Source: Feminist Review, No. 87, Italian Feminisms (2007), pp.

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87

introduction
Thisissue represents one of the first efforts to present to an international thepolitical related to that audience and cultural practices 'precariousness' in unfolded have contemporary Italy. In order to explain the politicalexperiences overthe that have developed issueofprecarietd inalternative and cultural inthis political public spheres, Issue is addressed via the and Special precarity following key topics:gender and sexuality;work; narration,migration, transculturation; feminism lifeand politics and history diaspora.Here, meet,while everyday biography crosspaths, to constitute forcontemporary an important laboratory politics, which references and anti-racist of feminist, gendered, anti-capitalist points view. As a groupof individuals in both politicalpracticesand involved academicwork, our participation in militant and collective are practices reflected here.In the creation of thisSpecialIssue of Feminist Review from we decidedto follow a methodology akinto 'focusgroups' Italy, gatherings in order to allowa greater ofvoicesto emerge. Theparticipants of diversity the Italian'editorial in different Italian group' organized one-daymeetings citiesto enablea discussion ofprecariousness a range oftopicswith through constituted individuals andgroups. This is perhaps most evident in differently thecontributions inthe OpenSpace section. The byeach of thefour groups firstfocus groupheld in Bolognaconsidered the topic of genderand while the in addressed issues of workand second, Milan, sexuality, and the third on women's one, in Naples,focused precariousness migration and precariousness. to changing the last Owing politicalconstituencies, sessionchanged from a fourth focus in Florence to an interview being group with MercedesFrias and Francesca Moccagatta,experienced political activistsfrom'Punto di Partenza',whose observations reflecton the interconnections between and transformations in women's diaspora,racism In all the as a mobile contributions, politics. precariousness emerges concept social and 'racial' experiences. reshaped byvarying generational, In recentyears,precarietd in which has become a battlefield multiple and forces, ideas and practices haveresponded to transformations subjects in production and labour. TheItalianterm in has beentranslated precarietd In several ways: precarity, the first instance, precariousness, precarie. from the Latin has been used in Italianto indexits etymology, precarietd - to pray. howsomeonein precarious Thetermemphasizes precor-preaece used as an adjective, conditions tends to resortto prayer. Precarious, of and produces indicatesa lack and stability that threatens, security worker is somebody flexible work. It also performing danger.A precarious
feminist review 87 2007
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2007 FeministReview.0141-7789/07 $30 www.feminist-review.com

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or service indicatessomeone employed temporarily, mostlyin information with work contracts and schedules without social non-standard sectors, In the English-speaking would or benefits. world,such a definition security to the notion of temporary worker or a flexible worker (definition correspond 2004: 18) AlexFoti'scontribution to Green magazine, pepper adapted from Asa concept has beenusedto bothlegitimize as wellas oppose 'precariousness' of capital-labourrelations.Domesticeconomicpolicies the deregulation and are part of wider processes of 'modernization' precarity underlying of 'precariousness' seem to be and opponents 'europeanization'. Supporters divided along a clear line: neoliberal'modernizers' (includingliberals, sit socialists and on one and trade unionists conservatives) democrats, side, on theother. and communists Intheacademicfield, each discipline has focused on different Thesehave included of the facetsof 'precariousness'. the impact neworganization of labouron individuals and consequent as family strategies, wellas changing notions of of self-perception and processes individualization. We have decidedto expandour focusfrom the institutional terrain to wider alternative narratives and practices within of working and againstthe category on the basis of variedexperiences ofprecarieta'. Grassroots activism therefore has transformed from precarietd being,in the an economic new of forms and labour main, category addressing occupation to a moreopen instrument of struggle, resistance and the relations, enabling of contemporary livesand subjectivities, in quitenovel re-imagination politics, are at the core of the debates we present in this ways.Thesereformulations of Feminist as to Review, theycorrespond significant Special Issue political level. Thus,as elaboratedin this changesat the nationaland international as a field oftensions, a sitethatregisters SpecialIssue,precariousness emerges the exerciseof power,resistanceand appropriation, in whichinstitutional as wellas activists 'from below'weigh fordifferent subjects up the possibilities and actions.It is an open and ongoing which practices imaginative experience includes contradictions and re-composition, as ('new' and 'old'), fragmentation wellas local and globalintersections. Theemergence ofthisissueand itsshapeis very much linked to ourown activism and academic positionings. These activities offer for possibilities re-thinking ofstruggle, andfor lifestyles, jobs andforms precarietd re-negotiating according to the needs,desires and agendasof radicalsubjectivities in timeand space.

doi:10.1057/palgrave.fr. 9400366

Italiancore group

feminist

review

87

2007

introduction

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