The grammar of the squares

Abstract

. The grammar of the squares. The yearly celebration of the international day against gender violence has been transformed in Italy, because of a particularly dramatic assassination of a young woman into a country-wide 'invasion' of the squares of the big and small cities and communities. Among the many comments and reports, a well-known young woman writer has produced a stimulating reflection which is especially suggestive as a methodological contribution for many aspects of nursing research. To understand, describe, look for changes of scenarios and values of life which are the expression of deep and contradictory components of the culture of a society, general principles and neutral roles of observers (so often advocated as normative rule for the production of knowledge) can be profoundly misleading. Only a direct, highly participatory, emotional involvement in the reality could be the appropriate methodology: a grammar and languages generated from and within the places, the times, the revolt, the desires of the collectivities who are involved.