Women's History in Italy: Cultural Itineraries and New Proposals in Current Historiographical Trends

Abstract

This article analyzes theoretical premises for women's history, in general, and, in Italy, in particular. The relationship between feminism and women's history in the 1970s strongly influenced Italian historiography on women. The most significant developments in women's history occurred in the 1980s, thanks, in part, to the demise of dependent relationships among history, scholarship, and political ideologies, as well as the birth of gender studies in Italy. The plurality of interests and the mixing of disciplines in Italian research since the 1980s indicate that in Italy, as elsewhere, principal theoretical reference points are cultural, involving analysis of such topics as relationship networks, the family, and the body. These subjects of study permit the development of research and methodological reflections on the construction of gender categories and their nexus with social, familial, institutional, and governmental structures. Gender identity and resource identity are among the new concepts that have emerged in recent Italian scholarship on women's history.