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Building a ‘counter-community of emotions’: feminist encounters and socio-cultural difference in 1970s Turin1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Maud Anne Bracke
Maud Anne Bracke*
Affiliation:
History, School of Humanities, University of Glasgow
*
∗Email: Maud.bracke@glasgow.ac.uk
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Abstract

The article analyses cross-class encounters within 1970s feminist campaigning from the perspective of the history of emotions. It is based on a case study of a feminist women's sexual health clinic (consultorio autogestito) in a working-class district near Turin, the Falchera, in the mid-1970s. The article investigates the role played by emotions in the creation of a sense of community among women from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds. The encounters between feminist activists from Turin and working-class women living at the Falchera are understood as framed by these emotional exchanges, which led the women involved to question in new ways their own life-stories, aspirations and understanding of libertà. It is argued that these exchanges led to a reshaping of feminist politics at the grass-roots, specifically in the articulation of strongly situated notions of liberation. The analysis is based on original interviews and interviews published at the time.

Keywords

feminismItaly1970semotionssocial activismTurin
Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 17 , Issue 2: Special issue: Emotions , May 2012 , pp. 223 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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