Marco

The research project aims to improve our knowledge of gender dynamics within the workplace in the pre-industrial age, focusing on the Italian peninsula between the 15th and 19th century. The objective is to quantify in which activities and in what percentage women and men were engaged and to reconceptualize of some of the main categories in historical analysis and in the current debate, such as productive/unproductive, paid/unpaid, public/private, and domestic/care/non-domestic work. Therefore, the project includes every form of work, be it rewarded with money, non-monetary means, or carried out in compliance with family duties and forms of reciprocity between family members, parents, neighbours.

While previous studies have focused mainly on urban areas, this project will also examine the rural context, which it will attempt to quantify through a geo-referenced analysis, owing to the wealth of information available for Italy. Attention will also be paid to short and long-distant mobility.

New research will be carried out in the Italian archives, making innovative use of the abundance of information especially in criminal sources. The results will then be compared in a European perspective through a final conference. The project will create a qualitative and a quantitative database using a novel methodology that links the language used, space utilisation, and forms of mobility to accomplish its goals. It will also enable us to broaden the knowledge of the dynamics affecting the world of work in the pre-industrial age by linking gender, work, workplaces and mobility in a comparative and quantitative way for the first time.

A long term perspective will offer insight on dynamics that are very important for the current debate, which the outbreak of the pandemic has exacerbated. These include gender discrimination in the workplace, the work done in the domestic sphere, gender roles, and women’s contribution to national income.

In today’s world, the concept of borders extends beyond geographical lines etched on maps. Borders are dynamic and constantly evolving. They shape, and are shaped by, the flows of migration, the rise of nationalism, and the stories of people, ideas and objects moving across them. As Etienne Balibar (2002: 84) reminds us, “Borders are no longer the shores of politics, or the edges of power; they have become the space of the political itself.”

In a world grappling with migration crises, reactionary nationalism, and the never-ending building of walls, MOBILITY ON THE EDGE offers a multidisciplinary approach across geography, history, and anthropology to reflect on the profound impact borders have on human mobility and the environment we inhabit, asking how we can create a more sensitive cartography of these edges.

By exploring “zones of transition” where borders do not neatly divide but overlap and entangle (Mezzadra & Neilson, 2013), the project is thus interested in mapping spaces of friction and negotiation, where movement and containment are constantly renegotiated. “Borderworlds”—a term coined by Gloria Anzaldúa to capture the hybrid spaces at the margins are also “borders-as-skins” — a term used by Franck Billé (2017) to highlight the perceptual, bodily, aptic and sensous processes that challenge walling and de-walling practices.

Borders, in this sense, are seen by participants of this project as dynamic processes that affect human and nonhuman actors alike—maps and technologies, but also bodies, animals, and plants, all of which co-create these boundaries.

The project is also anchored in geo-philosophies of movement and processuality (Merriman, 2019), drawing attention to the ways in which human and nonhuman mobilities both transgress and reproduce borders and aims to engage with critical cartography to unpack the inherent instability of territorial borders and the ways they are continuously re-inscribed.

In this sense, one of the project’s highlights is its innovative approach to critical and cultural cartography. Students of the MA in Mobility Studies will be actively involved in the project by creating an “Alter-Atlas of Borders” — a cartographic project that rethinks borders (and mapping) using graphic, tactile, cinematic and sound-based approaches.

Some of the questions we will afford are:

• In what ways do borders materialise through everyday practices and state policies, and how do they shift in response to geopolitical changes, migration flows, or environmental factors?

• How do the movement of human and nonhuman actors, as well as data and ideas, complicate and transgress borders?

• What kinds of experiences emerge in liminal spaces, or “borderworlds”, where traditional divisions between inside and outside, citizen and foreigner, are blurred?

• How can critical cartography challenge dominant representations of borders as fixed lines on maps and propose alternative ways of understanding borders, migration stories, and mobility patterns?

We will try to tackle these questions through the following activities:

• Organising a series of seminars held at the MoHu Centre, inviting international experts on borders, critical cartorgaphy, mobility, and migration.

• Conducting an overseas mission at the Department of Geography and the Centre for Silk Road at Berkeley University to open scientific discussions on the project theme and explore potential future collaborations.

• Collaborating on creative outputs, engaging students in producing a critical and artistic exploration of borders through mapping. This creative exploration will challenge traditional map-making and offer new perspectives on global migration issues.

By focusing on these activities, participants will be able to explore the multifaceted ways in which borders are enacted, negotiated, and contested through mobility, mapping, and interdisciplinary research.

External Collaborators:

• Frank Billé, Cultural Anthropologist, Assistant Professor, Berkeley University
• Peter Merriman, Geographer, Full Professor, Aberystwyth University
• Clancy Wilmott, Geographer and Media Scholar, Assistant Professor, Berkeley University

Contact & More Information
For further details on the Mobility on the Edge project, upcoming events, or collaboration opportunities, please contact Laura Lo Presti at  laura.lopresti@unipd.it.