Mapping Love Ethnography of migrant women squatters in Florence, Italy

Abstract

Welcome to "l'occupazione delle donne" 1-"Chi è lei?"-"Lei…è un'amica. Scrive le nostre storie" Nadia M. riferendosi a me, fuori dalla scuola di Marwa 2. I have always felt that "love", perhaps because it is considered to be the center, if not the totality of a women's life, is a risky business, and one to which feminists should address much energy and ingenuity. Shere Hite, Women and Love nómadas is a state of mind. Love is a fundamental part of life. As feminists have shown, an analysis and engagement with its practice require continues efforts (hooks, 2002; Esteban & Medina & Távora, 2005). Because love-power (Jonasdottir, 2011) always takes new shapes, both in negative as well as in positive ways. Migration is one of the contexts where love transforms. It involves so many women and men in their different motivations or obligations to move, that is to be considered a contemporary feminist subject. This thesis approaches the topic of love from an even more particular perspective. It analyses the affective relationships, both past and present, of a group of migrant women squatters in Florence, Italy. The only-women migrant squat where I was hosted in order to do my fieldwork is very special. Those women, particularly the Arab group 3 , fight different layers of stereotypes that depict them as victims, defenceless and dependent. Their love stories and struggles-and how these intersect with their daily practices and political activism-will be analysed in depth in this thesis.

Love, relationships and couple happiness: A cross-cultural comparison among Spanish couples and Moroccan couples in Southern Spain

“…The decreased amount of time and importance that Muslim women place on love and couplehood coincides with other studies that assert that couple relationships for Muslim women are based more on a socio-economic materiality than on intangible sentimentality (Killawi et al, 2018). Morini (2016) explains that for Moroccan women who immigrated to Italy, love does not occupy the central space in their lives that is socially attributed to them; instead, they establish strong affective bonds and ties with other women, far from the stereotype of the submissive woman on her knees.…”