Mapping Love. Ethnography of migrant women squatters in Florence, Italy
Summary
Love is one of the most important experiences in women’s lives. It has been deconstructed by feminism in its romantic and universal facets. Love still engenders damages as well as new kinds of fulfilment and support for women. This thesis claims the importance of love as a political tool, analysing its manifestations in the stories of a group of migrant women squatters in Florence, Italy. This ethnography identifies both old patterns of subjugation disguised as love that women suffer from their partners, as well as new patterns men’s power in love takes within the migratory experience. However, this research shows also positive manifestations of love and emotions between empowered women who find the strength to free themselves from their partners’ subjugation, and establish a women-only squat. This investigation therefore manages to demonstrate why love is important in connection to migration, a current fundamental geopolitical topic, and how the practice of squatting enables the women I interviewed to fight different layers of stereotypes targeting both migrant women and Muslim women. “Sisterhood”, communal maternal practices and new forms of female multicultural cohabitation, despite the precarious and illegal aspects of living in a squat, emerge as the rich findings of my investigation.