Latin American Testimonies in Italy: a Living Library Between the Mediterranean and the Andes

Project Information

LATILMA

Grant agreement ID: 101067991

DOI

10.3030/101067991

Project closed

EC signature date 23 May 2022

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 31 August 2024

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 167 019,84

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LATILMA (Latin American Testimonies in Italy: a Living Library Between the Mediterranean and the Andes)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2024-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

LATILMA – Latin American Testimonies in Italy: A Living Library between the Mediterranean and the Andes, aims to collect, study, and publish literary and cultural testimonies of Hispanic American migration in Italy, from a gender perspective.
Due to demographic relevance, the study focuses on people coming from Peru and Ecuador, who represent two of the largest migrant communities. Furthermore, the Project focuses on the study of women and LGBTQIA+ people. LATILMA has as its hypothesis the fact that gender and sexual orientation affect the migration process, on the one hand, and that migration can determine changes in family relationships and relationships that concern gender, on the other. Furthermore, migrant communities coming from the countries that have been mentioned above are characterized by an important female presence and by socio-cultural characteristics linked to it.
The project is divided into two phases.
In the first phase — "outgoing"— LATILMA aimed to study the context of the main Hispanic American community in Italy, the Peruvian one. In Peru, in particular, in-depth studies have been carried out about relations between Peru and Italy, about conditions linked to gender identity, and also about emigration from the country to other nations of the world. Furthermore, in-depth studies have been carried out regarding the presence of women in the Peruvian literary field and the history of feminist and LGBTQIA+ associations and collectives. It was also studied whether, in the Peruvian literary field, the representation of emigration in Italy is present (for example, with publications in bookstores and libraries, in cultural activities, etc.). Finally, studies were carried out on the topic of "return"; this point aims to understand whether the links with the countries of origin remain active or not.
The project's second phase is aimed at collecting literary testimonies in Italy. These testimonies have been published in the multimedia anthology which has been published on the LATILMA web page. The anthology's main objective is to offer a review of cultural and literary testimonies (oral and written) found in Italy.From the collected testimonies (partly published on the anthology), LATILMA develops a qualitative study on the self-representation of Latin American transnational identities in Italy, from a gender perspective.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the outgoing phase, as a result of the study on relations between Italy and Peru, evidence of the presence of an Italian community in Lima was found. This has provided contributions to Peruvian culture, thanks to the publication of narrative, poetic, theatrical, and essayistic texts. The study of circular movements between Italy and Peru at a diachronic level over the last three centuries was interesting.
Significant references have been found regarding the gender perspective applied to the study of migration from the Andean countries.
An initial search for literary works produced by Latin American people living in Italy had good results; in particular, an interesting corpus of stories written in Italian has emerged, an element that suggests new study questions regarding the relationship of foreign authors with both languages in which they express themselves - Spanish and Italian -.
Equally interesting is the contribution the corpus just mentioned offers regarding the reflection on the concept of identity; the literary testimonies update and broaden the debate on the concept of hybridization and "third space". Also for this reason, we believe that they contribute significantly to the field of "border studies" or "estudios fronterizos".
At present, LATILMA has published three papers. Three more papers and the final monograph are planned to be published.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Although the cultural contribution of the Italian community in Peru was known, we were able to observe the specific role that Peruvian authors of Italian origin have had in the literary and academic world, and in the context of the feminist movement and associations.
Furthermore, the corpus of literary testimonies analyzed so far, as has been said, allows us to study the production of Hispanic American women authors in Italy from the perspective of studies on hybridization and the border.
From a semantic perspective, interesting topics emerge in the testimonies that have been analyzed: the semanticization of the relationship with the second language; the relationship with the Italian literary field and that of the country of origin; and the figure of mothers and grandmothers, among others. Furthermore, in reflections on identity, the importance of gender emerges; In several cases, foreign authors reflect on the prerogatives that the culture of origin and the Italian one assign to men and women. Their identity construction passes, in some cases, through a conscious cultural choice that takes these differences into account.
Some particularly significant authorial figures emerged in aesthetic and poetic terms. With respect to them, in addition to tracing their value in terms of cultural contribution, LATILMA has carried out a more strictly literary study, so that their value is also recognized by the Italian literary field.

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