Project description
Communist women and abortion in post-1968 Italy and Slovenia
In 1974, Socialist Yugoslavia became the first country to constitutionalise abortion rights. In Italy, communist activists played a key role in the grassroots campaign that decriminalised abortion in 1978, emphasising the need for societal and state support for women's right to choose. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the RedFem project will use archival sources and oral history interviews to reconstruct communist women’s understanding of reproductive autonomy and their ability to unify diverse political groups across the Cold War divide. The project will focus on the role of communist women in the constitutionalisation of reproductive rights in Socialist Slovenia (1973-1974) and their advocacy for legal abortion in Italy, particularly in Emilia-Romagna (1974-1978).
Objective
In 1974, Socialist Yugoslavia became the first country to constitutionalize abortion rights as part of a host of economic, health and social infrastructure measures to foster women’s reproductive autonomy. Across the border in Italy, communist activists were a central cog in the grassroots campaign to decriminalize abortion in 1978 but stressed that society and the state had to assure the material conditions for women’s right to choose. Based on archival sources and oral history interviews, “Red feminists: communist women activists and reproductive rights struggles in post-1968 Italy and Slovenia” challenges stereotypes of the party woman to reveal a forgotten framework of engagement for reproductive rights that can illuminate present debates. It employs a historical, political and gender lens to reconstruct 1) communist women’s comprehensive understanding of reproductive autonomy and 2) ability to weave together different political subjects and spaces towards that goal on both sides of the Cold War divide. Hosted by Ljubljana’s Institute of Contemporary History with a secondment at the University of Bologna, RedFem examines communist women’s role in the constitutionalization of reproductive rights in Socialist Slovenia (1973-4) – a key component of the Yugoslav case – and in the campaign for legal abortion in Italy, with a focus on the ‘red heartland’ of Emilia-Romagna (1974-8). The grant builds on my prior work on the interweaving of communism and feminism in Italy and beyond after 1968, expanding my scope into Slovenia and ex-Yugoslavia. Training in oral history and insight into the regional (Emilia-Romagna) and local (Ljubljana; Bologna) scales add new layers to my analysis. Ultimately, the project aims to provide a counterbalance to a rights and choice-centered debate on abortion which often fails to consider the broader social and political conditions indispensable for the exercise of reproductive freedoms, constituting a resource for contemporary feminisms.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history
- social sciences sociology gender studies women’s studies
- social sciences political sciences political policies civil society
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
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