Volume 17, Issue 3, 2015
Interventions: Interntional Journal of Postcolonial Studies
Special Issue: Fanon in Italy |
|||
articles
Fanon and Feminism
The Discourse of Colonization in Italian Feminism
Abstract
This
essay explores the affinities between the work of Frantz Fanon and
autonomist Italian feminism. In particular, I argue that theorists like
Silvia Federici, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Giovanna Franca Dalla Costa and
Leopoldina Fortunati mobilize Fanon's singular account of colonization
in service of the project of feminist liberation. This essay explores
the influence, both explicit and implicit, that Fanon's account of the
psychosocial effects of colonization bears on the content, scope and
frame of autonomist Italian feminism's analysis of social reproduction. I
also chart the developments and changes in the work of these thinkers
over the past four decades, arguing that their turn towards considering a
Marxist–feminist project inside the global movement of capital can be
traced to a profound reconsideration of Fanon's work. In doing so, I
hope to reposition the debate around Fanon's deeply complicated and
problematic analysis of women in his writings, highlighting the ways in
which his texts offer critical resources to contemporary feminist
theory.
