A new journey begins

Today, April 1st, I begin my journey as an independent visiting scholar at The American University of Rome, with a project titled “The silent struggle and the institutional silence. Women and the experience of food poverty in Italy”. It is a project that builds on the work and reflections of recent years, and which I expect will be both intense and challenging, as well as deeply stimulating. It aims at deepening the understanding of food poverty as experienced by women in Italy, placing at its core their life stories.

Using an ethnographic approach, it prioritizes listening to women who struggle to make ends meet. By capturing womens’ lived experiences through interviews and participant observation and integrating these with insights from institutional actors (such as volunteers, managers, and activists), the study aims to develop a nuanced understanding of the issue.

Food poverty is understood and tackled in different ways in different contexts: in the context of high-income countries, it must be recognized as a condition that goes beyond limited access to food, involving dimensions that profoundly impact individuals’ dignity, social relationships and psychological well-being.

My project builds, in particular, on the work conducted in Tufello - in the city of Rome - as well as on previous research carried out in 2022 with ActionAid, during which I interviewed adolescents and their mothers. In that context, the focus was mainly on the young people; however, the mothers shared their stories with me spontaneously, almost regardless of the study’s primary focus. From both of these experiences, the idea for this new project emerged, today launched and entirely independent.

Shortly after the projecy launch, I had the opportunity to present my research to a class of students immersed in the delicate process of shaping their master’s theses. I tried to guide them through the presentation in three parts: I began with my background and how my research has evolved over time, then I showed how fieldwork reshaped my focus, and finally I presented my current project. It was really beautiful to see that they grasped the deeper meaning of the work I intend to pursue, and just as beautiful to encounter their curiosity and interest.