Responsabile: Filomena Viviana Tagliaferri 

Durata: 2022-

FIVIBET aspires to present a new perspective on the dynamics of the acculturation of foreigners and minorities in port cities. Through an unprecedented comparison between the ports of Livorno and London in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the project aims to analyse the visibility of foreigners and minorities as a result of the interplay of the institutional concept of cultural diversity and the visibility of the alien elements subjected to said institutions. By focusing on the presence of heterogeneous elements in urban spaces, the project aims to offer an innovative perspective on the study of historical coexistence in two respects. The first is to consider material visibility and cultural identity as being in perfect correlation. Such an approach has never before been adopted in the historiography of early modern cities. In assuming that identity and visibility are the same, FIVIBET would aim to highlight the role of different policies in shaping not only the behaviours of foreign groups in the early modern state, but their identity itself. The second is to propose, by means of the North-South comparison, an unconventional approach to a hotly debated historical concern, namely that of diversity management in urban space.

The objectives of FIVIBET will be addressed according to three main research axes, which also represent the three main research issues addressed by the study: the institutional, the performative, and the comparative. The first axis revolves around an analytical model of how institutional praxis determined the way in which foreigners were present and visible in the urban space. The second axis offers an original contribution to the study of foreigners and minorities in early modern port cities through the theoretical assumption that visibility acted as the embodiment of cultural identity (here intended as cultural affiliation), leading to a correspondence between the formal and substantive aspects of cultural belonging. The third axis seeks to overcome the bias induced by ‘Mediterraneanism’ that has led to the Mediterranean as an area of study hardening into a conceptual category in itself, where it might more fruitfully be viewed as a complex historical problem. FIVIBET stands in strong continuity with the MSCA MedRoute project, both in terms of themes, sources and methodological approach. At the same time, it also constitutes a step change, with the proposition of the research model applied in the MSCA to the Mediterranean being extended to Northern Europe.

Responsabile: Roza Barotsi

Durata: 2022-

Research on gender inequality in the film sector has tended to focus on the industry proper, both in Italy and internationally. Such research is crucial for measuring the film industry’s capacity for inclusion, and therefore proposing policy reforms to reverse ingrained inequalities. Yet focusing on the industry alone necessarily excludes many groups of film professionals from our view. Italy, despite the recent adoption of gender equality incentives in state funding for film production in 2017, continues to be one of the EU countries where the exclusion of women from the sector is most pronounced. Gender and race biases – encoded in policies such as the nationality clause, or hiding behind quality assessments – ensure that many creators’ relationship with the industry remains strenuous, if at all possible. The project IMFilm adopts as a premise that much of Italian filmmaking happens at the margins of the industry or outside it – by choice or necessity. The project takes the “view from outside” of inclusion policies, and suggests that studying the margins of the Italian film industry is necessary in order to understand the rich film culture that takes place in, and in relation to, Italy. The project attempts to redress the lack of circulation of such work by promoting it through a digital humanities project and communication and exhibition activities. Moving beyond the cataloguing impulse, IMFilm develops along the guiding principle of “putting the films first,” in recognition of the fact that the impact of promoting the work itself is crucial for the valorisation and career development of the film professionals behind that work.