Paper short abstract:

In a Sardinian town performance and genetics are the foundations of a project that aims at proffer to youths solidarity and industriousness as values from women of recent agro-pastoral past, pitting them against the common imagined identity of men, characterized by violent behavior and hostility

Paper long abstract:

In a Sardinian town notoriously marked by stereotypes of violence that denote the moral world of men, a local woman, supported by discourse and tools made available by genetics, has been getting a group of girls involved in an identity project that revolves around values of the opposite sign.

Feminine solidarity and industriousness from recently faded away agro-pastoral society are pitted against the masculine world of balentìa ("gallantry"). As it is "scientifically confirmed" by the genealogical trees drawn by geneticists working in the area for a biomedical research project (Parco Genos), all the local dwellers are united among themselves and to the previous generations through blood ties. According to local ideology that supports and reifies this genetic discourse, those kinship ties certify that the whole community still possesses in its genes the true values of the past, those positive values that used to be a sign into the life of feminine communities, now the only chance for redemption and the future survival of the community.

During the annual exhibition of local material culture, young women wear the enshrined traditional costumes and take active part into the reconstruction by geneticists of genealogical trees to be displayed in the exhibition. This way, they bring into being a peculiar form of community based on a secular cult of foremothers, far-away in time, yet close to them in terms of culture and moral values.