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Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the inappropriate notions of culture which are mobilised in the social and State response to gender-based violence and the so-called «harmful practices». Focusing on Italy, it argues for a broader deconstruction of the culturalisation of the public discourse.

Paper long abstract:

Culture, particularly declined as «traditional», is evoked in public discourse and political agenda that discuss gender-based violence. Moreover it is one of the main concepts on which are rooted State laws and policies that target migrant people.

This proposal is grounded on an ongoing fieldwork that I'm carrying out since 2012 while working, as a researcher and a trainer, to Italian-based projects that tackle violence against migrant women and FGM/C. It aims to discuss how, along with different representations of cultural difference, multiple concepts of culture circulate and are promoted.

A genealogy of how the so-called harmful cultural practices became a topic in the Italian context will be outlined. I will then discuss the local ways that the essentialization, naturalisation and ethnicization of gender relationships take when institutions deal with this subject.

From a theoretical point of view, I consider that a major stake for anthropologists is promoting an appropriate notion of culture, which accounts for historicisation and agency. In order to do that, I argue that deconstructing biopolitical stereotypisation of others is not sufficient; a synchronous critical work must face how inaccurate notions of culture have been also used to create a «we» as national citizens. In this sense, I will consider the trope of the «anthropological shifting», that have since a long time characterised the Italian public sphere. We will explore how this unscientific invocation participates to the raising and consolidation of the racist hegemony.