CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Settari, Lisa |
|---|---|
| Title | Finding Ways. The Practices Shaping Coming-Out Narratives Of Women-Loving Women In South Tyrol Between The 1970s And The Early 2000s |
| Summary | This thesis seeks to add to the social and cultural history of South Tyrol, a rural plurilingual border province in northern Italy, by applying a women’s and gender history, and a queer history lens. To gain insights on these different fronts, the research question focuses on the practices which shaped the coming-out narratives of women-loving women in the province, concerning the period between the 1970s and the early 2000s. An investigation of this timeframe allows us to shed light on narratives of women-loving women who were adults when the only enduring LGBTQIA+ association in South Tyrol was founded. This analysis is based on twenty oral history interviews conducted with ten women-loving women who grew up in South Tyrol. I employ a theoretical framework informed by women’s and gender history, queer history, the history of common people, social constructivism, grounded theory, and phenomenology. The practices which shape the collected coming-out narratives are invisibilisation, inhibition and mobility. The twofold hypothesis, according to which participants’ narratives would prominently include experiences of hostility, discrimination and violence, and a considerable longing for urban and progressive environments, can only partly be confirmed. While elements linked to invisibilisation figure in previous research on LGBTQIA+ populations in the twentieth century, the identified inhibition practice allows for insightful discussions about the interplay between the social and cultural historical context, the institutional context, and individual women-loving women. The mobility practice enables a nuanced reassessment of the common image of South Tyrol as a rural and conservative province. |
| Supervisor | Peto, Andrea |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/settari_lisa.pdf |
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