Collection(s) : Histoire
Paru le 12/10/2023 | Broché 315 pages
Public motivé
with a foreword of Anne Montenach
This volume is centred on the voices of women belonging to different generations, religious faiths and social classes, and presents a range of possible life courses in the Alps and the pre-Alps during the Ancien Régime and the early 19th century. Focusing on life trajectories that have emerged from a gender-conscious reading of the sources, the contributions illustrate how migration led women to take on roles of responsibility or follow their husbands in their careers as artists, traders and businessmen. They also reveal a widespread literacy that was combined with practical skills and knowledge marked by biological, legal and religious preconceptions ; these features permeated the studied communities, where family, religious and patronage ties prevailed upon the dichotomy of public sphere/private sphere.
The essays in this book deal with the web of complex social networks that served to sustain the mutual autonomies as well as the strategies of living together. The vitality and agency of the presented female figures help to dispel the image of backwardness and passivity often associated with women living in mountain regions.
Stefania Bianchi is an expert in socio-economic history. She has published widely on migration history and network analysis in early modern Switzerland and Europe. Her publications include : I cantieri dei Cantoni. Relazioni, opere, vicissitudini di una famiglia della Svizzera italiana in Liguria (2013) and Uomini che partono. Scorci di storia della Svizzera italiana tra migrazione e vita quotidiana (2018).
Miriam Nicoli's studies focus on written culture in early modern and modern Switzerland. In more recent times, she has extended her research interests to egodocuments and gender history. She has published, with Franca Cleis, La Gran Regina del Cielo e le Benedettine di claro. Genealogia femminile di un Sacro Monte in area alpina nel manoscritto di suor Ippolita Orelli (1697) (2021) and Un'illusione di femminile semplicità. Gli Annali delle orsoline di Bellinzona (1730-1846) (2021).
