Hybrid selves, intercultural futures: Afro-Italian writers reimagining belonging
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.2420-8175/23593Keywords:
Afro-Italian female writing, counter-narratives, intercultural pedagogy, hybrid selves, belongingAbstract
Adopting an intercultural pedagogical perspective, this paper explores how Afro-Italian female writers open spaces for dialogue, recognition, and peaceful coexistence. Their (counter-)narratives act as both educational resources – fostering mutual understanding and deconstructing stereotypes – and as claims to cultural participation for hybrid and diasporic voices. The first section introduces the pedagogical framework of self-care and resistance used to trace the evolution of migration literature in Italy since the 1990s, highlighting its function as a dialogic arena for visibility, symbolic capital, and social engagement. After that, it examines the shift from the label migration literature to newer categories such as Afro-Italian, diasporic, or postcolonial writing, which better express the intersectional and gendered positions of female authors. The following sections analyse writings of Nassera Chohra, Igiaba Scego, and Esperanza Hakuzwimana Ripanti to trace the development of representations of ethnicity, gender, religion, and belonging. The conclusion shows how these authors construct intersectional, intergenerational, and intercultural relationalities, where self-narration becomes both resistance and a practice for reimagining belonging in plural, postcolonial societies.
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