Funded by Fondazione Cariplo, “Women of the African Diaspora: ‘Herstories’ beyond Numbers in Lombardy” (WAD) is a three-year-project that brings together a team of scholars interested in deepening an ethnographic understanding of the life trajectories and reproductive choices of women of Eritrean, Ghanaian and Moroccan diasporas in Lombardy.

By focusing on their “herstories” – namely their lives told by a female point of view – and the active role they played in local and transnational processes of social, political, and demographic change, WAD will develop a comparative gaze that can assess continuities and discontinuities in the life trajectories of women of different age, origin, and class. Under this intersectional framework, WAD will link the specific historicity of these three diasporic communities with the impact that migratory experiences had in reshaping intergenerational, class and gender roles, reproductive behaviour and relatedness practices.

What is - and has been - the role of women of African origin in shaping and reshaping demographic trends in Italy and in the diasporic, transnational communities that link Italy to African countries? How have their migratory experiences affected their reproductive careers and how do they face motherhood and childbearing in a diasporic context? How to grasp the multiplicity of factors (gender, age, economic conditions, legal frameworks, etc.) that influence their successful or unsuccessful life trajectories and reproductive choices? What are their perspectives on these dynamics? The ethnographic analysis of women’s life stories will counterbalance the public narrative that depicts African diasporas as mainly composed by men and will highlight the role women play not only as mothers or grandmothers of the so called “second” or “third generations”, but also as transnational entrepreneurs, workers or traders, or active members of religious or political associations, becoming crucial actors of the many economic, demographic and social changes affecting both Italian society and countries of origin.