Serenelli, Sofia; (2008) 1968 in provincia. Famiglia, spazio e la memoria della vita quotidiana a Macerata, 1960-1980. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis explores and combines two underdeveloped areas concerning the events of 1968 in Italy: the movement in peripheral areas of the country and the issue of the family. * 1968* is understood as Tong 1968* (running right through the 1970s). the work focuses on Macerata - a small town in the Marche region in central Italy. The nucleus around which this period is studied is the family. How did 1968 transform the daily lives of activists (and others) and also their concept of the family as an institution, as well as ways of building alternatives to the family. The research uses oral historical and micro-historical methodologies, through interviews with over thirty-five ex-militants. Memories and narratives are analyzed as life-histories and stories about the self and the past and gender issues are central to the work. Other kinds of sources, such as Super8 films, homemade journals, leaflets - mainly collected from the interviewees themselves - have been used as frames of comparison with memory narratives, together with archive and newspaper research. The thesis is structured around the exploration of daily lives and the spaces where militants attempted to experience new life-styles and family forms. In the first chapters, it focuses on the development of the movement at Macerata, highlighting how the provincial context affected the local memory and experience of 1968. This part of the thesis also reconstructs the development of a critical view of the family and its impact on their family lives. The next two chapters are dedicated to the local spread of hippy culture and a pre-political attempt to create an alternative community. With the rise of the New Left and feminism, everyday life is analyzed in relation to the development of political militancy, which reveals both a structural and cultural overlap between families and the political groups. The last chapter is dedicated to a case study of a commune which was a rare local attempt to create a real alternative to the family. In conclusion, with regard to an Italian province with the role of the family has traditionally been hegemonic, the research examines the cultural and structural role of the family both in terms of the idea of the family as well as in lived experiences of alternative life styles and family forms, and the ways they have been remembered.

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