Gender and Migration in Italy C

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m o Gender and Migration in Italy c . te a g A Multilayered Perspective h s .a w w w

m o .c te a g h s .a w w w

m o .c te a g h s Edited by .a w w w

m o .c Elisa Olitve ito a g h University of Rome ‘Las Sapienza’, Italy .a w w w

m o .c te a g h s .a w w w

m o .c te a g h s .a w w w © Copyrighted Material © Copyrighted Material © Elisa Olivito 2016

m o .c te All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievala g h system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,s .a w recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. w w

m o .c Elisa Olivito has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Ate ct, 1988, to a g h be identified as the editor of this work. s .a w w w

Published by m o .c Ashgate Publishing Limited ashgate Publishing Companyte a g h Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street s .a w Union Road Suite 3-1 w w

Farnham Burlington, VT m05401-3818 o .c Surrey, GU9 7PT USA te a g h England s .a w w w www.ashgate.com m o .c te a g h British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data s .a w A catalogue record for this book is available from thew British Library w

m o .c The Library of Congress has cataloged the printedte edition as follows: a g h Olivito, Elisa, author. s .a w Gender and migration in Italy : a multilayeredw perspective / by Elisa Olivito. w

pages cm -- (Law and migration) m o .c Includes bibliographical references and index.te a g h ISBN 978-1-4724-5575-8 (hardback) --s ISBN 978-1-4724-5576-5 (ebook) -- ISBN .a w 978-1-4724-5577-2 (epub) 1. Foreignw workers--Legal status, laws, etc.--Italy. 2. Women w migrant labor--Italy. I. Title. m o .c KKH1328.A44O45 2015 te a g h 304.80945--dc23 s .a w w 2015021231 w

m o .c te a g h s .a w w w

ISBN 9781472455758m (hbk) o .c ISBN 9781472455765te (ebk – PDF) a g ISBN 9781472455772h (ebk – ePUB) s .a w w w

m o .c te a g h s Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited, .a w w at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD w © Copyrighted Material © Copyrighted Material

m o .c te a Contents g h s .a w w w

m o .c List of Figures te vii a g Notes on Contributors h ix s Acknowledgements .a xiii w w w

m o Introduction: Fortress Europe v. Compliant Italy? . c te a The Ambiguous Italian Policy towards Migrant gWomen 1 h Elisa Olivito s .a w w w PART I: Migrant Women and Social Mob ility in m A Historical Perspective o .c te a g 1 The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’: The Pioush Mothers of Nigrizia s .a between Italy and Africa during thew Imperial Age (1872–1950) 21 w Francesca Di Pasquale and Chiaraw Giorgi

m o 2 Open Houses versus Closed Borders:.c Migrant Domestic Workers te a in Italy. A Gendered Perspectiveg (1950s–2010s) 39 h s Raffaella Sarti .a w w w PART II: Self-Determi n ation, Family and Welfare m o .c te 3 The Third Movement:a Family Life for a Fee 63 g h Silvia Niccolai s .a w w 4 Autonomy andw Self-Realization of Migrant Women:

m Constitutionalo Aspects 77 .c Laura Ronchettite a g h s 5 The Case.a of Healthcare and Social Services for Migrant Women: w Betweenw Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Subordination 97 w Anna Lorenzetti m o .c te 6 a Migration and (Legal) Irritants: Italian Family Law and g h s Gender Equality 119 .a w Elisa Olivito w w © Copyrighted Material vi Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material PART III: Culture, Patriarchy and Religion m o .c te 7 Gender and Culturally Motivated Crimes: a g The Italian Perspective h 143 s .a Valentina Masarone w w w

8 From Culture to Patriarchy: Recent Changes in m o Judicial Reasoning and in Normative Classifications of .c te a Multicultural Conflicts g 161 h s Ilenia Ruggiu .a w w w 9 Gender and Religious Symbols in the European Public Sphere: m o Unveiling the Paradoxes of Italian Toleration .c 177 te Susanna Mancini a g h s .a PART IV: Citizenship and Second-Genewration w Migrant Women w

m o .c 10 Second-Generation Migrant Women andte the Acquisition of a g Italian Citizenship h 195 s Elena Paparella .a w w w 11 Translating Cultural Identities, Permeating Boundaries: m o Autobiographical and Testimonial.c Narratives of te Second-Generation Immigranta Women 215 g h Cristina Greco s .a w w w

m Index o 231 .c te a g h s .a w w w

m o .c te a g h s .a w w w

m o .c te a g h s .a w w w © Copyrighted Material © Copyrighted Material

Chapter 1 m o .c te a The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’: The Piousg h s .a Mothers of Nigrizia between Italy and Africaw w w

m during the Imperial Age (1872–1950)o .c te a 1 g Francesca Di Pasquale and Chiara Giorgi h s .a w w w

m o .c te a Introduction g h s .a w From 1872, when the Comboni women’s institutionw was established, and all w throughout the period of the European colonial occupations of Africa, the ‘Pious m Mothers of Nigrizia’, that is, the nuns of the religiouso order founded by Daniele .c 2 te Comboni, were key players of the missionary projecta for the African evangelization. g According to the ambitious and, at the sameh time, extremely pragmatic Comboni s .a 3 view, women played a key role for the conversionw of Nigrizia, fuelled by the w belief that, unlike priests, nuns could fitw into African society, penetrating the core of native families. m o Throughout the late nineteenth .cand early twentieth centuries, within the te a entangled history of missions ing Africa that combined evangelization with h s ‘civilization’ – imperialism with.a the hierarchization of race and gender – the w w w

m o 1 This chapter is the result.c of the fruitful exchange and the shared work of both the te a authors. However, Section g1, ‘True Women’ for Africa. The nuns in Daniele Comboni’s h missionary project, was mainlys written by Francesca Di Pasquale, while Section 2, The .a Pious Mothers of Nigriziaw in the Horn of Africa, was mainly written by Chiara Giorgi. w The study is the firstw analysis of the history of the Pious Mothers of Nigrizia, with

m particular reference oto their mobility. It should be underlined that the historical archive of the Comboni Missionary.c Sisters is still under archival processing. Access was limited to te a only some records,g provided by Sister Mariateresa Girola, who is in charge of the archive. h For this invaluables help and, more generally, for the very stimulating exchange of ideas, we .a wish to thankw Sister Mariateresa Girola and Sister Maria Vidale. w w 2 See Romanato (2003: 259) and Vidale (2012). m 3 Accordingo to the Dizionario universale della lingua italiana, by Carlo A. Vanzon, published.c in 1836, Nigrizia was the vast African area which included many regions like te a Bambarag , Tumbuctu, Congo, Niffe, Funda, Bornù, Mandara, Darfur, Cordofan, and many h others.s It bordered the Sahara to the north, the south of Egypt (Nubia) to the east, Guinea .a to wthe south and Senegal and Gambia on the west. See Vanzon (1836: 179). Actually, for w Comboni,w Nigrizia was synonymous of Africa. © Copyrighted Material 22 Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material history of the Comboni mission displayed very distinctive features.4 We can m consider, for example, the primitive form of ‘inculturation’ that Comboni,o in .c te the light of the previous and mainly ruinous missionary experiences, trieda to g implement to spread the Catholic creed among natives (Romanato, 2003:h 296). s 5 .a The centrality of the ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ in Comboni’s plan wasw certainly w one of the most significant features of his project. ‘Created’ by Comboniw for the primary aim of devoting their lives entirely to the conversion of Nigriziam , starting o in the second half of the nineteenth century, dozens of women, mainly.c from Italy, te a began journeying to Africa. In turn, some African women wereg involved in the h s missionary project from its beginning, according to the guiding.a principle of the w Piano per la rigenerazione dell’Africa (Plan for the regenerationw of Africa) by 6 w Comboni, which is ‘saving Africa with Africa’. m o The history of the ‘Pious Mothers of Nigrizia’ represents.c a fruitful perspective te from which to analyse female mobility during the imperiala age, and our chapter g h looks into their history through this specific point ofs view. More precisely, here .a we use the word mobility, on the one hand, referringw to its spatial meaning, that w is, to the history of migrations and exchanges betweenw Europe and Africa, which

m characterized the history of the Pious Mothers.o Their history was transnational .c indeed, not uniquely for the history of womente on the move between Italy and a g Africa. Daniele Comboni was born in the Austro-Hungarianh Lombardy-Venetia, s and the Habsburg Empire was his main political.a and social point of reference. w The Comboni mission raised funds and obtainedw political support mainly in that w territory. Therefore, the European boundaries were the first to be crossed. m o On the other hand, we aim to explore.c if and how the Comboni missionary te activities triggered social mobilitya in both Italian and African nuns alike. In g h Comboni’s letters, the woman’s roles is exalted, even astonishingly so. However, .a through a deeper analysis, otherw features also come to light, in particular his view w w of women. If at first it may seem far-sighted, at the same time it also included some m discriminatory features. Notwithstandingo the preeminent position that Comboni .c assigned to nuns in terms ofte African evangelization, on the whole in many respects a g it subverted the role of women,h as established by European bourgeois imaginary in s the second half of the nineteenth.a century. w As mentioned above,w the Comboni female congregation admitted African w women to the missionm from its onset. Fortunata Quascè, from Sudan, was the first o African woman in.c the Comboni mission to take her nun’s vows. She experienced te a all the tribulationsg characterizing the history of the first decades of the Comboni h s .a w w 4 Withinw the extensive literature on missionaries, Italian colonialism and religion in

Africa, seem in particular: Betti (1996); Borruso (1988, 1989); Ceci (2007); Chelati Dirar o (2002 and.c 2003); Fonzi (1988 and 1996); Franzinelli (1992); and Prudhomme (2007). For te the Combonia mission, see Romanato (2003). g h 5s ‘Suore operaie della Nigrizia’: Vidale (2012: 78). .a w 6 In Italian: ‘Salvare l’Africa con l’Africa’. After the first edition in 1864, the Piano w wasw re-edited in 1871. See Comboni (1991: 840–52). © Copyrighted Material The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ 23 © Copyrighted Material

sisters in Africa, not least of which, the captivity by Mahdi ‘rebels’ during them 7 o Dervish revolt in Sudan (1882–86). During the colonial age, on the other hand,.c te the mode of relating to African women seemed to change in accordance witha the g h political imperatives of the Italian government and, in particular, to native sAfrican .a politics. Indeed, in colonial Eritrea, not until July 1939 did the first w six young w w Eritrean women take their vows as ‘Pious Sisters of Nigrizia’. They represented 8 m the first group of ‘native novice women’ (novizie indigene). In 1942,o four other .c Eritrean women also took their vows. In May 1946, six native nunste (including one a g of mixed ‘race’) joined the congregation. In the following years,h the number of s Eritrean women aspiring to join the mission constantly increased..a w w In sum, the Combonian sisters’ experience was at thew centre of multiple dynamics concerning not only the question of women’s mobilitym between Italy and o Africa and within Africa itself, but also more general themes.c like gender relations te a and the conflicts this sparked, including with those opposingg missionary nuns and h priests, the men who embodied colonial power and sthe ecclesiastical hierarchy. .a w After Comboni’s death, the difficulty of securingw any formal recognition of the w congregation’s autonomy – which existed de facto across Europe and Africa – was m principally due to the various kinds of resistance oput up by their male counterparts. .c te The various representatives of the male counterparts,a including their highest-ranking g leaders, seem to have been rather alarmed by theh autonomy that a female congregation s .a brought to the expansion of its activity beyondw the central African mission initially w planned for it. The fear also concerned wthe foundation of other European bases helping it to recruit and train personnel mready to join its African missions. o In many regards, this history requires.c the deployment ‘in the field’ of an te a analysis depsychologising and resocialisingg – as Judith Butler put it – the role of h s the Nigrizia nuns in the plan conceived.a by Daniele Comboni. The subjectivity of w the women working in the servicew of this project (whether Italians or Africans) w should thus be analysed in light of numerous factors and protagonists – convinced m o as we are that this is an important.c chapter in the history of gender, the history of te Africa and, at the same time,a the history of Italian colonialism. g h s .a w w ‘True Women’ for Africa:w The Nuns in Daniele Comboni’s

m Missionary Projecto .c te a g In terms of theh results attained, that is, the number of ‘outposts’ and of Africans s involved, and.a for the intensity of its penetration, the Comboni mission certainly w w w

m 7 Foro the history of Fortunata Quascè see Vidale (2005). 8 The.c ceremony had solemn and impressive tones. In February 1938, the first six te a candidatesg to join the mission officially started their trial period, under the blessing of Pope h Piouss XI. See the record n. 5963, VI/H10/2/v2, Asmara, Casa Comboni, 7 October 1939, .a onw the occasion of the Festa del S. Rosario, held in the historical archive of the Comboni w Missionaryw Sisters. © Copyrighted Material 24 Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material achieved much more than previous missionary experiences had in the Curacy of 9 m Central Africa. o .c te Daniele Comboni first travelled to Africa in 1857 with five other missionariesa g of the Verona Religious Institute, founded by the priest Nicola Mazza,h where s .a Comboni himself entered the seminary. In the following decade, he wtravelled w widely throughout Africa, as his assignment, bestowed onto him by Fatherw Mazza, was the liberation of enslaved boys and girls. He also travelled throughoutm Europe o as well, particularly in Germany; here he established contacts with.c the ‘Society te a of Cologne’, the humanitarian institute which became one of theg main sources of h s funding for the Comboni missionary activities. In 1867 he wrote.a the first edition of w the Piano per la rigenerazione dell’Africa (‘Plan for the Regenerationw of Africa’), w which was his project, but also his manifesto for the mission in Africa. In his plan, m o Daniele Comboni sought to work for Africa, availing himself.c of men and women te capable of dealing with the massive African environmentala barriers and to interact g h with African ‘otherness’ in a way that also proved fruitfuls for the evangelization .a project. To this end, he envisaged establishing intermediatew outposts, which were w later founded in Egypt, in order to allow the missionariesw to gradually come into

m contact with the African climate and culture. oThe continent would have been .c converted and ‘civilized’ by Africans themselves;te the training of native clergy and a g the integration of African people into the missionaryh project was aimed at fully s 10 penetrating the continent. Following the proposal.a advanced by Propaganda Fide, w in 1872 Pope Pious IX appointed Comboniw Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa. w Five years later he became bishop (Romanato, 2003: 248–70). m o In many respects, women were the.c keystone of the Comboni missionary plan: te ‘A Sister of Charity in central Africaa is worth three priests in Europe and this g h 11 century of persecution of the Churchs … is the century of the catholic woman’. .a According to Comboni, his missionw was successful, whereas previous ones had w w been less so, because of the frontline involvement of the ‘omnipotent ministry m of the woman bringing the oGospel and of the Sister of Charity, who is a shield, c . 12 power, and a guarantee ofte the Missionary’s ministry’. The ‘Pious Mothers of a g h s .a 9 On the missionsw in Africa before Comboni, see Romanato (2003: 25–189). The w Curacy of Central Africaw was established by Propaganda Fide in 1846. Through the curacy, the Holy See maimed at the evangelization of the whole continent. Actually, until the o period of activity of.c Comboni, it had operated only in the territories of present-day Sudan: te Romanato (2003:a 50–60). g h 10 Propagandas Fide was the ecclesiastic institution, founded in 1622, which had .a jurisdiction overw all the territories peopled by ‘infidels’, that is over the missions, aiming at w the evangelizationw of non-Christian and non-Catholic people.

11 Inm Italian: ‘La Suora di Carità nell’Africa Centrale fa come tre preti in Europa e o questo secolo.c di persecuzione contro la Chiesa …, è il secolo della donna cattolica’. See the te letter toa the mother superior of the Sisters of St Joseph, 30 July 1877, in Vidale (2012: 77). g h 12s In Italian: ‘onnipotente ministero della donna del Vangelo, e della Suora di carità, .a chew è lo scudo, la forza, e la garanzia del ministero del Missionario’. See the letter to Mother w Mariaw Annunziata Coseghi in Gebel Nuba, 24 July 1878, in Comboni (1991: 1515). © Copyrighted Material The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ 25 © Copyrighted Material

Nigrizia’ order was established in 1872, even before the Comboni Fathers order,m 13 o because nuns were the key to the evangelization of Africa. In 1877, five .cyears te after the Pious Mothers were founded, the first five missionary sisters arriveda in g h Africa; they were ‘the vanguard of the new Institution whose mission is tos foster a 14 . its apostolic activities in the many regions of central Africa’. w w w In his view, women were not exalted by their spirituality or purity, but, instead m for very concrete features, starting with their physical resilience too the African .c climate, which, according to Comboni, was greater in Europeante women than a 15 16 g in men. Comboni sought nuns who were like ‘soldiers’, readyh to sacrifice 17 s themselves and even die for Africa: ‘cannon fodder’ for the.a evangelization of w w Nigrizia, according to the crude definition of the Vicar Apostolic.w They had to be ‘saints’, but without bigotry, because in Africa it is necessarym to instead be 18 o tolerant. After all, Comboni was not predominantly a mystic.c or a theorist, but te a an extremely pragmatic man. Throughout his missionaryg activity he combined h very innovative features with others which were a slegacy of the traditionalist .a w culture, based on a ‘granitic faith’ that was not at wall undermined by the Age of w Enlightenment (Romanato, 2003: 8, 367). m In the Piano, the position of women originatedo from a utilitarian view of their .c te contribution to the mission, rather than aiminga at women’s liberation or at the g subversion of the gender dynamics that definedh women’s roles in nineteenth- s .a century Europe. Comboni sought ‘instruments’w for the conversion of Nigrizia w and looked for ‘true women’, that is, firstw of all educated but also ‘trustworthy,

m o .c te a 13 Maria Bollezzoli, who cameg from the Ursuline Sisters, was the first mother h superior. Before the institution of thes Pious Mothers, Comboni had worked in Africa with .a the nuns belonging to the French orderw of St Joseph of the Apparition. Comboni decided to w institute the congregation in Veronaw to rally nuns for Nigrizia because of the scarce number of sisters made available by the mFrench order for the African mission. For the foundation of o the congregation see Vidale (2012)..c te a 14 In Italian: ‘l’avanguardiag della nuova Istituzione destinata a riprendere la sua h azione apostolica nelle numeroses contrade dell’Africa Centrale’. The first five missionary .a sisters in Africa were Sisterw Teresa Grigolini and Sister Marietta Caspi from the diocese w of Verona, Sister Mariaw Giuseppa and Sister Concetta Corsi from the diocese of Trani,

m and Sister Vittoria Paganinio from the diocese of Padua. See the letter to Jean Francois Des Gares, 17 May 1878.c in Comboni (1991: 1484) and Vidale (2012: 85–110). te a 15 The referenceg to the physical resilience of the ‘European woman’ is found in the h first edition of thes Piano: ‘Sunto del nuovo disegno della Società dei sacri cuori di Gesù e .a Maria per la conversionew della Nigrizia proposto alla S. Congregazione di Prof. da Fide da w w D. Daniele Comboni dell’Ist.o Mazza 1864’, in Comboni (1991: 240). m 16 Seeo the letter to Mother Emile Julien from the Saint Joseph Order, Cairo, 15 December.c 1872, in Comboni (1991: 941). te a 17g In Italian: ‘Carne da macello’. See the letter to Jean François Des Garets, 19 June h 1879,s in Comboni (1991: 1608). .a w 18 In Italian: ‘ma non col collo storto, perché in Africa bisogna averlo dritto’. From w thew letter to Father Giuseppe Sembianti, 12 February 1881, in Comboni (1991: 1834). © Copyrighted Material 26 Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material handsome and judicious’19 women, and, if possible, with a handsome dowry. m The woman with all of these qualities was the ideal candidate for the entranceo .c te enrolment in the Pious Mothers, even if she were an illegitimate child, whoa were g usually not admitted to the mission: as Comboni explained ‘every rule is hsubject s .a to exceptions … because suckers do not go to heaven’, expressing franklyw the 20 w pragmatism mentioned above. On the other hand, admittance to the missionw was forbidden for the ‘lowly female servants’: those who ‘came to escapem starvation’, o because ‘Africa will not be converted by the household help from Verona’..c 21 te a According to Comboni, the presence in Africa of the Pious gMothers was an h s instrument for the ‘civilization’ of the ‘barbaric’ populations .aand the ‘infidels’, w and this idea originated, first of all, from his view of the conditionw of ‘ignominy’ w of the African women, in particular for those living among Islamic populations, m o 22 where they were regarded ‘only as a domestic tool, an instrument.c of immorality’. te Taking into account the subjection of women, but alsoa the practice of slavery, g h Comboni’s view of Islam was not exempt from intolerance,s denoting disregard .a and rejection of the populations which embraced Muslimw faith. On the whole, if, w on the one hand his judgment of African populationsw was seemingly advanced, on

m the other hand it resulted from an extremely sterno culture according to which the .c territories of ‘infidels’ were marked by backwardnesste and immorality, whereas a g conversion to Christianity meant civilization.h After all, in the European colonial s culture, women’s conditions among natives.a were one of the main cultural markers w indicating the gap between colonists andw colonized and between ‘barbarity’ and w ‘civilization’ (Levine, 2004; Sorgoni, 2000). m o Nine years after founding the.c Pious Mothers, four Comboni Sisters te missionaries’ outposts were alreadya operating in Africa, and specifically in g h Kharthoum, el-Obeid, Gebel Delens and Malbes. The latter was a Christian village .a established by Comboni missionaries,w modelled after the Jesuits’ Reducciones w w in South America and populated by families trained by the mission to live in a 23 m Christian way. The presenceo of the nuns in this village, which was the most .c ‘advanced’ and, at the samete time, violent experiment with African populations a g by Comboni missions, h further demonstrates Comboni’s absolute faith in the s .a w w 19 In Italian: ‘serie,w buone, di giudizio’. See the letter to Father Giuseppe Sembianti,

12 February 1881, inm Comboni (1991: 1825). o 20 In Italian: .c‘ogni regola patisce le sue eccezioni … perché i menchioni [sic] non te vanno in paradiso’.a From the letter to Father Giuseppe Sembianti, 20 April 1881, in g h Comboni (1991:s 1888). .a 21 In Italian:w ‘‘furono tutte servacce che venivano per cavarsi la fame’; ‘Colle serve w di Verona nonw si converte l’Africa’. From the letter to Germano Tomellieri, 24 April 1872, in Combonim (1991: 900). o 22 In.c Italian: ‘Solamente come un arnese di casa, come uno strumento di immoralità’, te in the aRapporto sulla azione apostolica del Vicariato dell’Africa centrale, 1877, sent to Pia g h Operas della Santa Infanzia di Parigi, in Comboni (1991: 1338). .a w 23 Romanato (2003: 322) rightly reports on the process of ‘de-Africanization’ w characterizingw this experience. © Copyrighted Material The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ 27 © Copyrighted Material

24 evangelizing capabilities of the Pious Mothers. His project to evangelize Africam o through women originated from his understanding that only women could fully.c te penetrate African society, through their female African counterpart, and,a thus, g h instil the first seeds for conversion. In hisPiano , the Corpo delle giovanettes negre .a (‘Corps of the young black women’) was made up of female preceptors, tow educate w w in the Catholic religion ‘the dissolute female African society’, of ‘expert teachers m and family women, which have to promote female education in reading,o writing, .c arithmetic, spinning, sewing, weaving, taking care of the sick, as wellte as practicing a 25 g all the more practical female skills for central Nigrizia’. Finally,h among those not s pursuing marriage, the ‘Virgins of Charity’ would have been selected.a to constitute w w ‘the most distinguished phalanx of the women’s Corps whosew mission it would 26 be to … practice the ministry of catholic women amongm the Nigrizia tribes’. o The first involvement of African women commenced.c in 1867, when fourteen te a women coming from the ‘white river’ arrived in Europeg on the occasion of the h redemption of some slaves, ‘having been educated ins all the female skills’, and .a w which Comboni assigned to ‘educate the black girlsw in Egypt and to move to their w native land in order to disseminate among those tribes the advantages and the m 27 benefits of civilization which they have receivedo from the European culture’. .c te Among these was Fortunata Quascè, whoa was the first ‘Virgin of Charity’ of g the Comboni mission. Fortunata arrived in Veronah in 1853 with a group of boys s .a and girls redeemed from slavery at the Cairow market by the mission of Father w Mazza. Actually, among other things, redemptionw implicated the eradication of these ‘black’ youths from their nativem cultural, social context and environment, o with the effect that most died an untimely.c death in Europe due to the problems of te a adapting to the new environment. Theg young women trained in religious institutes h s were compelled by circumstance .ato become nuns, as they had no other opportunity w for social integration (Romanato,w 2003: 214). Of course, this general framework w does not provide the whole picture of the African Pious Mothers, as the history m o of Fortunata Quascè shows. cin many respects: as she wrote in a letter to Comboni, te she chose the religious lifea with conviction and joy (Vidale, 2005: 82–5). At the g h same time, what she experienceds in Africa and, in particular, her captivity during .a w w 24 From the letterw to the father of the missionary, sent from Malbes, 24 April 1881,

m in Comboni (1991: 1892).o 25 In Italian: .‘degradatac femminil società africana’; ‘abili maestre e donne di famiglia, te a le quali dovrannog promuovere l’istruzione femminile in leggere, scrivere, far conti, filare, h cucire, tessere, sassistere agli infermi, ed esercitare tutte le arti donnesche più utili ai paesi .a della Nigriziaw Centrale’, in Plan for the Regeneration of Africa, in Comboni (1991: 238–9). w w 26 In Italian: ‘istruite in tutte le arti femminili’; ‘la più eletta falange del Corpo m femminileo destinata … ad esercitare il ministero della donna cattolica fra le tribù della Nigrizia’,.c in Plan for the Regeneration of Africa, in Comboni (1991: 238–9). te a 27g In Italian: ‘istruire in Egitto le piccole morette e a spostarsi nel loro paese natale al h fine sdi comunicare a quelle tribù i vantaggi e i benefici della civilizzazione che esse hanno .a ricevutow dalla civiltà europea’. See the letter to De Lamenie De Brienne, 22 August 1867, w inw Comboni (1991: 417). © Copyrighted Material 28 Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material the Mahdi revolt, also demonstrates that missionary penetration into Africa in the m nineteenth and twentieth centuries was characterized by violent religious clashes.o .c te The first African women were primarily trained to convert Nigrizia and to uproota g Islam in African territories, which, at the time of these missions of the apostolich s .a curacy, was rapidly spreading. According to testimonials from nuns, it seemsw that w the brutality of the Mahdi ‘rebels’ towards Comboni missionaries sistersw and, in particular, the ‘black’ nun in order to force her to forswear Catholicismm and o reconvert to her native religion, had the same origin, that is, the struggle.c between te a two monotheisms (Vidale, 2005: 109). Anyway, the life of Fortunatag Quascè was an h s important piece of the history of the Pious Mothers and testifies.a to the ‘worldiness, w to the Africanity’ which connoted the origins of this women’sw missionary institute w (Vidale, 2005: 9). m o On the whole, the Comboni sisters who had served in.c Africa during the first te decade of the congregation’s history had to ride out unspeakablea hardships, adapt g h themselves to complicated and very unstable circumstances,s and face many .a adversities, not least captivity during the Mahdi revolt.w Some missionary outposts w were set up by the nuns without no outside support. wAfter Comboni’s death in 1881,

m the nuns experienced a troubled period, mainly obecause of the opposition by the .c Jesuits, who, at that time, were in charge of thete training for Comboni priesthood. a g The dispute was resolved thanks to the firmnessh of Maria Bollezzoli, mother s superior of the Pious Mothers, but also to.a the support of the bishop of Verona, w Luigi di Canossa, and of the first Comboniw male missionaries who had worked w with the nuns in Africa. In particular, Luigi di Canossa was the first supporter m o of Comboni and was familiar with. c the Pious Mothers congregation since its te constitution (Vidale, 2013: 75–95).a In order to weaken the female congregation, g h some priests resorted to conjecturess on the supposed weak ‘morality’ of some .a sisters. This attempt to denigratew the nuns was consistent with the gender view w w of nineteenth-century imperial Europe, which considered women, by their very m 28 nature, to be constantly liableo to slip back into immorality. .c All things considered,te the missionary experience gave them a preeminent a g position, inconceivable h for the time in late nineteenth-century Europe, and s overturned the view of.a the ‘holy and pious’ woman. Even though the memoirs w and more recent historicalw reconstructions by the Pious Mothers bear out this same w pious view, the eventsm after Comboni’s death show that these first female apostles o for Nigrizia were.c well-aware of having conquered a new role in the missionaries te a scenario and, furthermore,g had no intention of forfeiting it. h s .a w w w

m o .c te a g h 28s Vidale (2013: 167–8). Furthermore, in 1898, Monsignor Roveggio, new Vicar .a Apostolic,w removed Francesca Dalmasso from the position of mother provincial superior w forw Africa, because she was regarded hardly ‘submissive’. See Vidale (2013: 209–10). © Copyrighted Material The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ 29 © Copyrighted Material

The Pious Mothers of Nigrizia in the Horn of Africa m o .c te In 1952–53, the number of pupils at Comboni College was the highest of anya of g h the 32 schools controlled by the various religious orders (‘several of whichs were a 29 . sections of the School run by the Italian state in Eritrea’). Even more importantlyw w w for our purposes, the attendees at the Sacra Famiglia/Santa Famiglia (an m educational arm of the Comboni congregation considered the institutiono that gave .c greatest expression to the missionaries’ efforts) were of similarly telarge numbers. a g How was this possible? And what role did the Comboni nuns haveh in educational s matters, which they considered – according to their own accounts.a – their main w 30 w field of intervention? w

The Pious Mothers of Nigrizia’s first arrival in mthe Italian colonies dates o back to 1914, when Costanza Caldara (then General Superior.c to the Comboni te a congregation) sent six nuns to Eritrea on the instigationg of Luigi Bonomi, a h collaborator of the Comboni missionaries in Sudan sand former prisoner of the .a w Mahdi’s. After a remarkable journey, the Comboniw sisters arrived in Massawa in w December 1914, with the Italian government’s full agreement and with the goal of m offering assistance at the Regina Elena colonial hospitalo in Asmara (where Bonomi .c te was the chaplain). This first phase in the Piousa Mothers of Nigrizia’s presence – g which we could, moreover, frame in terms h of a period of women’s mobility in s .a Italian missionary efforts (whether from Italyw or Egypt) – was entirely occupied by this welfare work (mostly nursing wcare) and characterized by numerous w 31 tensions resulting from friction with Italianm military and medical personnel. Up o until 1927, the Pious Mothers of Nigrizia.c worked in the Regina Elena hospital; te a then, on the express say-so of the gcolonial government, they also extended their h s nursing activities to Massawa’s .aUmberto I hospital (where the first community w was formed); and soon afterwardw they took to the educational field, in the Vittorio w Emanuele III state school. m o This school was also the.c Italian government’s wish and on the orders of te Governor Jacopo Gasperini,a it was dedicated to the education of Eritreans only. g h 32 It was situated in the Ambas Galliano area. Of note, here, is that the Comboni .a nuns assumed a decisivew role on account of other religious orders’ reticence over w engaging in the fieldw of education, as well as the colonial government’s lack of

m interventionism ino this regard. As we know, already by the beginning of the era of .c te a g h 29 Puglisis (1953: 145–8). In the Comboni College there were 550 students; in .a Sant’Anna therew were 450 students and in the Sacra Famiglia there were 420. w w 30 Chelati Dirar (2002: 149–88; 2003: 391–410). m 31 Ino Eritrea the ‘Pious Mothers of Nigrizia’ had been preceded by the Daughters of St Anne. c(1895) which came after the Sisters of Charity, coadjutors of the fathers ‘Lazarists’. te a The firstg superior in Eritrea was Pia Marani. h 32s In 1929, the missionaries’ residential community was moved to the new complex .a builtw by the Italian government near to the school where they were working. On Italian w educationalw policy in Eritrea see Palma (2007: 211–38); Negash (1987: 78). © Copyrighted Material 30 Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material the apostolic prefecture, the missionaries had a sort of mandate covering all aspects m of public education. This was a result of the Eritrean colony’s lack of resources ando .c te more generally of the government’s own awareness that the Catholic missionariesa g were useful for helping to spread Italian culture (moreover, they were usefulh to s .a encourage both a ‘social and cultural Italianisation of the colonial territory’w and the w ‘production of colonial subjects’). The Catholic missionaries also consolidatedw the colonial authority, in particular due to the linguistic and ethnographicm knowledge o they had accumulated over their years ‘on the ground’. Without. c doubt, this – te a strategically important – supply-teaching role had the support gnot only of the h s Vicar Apostolic (Celestino Cattaneo, Camillo Carrara’s successor),.a but also of w the colonial authorities themselves (as personified in thew new Fascist governor w Corrado Zoli). It also provided, indirectly, the basis for the growth of their leading m o role in education and, in some aspects, confirmed the usefulness.c and effectiveness te of women’s involvement in the work of evangelizationa in Africa, as Comboni g h himself had foreseen in his own time. As for the questions of adequately preparing .a the Comboni nuns for their teaching activity, the firstw women involved – in some w cases called up from missions in Egypt – were thew most educated and those with

m most experience of teaching elsewhere; in time, othero nuns followed and these latter .c had teaching diplomas and had previously workedte in state primary schools. Small a g schools were also set up in other localities, mostlyh for Eritreans. For example, in s Dekhemhare the Comboni nuns obtained .thea military authorities’ permission to w open a labour school for ‘indigenous girls’,w but also, soon afterwards, a (separate) w nursery school for Italians’ sons. In Senafe, from 1938 until the outbreak of the m o war, the already legally recognized school.c for Eritreans was entrusted to the Pious te Mothers. Near Cheren, at the cathedrala of Chidane Mehret, the Comboni nuns g h were given control of teaching ands management functions at the Catholic girls’ .a school created by the first Eritreanw Catholic bishop of Oriental rite. w w With Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, the Comboni nuns mostly turned from m teaching activities to nursingo care at various military hospitals, though they did .c maintain some presence atte a few small parish schools, most of them frequented a g by Eritreans. In this sameh period, the Comboni nuns – whose numbers had grown s on account of the General.a Superior’s urgent demands on the ‘contingent’ present w in Egypt – collaboratedw with the military chaplains and began to undertake their w first own parish work,m together with the Capuchins. Yet only in 1937 did their first o missionary work .cbegin in some areas of Eritrea, when the Comboni nuns were te a assigned the apostolicg prefecture of Gondar and when Pietro Villa was appointed h apostolic prefect.s The Mothers of Nigrizia, accompanying the Comboni fathers, .a thus began wtheir own missionary work in Adigrat in the apostolic prefecture of w w Tigrai, and soon afterwards (1939) in Gondar (in the Casa del fanciullo, ‘kids’ m house’).o At the same time, as educational and welfare work expanded, Asmara saw .c the firstte training of young Eritrean women in the so-called religious life. At the end a g of theh conflict, with the Vittorio Emanuele III school returning to its educational s .a activityw (having been used as a military hospital) the Italian government decided w tow donate its new annexes to the Pious Mothers of Nigrizia. These were converted © Copyrighted Material The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ 31 © Copyrighted Material

into a boarding school for Italian children and would have been the headquartersm o of the Istituto Santa Famiglia. One of the annexes was devoted to a girls’ school,.c te ‘training’ them in what was considered specifically women’s work. A tellinga sign g h of the Italian government’s support was the positive judgment passed by sAndrea .a Festa – director of education in Eritrea – ordering a display of this workw to be w 33 w shown at the Naples Oltremare exhibition. m We ought to note that the girls’ schools, like those for boys, preparedo what the .c missionaries themselves called ‘a fertile terrain for religious vocations’.te In the a g same period, the nuns regained control of what was the first nucleush of the future s Casa Comboni. In subsequent years it became a shelter for all.a those who found w w themselves in difficulties and, with the opening of w the orphanage, a space for encounters between Italian nuns and Eritrean women – andm girls. Opening in 1932 o as the Pia Opera Daniele Comboni (not without opposition).c it was requisitioned te a by the air force on the eve of the Ethiopian war. Onlyg in 1938 was it handed h back to the Mothers of Nigrizia, principally devoted tos sheltering single mothers .a w with children and subsequently the wholly Fascistw project called Protezione w della Giovane (‘Protecting Young Women’). It was also here that the indigenous m novitiate began, starting with Eritrean girls whoo wanted to become nuns, most of .c te whom had first been taken in as orphans: ‘Sucha it was that the first six of them 34 g aspiring to the religious life were chosen’. hIn July 1939 the first African novices s .a were joined by a group of Italian novices wfrom Verona, with the goal of ‘building w up the indigenous novitiate’. Thus, 1939w was the year when the authorities gave the green light to the Novitiate for Nationalm and Indigenous Women (this also o being the 25th anniversary of the first.c Italian missionaries’ arrival in Eritrea). In te a 1940 the Italian nuns working in gthe Apostolic Vicariate of Eritrea were some h s 130 in number, spread across various.a villages and for the most part dedicated to w hospital and educational activitiesw (in state schools). w At the time the Second World War broke out, various communities of Comboni m o nuns were created in several.c different parts of Eritrea, within the terms of the te educational and healthcarea activities authorized or encouraged by the Italian g h government. However, sthe war also marked the beginning of the Pious Mothers’ .a departure from their missionaryw posts (and indeed many of the missions themselves w came to an end) and,w at the same time, it was decided that Casa Comboni was a

m shelter for refugeeso and the missionaries themselves. .c Throughout tthee length of the conflict, the Pious Mothers played a significant a g role in the widerh context of the Catholic church’s welfare efforts ‘devoted to s the needs of. a the newly-impoverished’ and seeking to alleviate ‘the oppressive w situation ofw the Italian community’ (Guazzini, 2008: 66–7) whom they offered w

m o .c te a g h 33s Despite being aware that the schools that aspired to the highest teaching standards .a hadw been those belonging to the Swedish mission, closed in 1932. See Trevaskis (1960: 33) w w 34 ‘Suore missionarie comboniane’ (undated: 21). © Copyrighted Material 32 Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material spaces for socializing.35 With the closing down of all the state schools in Asmara m (due to bombings) the Istituto Santa Famiglia became the new main centre ofor .c 36 te the private tuition of Italian and ‘mixed-race’ boys and girls. The Istitutoa was g respected – or rather, authorized and legalized – even by the occupiers, h thanks s .a to an agreement between the Italian school authorities and the top officialsw of the w British administration. As we read in a report from the historical archivew of the

Comboni Missionary Sisters, the Vicar Apostolic himself indicated inm a visit to the o Istituto Santa Famiglia (a few days after the British arrived) what very.c particular te a rules to follow: ‘these are sad days, he said, but we must not lose ghope: if we stick h s to our religious role and avoid interfering in politics, they will. aleave us in peace. 37 w They gave me their word’. w w Thus the fall of the Italian colonial government and the onset of the new British m o administration did not change the nature of the Comboni.c nuns’ educational and te welfare activities. This happened despite the initial blow ainterrupting the expansion g h of missionary activities in the most remote parts of Ethiopia,s and their expulsion .a from teaching in public schools for the local population.w Indeed, the missionaries w who had just previously been carrying out aid workw helping refugees would soon

m return to such a role, helping prisoners, escapeeso and the displaced. .c te a In Dekhemhare, to take one example from theg missionary records, on 3 September h s 1941 three sisters set up a nursery at the “Casa.a del Bimbo” and the other 15 Pious w Mothers who had provided their servicesw at the military hospital, after having w had to comply with the military high command’s order to head collectively for m o Asmara, were now able to return there..c They then provided various parochial and te 38 educational services for the local populationa and the roughly 8,000 Italians. g h s .a While in some places the Britishw administration took the control of the schools w w for indigenous pupils out of the Italian missionaries’ hands, and many schools m were now put to some othero use, the missionaries, who were tolerated by the .c British, in many cases did temanage to remain in their posts. They were often given a g the responsibility of assistingh the village populations ‘morally and materially’, s above all where there .awas a large number of women (i.e. war widows). In this w w w

35 About the Britishm Military Administration see Trevaskis (1960), Negash (1997), o Lucchetti (2012). .c te 36 Not by chancea did it set up classes from the first grade of elementary school to the g h fifth grade of ginnasio.s .a 37 ‘Suorew missionarie comboniane’ (n.d.: 34). In Italian: ‘A Decamerè, per riportare w un esempiow tratto dalla cronaca missionaria, tre sorella il 3 settembre del 41 avevano iniziato unm loro asilo presso la “Casa del Bimbo” e le altre 15 Pie Madri che avevano o prestato. cil loro servizio presso l’ospedale militare dopo aver dovuto adempiere l’ordine te militarea superiore di partire collettivamente per Asmara vi avevano potuto far ritorno. Esse g h alloras si prestarono per svariate opere parrocchiali ed educative in favore della popolazione .a localew e dei circa 8000 italiani’. w w 38 ‘Suore missionarie comboniane’ (publication untitled). © Copyrighted Material The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ 33 © Copyrighted Material

same period, on the personal initiative of General Superior Carla Troenzi – whom o had been in Asmara ever since the war broke out – the first Eritrean novices .toc be te invested in 1939 were admitted to the order as Pious Sisters of Nigrizia (witha a g h consecration that could be renewed each year). The years following 1943 weres the .a period in which the Comboni nuns’ educational activity reached its height:w they w 39 w were active in numerous elementary and middle schools. They were particularly m active in Asmara, not only in their teaching ‘on the Italian model’, buto also through .c their presence at English and Tigrinya schools working under tthee framework a g established by the new authorities. h s Casa Comboni’s own main activity was the Eritrean girls’.a school (this also w w providing English- and Tigrinya-language classes) and indeedw it served as the female branch of the Comboni College (founded in 1947).m At the beginning of o the 1950s the Istituto Santa Famiglia (later Sacra Famiglia.c ) – which from 1946 te a moved to a new building as a college or school – was furtherg extended, becoming h – as Puglisi’s early accounts show – ‘one of the mosts important educational .a w centres’ belonging to the Congregation of the Piousw Mothers of Nigrizia. This w period also saw the birth of a teacher-training institute and a language school m specifically devoted to girls of non-Italian nationality;o these, too, were managed .c te by the Comboni nuns and both of them recognizeda by the colonial government. g Outside Asmara, some missionaries continuedh to be active visiting the villages – s .a as they had always done, moving betweenw the missions set up in various locations w – also providing healthcare for the ill, wservices for children and in some cases working on the upkeep of churches. Onm the other hand, their evangelization effort o required them to move around, penetrating.c into the most difficult areas (Senafe, for te a example, where there was also a strongg Muslim and Coptic-schismatic element). h s Meanwhile – still in the early. a1950s – faced with the alternative of setting up a w local congregation built aroundw the Pious Sisters of Nigrizia, consecrated in 1942, w or bringing them into the Pious Mothers, they chose the latter option. Thus they m o fully accomplished the long.c process (beginning in 1939) that ultimately did see te Eritrean women joining thea Comboni congregation. g h s .a w w Conclusions w

m o .c The most importantte questions emerging from this history without doubt concern a g the Comboni hnuns’ interactions with the colonial power and, more generally, s 40 with the Italian.a and British colonial administrations. At the same time, they w w w

m 39 Aso well as continuing to be present, without any significant break, at the Regina Elena hospital.c in Asmara and the Umberto I hospital in Massawa, to which we could add te a their welfareg work in the women’s prisons. h 40s The relation ‘between colonialism and missions’ is the question of greatest interest .a whenw it comes to the European Christians’ second colonisation of Africa in the second half w ofw the nineteenth century. See Calchi Novati (2011: 295). © Copyrighted Material 34 Gender and Migration in Italy © Copyrighted Material also concern their relations with the male ecclesiastical hierarchy, above all in m the first period of this experience (the second half of the nineteentho century). .c te The central feature of the Combonian nuns’ relations with the Fascist anda then g British authorities – in a situation of never-directly-expressed conflict – h was the s .a female Catholic missionaries’ ceaseless defence of their own autonomy. Andw there w certainly were moments of tension with the Italian authorities and indeedw with the

British authorities. m o However, this tension was often concealed, indirectly surfacing.c from direct te a accounts and particular acts, and it was managed – but also ignoredg – by the h s women missionaries for the sake of guaranteeing the survival.a of their welfare w and educational activities. Thus they sought to ‘take advantage’w of the role w historically attributed to women, which was also indirectly recognized in their m o own case: the field of care and the sphere of social reproduction..c Moreover, the te teaching they supplied (in the context of state schools’a lack of resources) but g h above all the intermediary role they embodied in theirs relations with the local .a societies played in their favour as they sought to conservew a certain margin of w autonomy. More generally, the missionaries intensifiedw their presence in Eritrea

m (and Ethiopia) during the colonial occupation era,o becoming ever more active in .c ‘creating centres of community life’ and ‘takingte on a leading role in Eritrean life’. a g They benefited from the colonial authorities’h encouragement of Catholicism in s terms of the creation of new missionary schools,.a the management of existing ones, w and the strengthening of Italian propagandaw (beginning with Salvago Raggi’s w governorship and continuing under Fascism). 41 m o The formation of a local clergy was.c also of great importance to the overall te 42 picture from the very origins of thea missions’ history. It was believed that this g h would help the evangelization processs by bringing the populations closer to .a Catholic values and making theirw conversion easier. Above all, the Combonian w w missionaries encouraged the development of an African clergy (one of Comboni’s m own first objectives) as wello as African nuns, according to the idea that they could .c ‘plant’ Christianity in Africante reality and the basic postulate that evangelization a g 43 in Africa had to be the workh and the responsibility of Africans themselves. The s Comboni nuns are placed.a in this context, which provides a policy of compromise w with the Italian government.w Particularly significant in this regard was the great w importance the Combonim plan ascribed to the centrality of Africa and its potential o and, in turn, to women..c Not by chance were the first religious schools for girls te a in the Horn of gAfrica established with the help of the Congregation of the Pious h Mothers of Nigrizia,s and the first Eritrean nuns – coming long after their first .a appearance inw the Egyptian and Sudanese contexts and incomparably later than the w w Eritrean priests – were the Pious Sisters of Nigrizia. m o .c te 41a Taddia (1986: 170). g h 42s Conscious ‘of the importance of the training of Eritrean prelates, the Apostolic .a Vicariate’sw policy vigorously encouraged their development’. See Taddia (1986: 174–5). w w 43 See Calchi Novati and Valsecchi (2005: 162). © Copyrighted Material The ‘Worker Nuns of Nigrizia’ 35 © Copyrighted Material

Finally, also of interest in this experience is the great importance of the themem o of ‘moving’, as missionaries journeyed from Italy to Africa, between African.c te cities (Cairo, Khartoum, Asmara), between different parts of Eritrea itself,a and g h between one mission and another. If, indeed, the phenomenon of mobilitys was .a of considerable importance to the history of colonial administratorsw for the w w purposes of a ‘far-reaching and secure control over territory and the colonized 44 m populations’, so too could we advance similar considerations witho regard to the .c Catholic missions. te a g This is all the more true when we look at Comboni’s own plan:h ‘saving Africa s with Africa’ meant entering into direct contact with the local.a populations, and, w w above all, with women. It meant ‘penetrating’ (this word beingw something of a commonplace in missionary accounts and testimonies) intom populations who were o distant and inaccessible – not only in a geographical sense..c That is, it meant finding te a the key to access another world – to know it, get closerg to it and bring it toward a h shared set of objectives – and for Comboni, women seemeds to offer this key. .a w In short, we could say that using women (the wComboni nuns) to evangelize w among African women and to evangelize in Africa more generally was a particular m experience both in the history of European Catholico missions in Africa and in the .c te subjectivation experienced by Italian women migrantsa to Africa as well as African g women themselves, with all its light and shade.h s .a w w w

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