Other women’s bodies. Symbolic violence amid gender and ethnicity: the role of education

Résumé

Increases in migratory flows to Mediterranean countries pose new problems regarding conciliation between the cultural practices of immigrant peoples and the safeguard of the individual rights guaranteed by the laws of the host countries. This is particularly evident as far as sexual customs and inter-gender relationships are concerned and unless these issues are addressed “from the bottom”, that is, starting with events that regard women themselves, there exists the risk that supportive action of any kind whatsoever may be turned into an instrument capable
of producing even greater inter-cultural polarisation. Education is charged with
the task of favouring a transcultural approach, one based, therefore, on interdiciplinarity and on the valorisation of intersubjectivity as a means by which to discover one’s own alterity and that of others.