Donne alla frontiera: memorie e resistenze femminili contro il sistema dei confini nel Mediterraneo. Una ricerca etnografica sulla rotta migratoria dalla Tunisia alla Sicilia.

This research is based on a multi-sited ethnography in the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Sicily. It investigates the forms of externalisation of the European border in Tunisia through the voices of female protagonists: migrants, mothers and sisters of missing people at the borders, and activists. These are women who experience the border at different levels: from pseudo-reception to the rejection of protection by the humanitarian and security apparatus, pushbacks to labour exploitation and the denial of recognition of the death of their relatives. The first part analyses the securitarian migration policies of rejection, containment and violence. The management of death at the border by the institutions and authorities of nation states is investigated. Over the years, a strong resistance has emerged from women at the border who challenge the silence of institutions and oppose the policies that have the power to determine the lives that have value. In the second part, the value of women's testimonies at the border is analysed: the rebellion against the border regime - within a choral and dialogic discourse - is expressed in women's alliances of Tunisian and sub-Saharan women who, in a global manner, share political demands, strategies of struggle and resistance to oblivion.