Abstract
The recent cycle of social struggles against precarity in Italy has been characterized by an extensive use of images representing precarious workers. This contribution explores this in the case of the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP) protest campaign. The subversion of existing popular culture traditions was the main objective of the activists' newly created icons such as San Precario, Serpica Naro and other visual tools. The visual work on gender in the EMP seemed to fill a gap between theoretical work on the feminization of affective and immaterial labour and the less predominant presence of gender. Visual icons seem to have been at least as successful as text messages in publicizing the precarity discourse and their production deserves further attention.
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Notes
For more on this see Mattoni and Doerr (2007).
The (ex) Deposito Bulk was a social centre active in Milan from 1997 to 2006. The CUB is a radical trade union established in 1992 due to the efforts of a large group of workers who did not recognize themselves in traditional trade unions. The acronym means Confederazione Unitaria di Base. Finally, the Chainworkers Crew, which is also based in Milan, was established in 1999. For a more detailed history of the Chainworkers Crew and its approach to political struggles against precarity, see ChainCrew (2001).
For a reconstruction of direct actions involving the San Precario icon and a detailed analysis of this icon, see also Tarì and Vanni (2005).
See http://www.euromayday.org/netparade/, accessed at 1.3.2007.
Activists translated the name Imbattibili into Unbeatable(s). For more about the Imbattibili sticker cards, see Vanni (forthcoming).
See http://www.chainworkers.org/imbattibili; accessed at: 1.2.2007.
For more on this, see Mattoni (2007).
For more about the creation of the Serpica Naro fashion show, the Imbattibili and San Precario, see Mattoni (2007).
References
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Mattoni, A. (2007) ‘Serpica Naro and the others. The social media experience in the Italian precarious workers struggles’, Paper prepared for the International Association of Media and Communications Research. Paris, 23-25/07/2007.
Mattoni, A. and Doerr, N. (2007) ‘Visual icons of protest in transnational public spaces: the EuroMayday compaign’, Paper prepared for the International Visual Sociology Association conference, New York, 10–12/08/2007.
Tarì, M. and Vanni, I. (2005) ‘On the life and deeds of San Precario, Patron Saint of precarious workers and lives’ in Fibreculture 5 – 2005, Precarious labour, Australia: Fibreculture Publications.
Vanni, I. (forthcoming) ‘How to do things with words and images: Gli Imbattibili’ in Stocchetti, M. and Sumalia-Sappanen, J. (forthcoming) editors, Images and Communities, Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press.
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Mattoni, A., Doerr, N. images within the precarity movement in Italy. Fem Rev 87, 130–135 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400356
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400356