The Making of the Transfeminist Strike in Italy: Addressing Discourses and Movement Trajectories

Abstract

This paper investigates the construction of the transfeminist strike in Italy by tracing the continuities and discontinuities between the Migrant, Social, and Gender strikes organized in the country after the 2008 economic crisis. Building on interviews and movement documents, the research explores how these strikes attempted to extend the realm of what a strike can be. To do so, they advanced competing understandings around what constitutes work and who qualifies as a worker. These efforts were organized around unexpected striking subjects – migrant and precarious workers, women, and queer people. In illuminating different trajectories of discourse construction leading to the transfeminist strike, this work identifies discursive rifts between unions and movements, and beyond. Ultimately, the article shows how movements changed the strike in times of crisis and how the strike became transfeminist.