China and Italy’s presidents shake hands. EPA-EFE/Alessandro Tarantino / Pool
Winnie King, University of Bristol
Italy is projected to be the first G7 nation to officially endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And that’s raising the ire of both the European Union and the United States. Continue reading
Flora Derounian, University of Bristol 
In an era before the dawn of pesticides and mechanisation, an all-female workforce was employed to “disinfect” and harvest Italy’s rice crops. These Italian rice weeders may be a thing of the past, but they have a remarkable political legacy.
Italy was, and remains, Europe’s largest rice producer. The rice weeders, known in Italian as “mondine”, could be found knee-deep in flooded fields from May until July, across Italy’s “rice belt” which spans the northern regions of Piedmont, Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and the Veneto. In my ongoing research, I study oral histories of rice weeders who worked between 1940 and 1965, collected from several interview projects and documentaries. Continue reading
Actor Asia Argento arrives at the 2017 Cannes film festival. EPA/Ian Langsdon
O’Rawe Catherine, University of Bristol and Danielle Hipkins, University of Exeter
Italy has long been regarded as being backwards when it comes to gender rights and sexual harassment. So in many ways, its reaction to the recent wave of revelations about sexual harassment by men in positions of power all over the world was depressingly familiar. But, at the same time, it also revealed the strength and diversity of grassroots feminism there, despite the odds. Continue reading
