Fondazione Elvira Badaracco

Women’s studies and documentation

The Elvira Badaracco Foundation was founded in 1994 as a result of the transformation of the Centre of Historical Studies on Women's Liberation Movement in Italy, created in 1979 by Elvira Badaracco and Pierrette Coppa. The purposes of the Centre were then, among others, to collect and organize women's oral and written productions, published or not, individual or not, which embodied the richness of experiences and reflections born with Feminism; to assure its reachability and promote its diffusion, experimenting adequate information administration for documental needs. The collecting project was not only meant to prevent the loss of texts and materials, but also to start a new process of reflection and studies on such an extraordinary experience as that one women began living in those years, as Marina Zancan, President of the centre wrote in 1981.

The Centre – officially declared of Great Historical Interest in 1988 – began to exchange experiences and knowledge with analogue realities all across Europe, in order to examine theoretical, political and methodological approaches to women's studies.

In 1988, together with the Women's Information Office of the European Community Commission, the Centre of Historical Studies on Women's Liberation Movement in Italy organized the International Congress named "Perleparole" ("Forwords"): the purpose of which was to collect and discuss all European women's initiatives about the circulation of information and documentation on women's condition. The initiative was shared by twenty-four Centres of Documentation, Libraries and Archives, thirteen of which were European..

In 1990 the Centre produced "Linguaggiodonna", ("Womanlanguage"), the first gender Thesaurus in Italian. Financed, as a pilot project, by the European Community, the Thesaurus has been adopted as a basic instrument for the Lilith Web (The Web collecting all informatical materials from Centres of Documentation, Libraries and Archives).

The Badaracco Foundation, which inherited from the Centre the purpose of the diffusion of women's culture from Feminism on, in 2000 created the book collection titled "Letture d'Archivio" ("Archive Readings").

In October 2001 it has also promoted a Seminar titled Seminario a più voci: una rete di comunicazione fra le donne. L’eredità del femminismo per una lettura del presente (More voices seminar: a women’s communication network. The feminism’s inheritance for a reading of the present) in Milan, in which participated Italian Centres which are involved with Feminism Archives and UDI Archives, as well as similar European Centres, some individual experts in history and some experts in archiviation and documentation in order to verify the progression of works; compare political and methodological choices which oriented the archiviation work and the managing of information; intensify the coordination of exchange activities of theoretical and practical experiences and select synergies in order to gain more strength and contract power towards Public Italian and European Institutions, also on the economic side. The organization of this Seminar was part of the WWW (Women Writers' Words) project and was supported by the European Community, and it was coordinated by the University “La Sapienza” in Rome. The Acts of the seminar are published by Il Paese delle Donne, Roma 2002.

Current activities and cultural character

The Foundation’s activity holds out in continuity with the experience of the Centre of Historical Studies on Women's Liberation Movement in Italy, with the perspective of increasing the value of the sectors like:

  1. preservation of archives relating to women’s history and feminism;
  2. construction of a library focusing on the political and cultural reflection of women;
  3. research on central themes of women’s history.

Other activities are:

  1. promotion of research on all those fields related to the study of women's culture and political practice;
  1. preservation, development and organization of the archives and of the skilled library;
  1. elaboration of criteria and methodologies in order to implement the work of registering and managing of the information from the archives and librarian founds;
  2. implementation of networking and exchange activities with others Women’s Centres of Documentation, Libraries and Archives as well as Universities, public and private organizations, associations, and Italian and European Institutions;
  3. creation of scholarship and awards to be assigned to feminine scholars researching on the Foundation’s research fields;
  4. organization of conventions, seminars, debates, and conferences;
  5. participation into national and international Web and data base;
  6. organization of refresher courses and vocational trainings for teachers, archivers, librarians and women interested on the Foundation’s activities;
  1. pubblication in book collection of documents and materials as result of the Foundation’s activities.

Partners

National and international relationships

The Foundation has a constant relationship of collaboration with all the Centres of women’s documentation in Italy and also has a partnership with some Italian Universities, such as the University of Siena in particular, where a sector of research in women’s history has been activated and the University La Sapienza in Rome, where a post graduate research doctoral in History of women’s writers is being carried out.

Abroad, the Foundation has had a strong relationship and exchanges with the International Informatiencentrum en Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IIAV) in Amsterdam; the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand in Paris and it’s been partner of many projects supported by the European Community.

The Foundation is also a crux in the Lilith Web which collects and diffuses all informatical materials from Centres of Documentation, Libraries and Archives.

Directive organs

President: Marina Zancan

Administration council: Marzia Barbera, Lea Meandri, Federica Negri

Scientific comitee: Marzia Barbera, Alba Chiavassa, Roberta Fossati, Stefania Ghirardello, Lea Melandri; Alessandra Miola, Adriana Perrotta Rabissi, Marina Piazza, Rosella Prezzo, Myriam Trevisan, Paola Villa , Marina Zancan