The Observatory

The research observatory on femicide is born within the PRIN projetc 2015 "Social representations of violence against women: the case of femicide in Italy".
It aims to be a common space for sharing information, research and analysis useful to reconstruct a detailed view of data on women victims of femicide in Italy, between 2015 and 2017.

The project, which is led by the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Bologna, involves four other research units:

  • Department of Culture, Politics and Society - University of Turin
  • Department of History, Society and Studies on Man - University of Salento
  • Department of Culture and Society - University of Palermo
  • Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy and Applied Psychology - University of Padua

The Observatory monitors the available sources, both institutional and non-institutional, on the women killed and takes care of their analysis and eventually its dissemination.
In particular it notes information that can provide data about:
a) specific aspects of the phenomenon (eg. type of relationship between victim and perpetrator; geographical distribution of cases etc).
b) socio-economic indicators (age of the victim, level of education, profession etc).

It also intends to develop an analytical census of spaces, products and tools focusing on the phenomenon of femicide.
Among these:
a) Scientific publications
b) Web environments active on the subject (eg. blogs, sites, groups and pages on Facebook)
c) Communication campaigns and information and awareness actions
d) Institutional reports and laws 

The Observatory is also dedicated to the events organized as part of the PRIN research and to national and international initiatives in which the various components of the five research units involved took part.