A project funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation on the significance of the use of the veil in Italy, Morocco and Egypt. The project leader is Paralleli Institute in collaboration with Cicsene, M.A.I.S., Idea Lavoro, Kenana, APPSD (Association pour la promotion de la Scolarisation et le développement social).
Objective of the project
The project provides the realization of three videos/documentaries, subsequently merged into a single video documentary, with spontaneous interviews with women and men, particularly young people, in three countries (Italy, Morocco, Egypt), on the significance of the use of the veil in each country and in different contexts.
The veil has taken on a connotation of contrast, of difference, of confrontation between different cultures and different lifestyles. The project aims at making people reflect on the historical and cultural value that the veil has taken in the countries of northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, starting from the recent past of Europe and Italy. The relevance of the debate on this particular "object identity" has inflamed European public opinion especially since the influx of immigrant women who used it, coming from the Arab-Islamic countries.
However it should be noted that far from being a "foreign" element to European culture, it has always been a factor in the identification of the woman within a given cultural context. Though in recent times it has disappeared from European societies and in particular from the Italian one, it is not certainly disappeared from our imagination and it is still the symbol of certain social groups such as, for example, the religious one.
The symbolic importance of the veil is now associated mainly to the religious and Islamic culture in its various forms ranging from its use more or less complete (the burqa and the chador) to a more "lightweight" (hijab). But how the choice of using the veil is really conditioned by the outside or is rather the result of a conscious and reasoned women’s choice and not "an imposition of men" remains to be verified. And the choices may be very different depending on whether you take as a reference the countries of origin or those of immigration.
The production of the video will be preceded by the starting, in each country, of work tables during which young people, local associations, women, men and stakeholders will meet to define the modalities of conducting the interviews deciding the criteria from time to time, the themes and the questions to ask.
A project funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation on the significance of the use of the veil in Italy, Morocco and Egypt. The project leader is Paralleli Institute in collaboration with Cicsene, M.A.I.S., Idea Lavoro, Kenana, APPSD (Association pour la promotion de la Scolarisation et le développement social).
Objective of the project
The project provides the realization of three videos/documentaries, subsequently merged into a single video documentary, with spontaneous interviews with women and men, particularly young people, in three countries (Italy, Morocco, Egypt), on the meaning of the use of the veil in each country and in different contexts.
The veil has taken on a connotation of contrast, of difference, of confrontation between different cultures and different lifestyles. The project aims at making people reflect on the historical and cultural value that the veil has taken in the countries of northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, starting from the recent past of Europe and Italy. The relevance of the debate on this particular "object identity" has inflamed European public opinion especially since the influx of immigrant women who used it, coming from the Arab-Islamic countries.
However it should be noted that far from being a "foreign" element to European culture, it has always been a relevant factor in the identification of the woman within a given cultural context. Though in recent times it has disappeared from European societies and in particular from the Italian one, it is not certainly disappeared from our imagination and it is still the symbol of certain social groups such as, for example, the religious one.
The symbolic importance of the veil is now associated mainly to the religious and Islamic culture in its various forms ranging from its use more or less complete (the burqa and the chador) to a more "lightweight" (hijab). But how the choice of using the veil is really conditioned by the context or is rather the result of a conscious and reasoned women’s choice and not "an imposition of men" remains to be verified. And the choices may be very different depending on whether you take as a reference the countries of origin or those of immigration.
The production of the video was preceded by the starting, in each country, of work tables during which young people, local associations, women, men and stakeholders met to define the modalities of conducting the interviews deciding the criteria from time to time, the themes and the questions to ask.