“The Witness Is Passing By”: Femminicidio and the Politics of Representation in Italy

In this article, I narrate the story of Anfora, a personified art object considered a “witness” of gendered violence and femicide, in a political campaign organized by the feminist group Unione Donne in Italia (UDI) in 2008 and 2009. I argue that this campaign’s use of “prosopopoeia” contributed to the emergence of femicide (femminicidio) as a matter of concern in Italy, to the construction of a “community of sense” around gendered violence, and to a redefinition of women as political subjects. By focusing on the representational, relational, and affective dimensions of Anfora’s personification, I show how the feminists of UDI promoted an understanding of violence beyond trauma and of witnessing beyond victimhood. Both of these understandings speak to broader debates in contemporary feminism. Anfora’s role was more than symbolic, in that her material presence was a form of witness. In this way, I claim, Anfora became a key element in the emergence of a new “woman question” in Italy related to gendered violence and femicide: a political enterprise pursued through what Jacques Rancière would call dissensus.