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| Silvia Federici | |
|---|---|
| Name | Silvia Federici |
| Birth date | 1942 |
| Birth place | Parma, Italy |
| Occupation | Scholar, activist, teacher, writer |
| Alma mater | University of Milan; University of Cagliari; University of New York (teacher) |
| Notable works | The Caliban and the Witch; Caliban and the Witch |
Silvia Federici is an Italian American scholar, teacher, and activist whose work links Marxist feminism, witchcraft studies, and critiques of capitalist accumulation. She is known for historical and theoretical analyses connecting early modern European witch hunts, enclosure, and the transition to capitalist social relations, and for founding and shaping feminist and anti-imperialist organizing across Italy, the United States, and Africa.
Federici was born in Parma and studied philosophy and literature at the University of Milan and the University of Cagliari before moving to the United States, where she taught at the State University of New York and engaged with movements including the autonomist movement, the second-wave feminist movement, and networks linked to Students for a Democratic Society, Black Panther Party, and Women’s Liberation Movement. Her formation brought her into contact with figures and organizations such as Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Frantz Fanon, Angela Davis, and institutions like the New School for Social Research and the University of California, Berkeley.
Federici co-founded the international feminist organization Wages for Housework and participated in collectives including International Feminist Collective initiatives, collaborating with groups such as Women Against Nuclear Arms, National Organization for Women, and community unions influenced by Industrial Workers of the World. Her academic appointments and visiting scholar roles connected her to centers and universities including University of Pittsburgh, University of Bologna, Essex University, University of Johannesburg, and research institutes such as the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM). She contributed to journals and presses like New Left Review, Historical Materialism, Signs (journal), Routledge, Verso Books, and worked alongside scholars such as Silvia Federici collaborator? removed to avoid self-linking.
Federici’s theoretical corpus synthesizes themes from Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Polanyi, E.P. Thompson, and Michel Foucault while dialoguing with feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser, bell hooks, and Laura Mulvey. Central claims include analyses of primitive accumulation that draw on Adam Smith critiques and reinterpretations of the Enclosure Acts in Britain, situating witch hunts alongside legislative and economic changes tied to proto-capitalist transformation. She advances concepts related to reproductive labor articulated by Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Selma James, and Lise Vogel, and engages debates on care work intersecting with policies from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Her work dialogues with historical scholars of witchcraft like Carlo Ginzburg, Keith Thomas, Michele Battini, and Gordon Campbell, and feminist historians including Ellen Meiksins Wood and Patricia Fumerton.
Her influential publications include The Caliban and the Witch, essays collected in volumes published by Autonomedia and Monthly Review Press, and collaborative texts with movements and scholars linked to Wages for Housework and Feminist Review. She has authored pieces in collections alongside editors such as Silvia Federici collaborators omitted and contributed chapters to compilations from Verso Books and Pluto Press. Her writings are widely cited in scholarship by authors including Tithi Bhattacharya, Selina Todd, Kathy Ferguson, Catherine MacKinnon, and in journals like Capital & Class.
Federici’s organizing spans transnational campaigns connected to anti-globalization protests involving World Trade Organization protests, solidarity work with movements in Nigeria, Mozambique, and South Africa, and interventions at conferences like the International Socialist Conference and World Social Forum. Her influence is visible in networks of scholars and activists including Feminist Majority Foundation, Global Justice Movement, International Women’s Rights Action Watch, and in academic programs at institutions such as Goldsmiths, University of London and University of California, Santa Cruz. Movements for pay for reproductive labor, communal childcare projects, and demands for social reproduction protections cite her work alongside activists like Selma James, Cynthia Enloe, Ruchira Gupta, and Leila Ahmed.
Critiques of Federici’s arguments come from historians and theorists including Gershom Scholem-style critics in witchcraft studies, revisionist historians such as Keith Thomas and Norman Cohn-informed scholars, and Marxist theorists debating primitive accumulation interpretations like David Harvey and Robert Brenner. Feminist economists and sociologists including Julie Nelson, Diana Leonard, and Caroline Ramazanoglu have questioned aspects of her empirical claims about witch trials and labor regimes. Debates engage with work by historians of early modern Europe such as Michael F. Suarez, Brian Levack, Alan Macfarlane, and legal historians citing archives from institutions like the English Judicial Archives and the Imperial War Museum collections.
Category:Feminist theorists Category:Italian emigrants to the United States