The academic year is off to a flying start as many of our project members travelled to the yearly Italian Political Science Association Conference held at the University of Trieste. This year, the Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality in Politics section organized 12 different panels that were as many occasions to exchange and intervene in Italian political science from a gender perspective. Several of the panels hosted members of our project and were precious moments to put our research under the benevolent scrutiny of many colleagues that responded with excitement and provided guiding advice.
Francesco and Massimo presented the first draft of a paper that traces the emergence and development of LGBTIQ+ policies in Italy and France across the last decade. Margherita and Pamela shared some of their research on the ILGA Rainbow index, its potential affordances for research purposes, and its use to plot the coordinates of LGBTIQ+ equality in Italy. Federico and Massimo talked about their research on the state of Italian political science from an intersectional perspective trying to emphasize how it remains discipline saturated by whiteness, straightness, masculinity, and ableness. Elisabetta, alongside two other scholars, discussed research on the way radical right parties apprehend women’s issues in Southern Europe. She deserves s special mention as co-organizer of the conference, which meant she was always running around the university’s halls to make sure everything was working as planned.
Travelling to Trieste was also just a great time to get together, spend some in-person time together, and share some off-work time. We know that an academic conference may sound serious and low-spirited, but trust us and worry not, we had a blast!
