This paper examines how male violence against women is represented in Italian advertisements. It focuses on the recent developments in social and commercial campaigns, showing their connection to broader changes in the public discourse on gender-based violence. The analysis builds on the assumption that effective social advertising should promote a paradigm shift to reflect the complexity of the phenomenon and encourage a different social perception of it. Gender-based violence is a symptom of the cultural order that moulds our gender identities and our intimate relationships. Only those campaigns capable of going beyond the symptoms to reveal the ingrained set of cultural norms that legitimize male violence can be effective. Today the pictures of bruised faces are so embedded in our everyday imaginary that they are almost invisible. It is only by questioning these practices that we will grasp the roots of male violence and develop strategies to stop it.

This paper examines the results of qualitative research with young people of Arab Mediterranean background living in Milan, Italy, and their experiences related to the socalled Arab uprisings and their aftermath from a gendered transnational perspective. Drawing on interviews and on the analysis of online sources, the case study explores the form and extent of the transnational engagement of these young people and their views of the uprisings and the current events unfolding in the region. The paper aims at highlighting the different ways these young women and men take part in the social, cultural and political changes in their parents’ homeland. It also explores the impact of these key historical events on young people’s projects and biography, on their political values and behaviours, on the construction of their identity and their sense of belonging. The analysis contributes to the debate on transnationalism, taking the perspective of the so-called “second generation” emerging from international migration.

Since the late 1990s, an interest in lived, embodied and subjective experiences of citizenship – namely ‘lived citizenship’ - has made its way into citizenship studies. In this chapter, I identify possible ways for studying lived citizenship through intersectional lenses. I show the usefulness of this approach for exploring the struggles around inclusion/exclusion of disenfranchised and multiply-marginalized subjects, and for grasping the transformation of citizenship and belonging that come from these subjects. To this end, in the first part of the chapter I trace the academic debate, focusing on feminist, anti-racist and difference-centred interventions in critical citizenship studies. In the second part, I present an ethnographic study on migrant women’s collective organizing in a Southern European context (Spain). In the conclusion, I share some methodological thoughts on the application of situated, intersectional lenses and of the ethnographic gaze in this research field.