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LEVEL 1. Phoenix – A New Kind of Rebirth

BRIDGE Main Challenge: A.6. Deficits in democratic participation, representation and inclusive governance

What problem does it address?

Incarcerated mothers, migrant mothers in reception facilities, and mothers who are victims of gender-based violence in Italy are governed by institutions that manage their lives without granting them meaningful participation, reduced to objects of institutional management rather than subjects of rights and civic agency.

What does it propose?

Phoenix implements Participatory Action Research with marginalised mothers in three contexts (penitentiary, migration reception, anti-violence services), co-constructing a participatory diagnosis, tailored empowerment interventions, and inter-institutional round tables that embed women's voices in service governance.

Why is it an inspiring practice?
  • • Reverses the researcher-researched relationship: women become co-producers of knowledge about their own condition.
  • • Designs three distinct, tailored pathways rather than a single uniform intervention across contexts.
  • • Makes inter-institutional round tables deliberative, producing binding co-design outputs rather than consultation only.
  • • Adapts digital tools (a financial literacy MOOC) to penitentiary and low-literacy access constraints.
  • • Publishes its full research toolkit (focus group guides, interview protocols) for other teams to reuse freely.
Resources you'll find
  • • Phoenix volume (Lopez et al., 2026, Editoriale Anicia) — peer-reviewed findings and full research toolkit (Appendix, pp. 241–284)
  • • Financial literacy MOOC (University of Foggia)
  • • Project page: forlilpsi.unifi.it
Featured results
3
Territorial contexts covered (penitentiary, migration reception, anti-violence)
1
Peer-reviewed volume published (Lopez et al., 2026)
1
Inter-institutional round table convened per territorial context
1
Financial literacy MOOC produced (University of Foggia)
What can visitors learn?
• How Participatory Action Research can reposition service users as co-producers of knowledge, not just subjects of study.
• How an intersectionality framework can differentiate intervention design across distinct vulnerable groups.
• How deliberative round tables can turn siloed institutions into a coordinated, accountable governance network.
• How to design digital tools (a MOOC) that remain accessible under penitentiary or low-literacy constraints.
• How the ethics of care can be applied as a public, political principle rather than a private, gendered one.

LEVEL 2. EXPLORE BEST PRACTICE

Introduction

Phoenix (PRIN PNRR, 2023–2026) is a Participatory Action Research project run by three Italian universities (Foggia, Florence, Roma Tre) with incarcerated mothers, migrant mothers and survivors of gender-based violence. It combines participatory diagnosis, narrative/financial-literacy laboratories and inter-institutional round tables, repositioning women as co-producers of the knowledge and governance that affects them.

  • Coordinating organisation: University of Foggia (Italy)
  • Participating countries: Italy (IT)
  • Duration: 2023-2026
  • BRIDGE Main Challenge: A.6. Deficits in democratic participation, representation and inclusive governance
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
  • SDG 4: Quality Education
  • SDG 5: Gender Equality
  • SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Secondary Challenges
  • A.1. Structural and intersectional inequalities that shape inclusion and social cohesion
  • A.5. Discrimination, racism and sociocultural polarisation, including hate speech

The Challenge

What social issue does it address?

Three groups of marginalised mothers in Italy — incarcerated women, migrant women in reception facilities, and survivors of gender-based violence — are structurally excluded from participation in the governance of the services that manage their lives, within a predominantly paternalistic welfare model that treats them as objects rather than civic subjects.

Why is it important?

Where institutions manage women's lives without their participation, services remain unaccountable and paternalistic, reproducing rather than resolving the marginalisation they are meant to address, and denying women the self-determination and civic agency central to democratic inclusion.

How does it contribute to the BRIDGE Challenge?

Phoenix reverses the researcher-researched relationship through Participatory Action Research, building women's epistemic authority into diagnosis and intervention design, and creating inter-institutional round tables that make service governance accountable to their voices.

How does it work?

Across three university units, women take part in participatory diagnosis (interviews, focus groups), then co-designed interventions (narrative laboratories, parenting support, financial literacy MOOCs), whose findings feed directly into inter-institutional round tables that produce binding governance agreements.

What might inspire you?
Ideas for adaptation
  1. Reverse roles: women become co-producers of research, not subjects.
  2. Design three tailored pathways for three distinct forms of exclusion.
  3. Pair narrative laboratories with a financial-literacy MOOC.
  4. Make round tables deliberative, not just consultative, with binding output.
  5. Adapt digital tools to penitentiary and low-literacy access limits.
  6. Publish the full research toolkit for other teams to reuse freely
  7. Note where institutions blocked participation as evidence in itself.
  8. Ground diagnosis in an explicit intersectionality framework.
  9. Combine three universities around one shared PAR methodology.
  10. Frame care as a public, political matter, not a private one.
Resources created

Phoenix volume (Lopez, ed., 2026)

Digital publication

Edited volume on marginalised, abused and incarcerated motherhood, presenting the methodology and findings of the Phoenix participatory research.

Researchers, Professionals, Policy Makers

https://www.edizionianicia.it/prodotto/phoenix-sguardi-sulla-maternita-marginalizzata/

Phoenix project page

Interactive digital resource

Official page of the Phoenix project at the University of Florence, with information on objectives, methodology and partners.

Researchers, Policy Makers, General Public

https://www.forlilpsi.unifi.it/vp-681-phoenix-a-new-kind-of-rebirth-for-women-and-children-living-in-conditions-of-marginalization.html