Featuring violence: symbolic and epistemic violence

Featuring violence: symbolic and epistemic violence

Coordination : Anna Krykun, Emmanuelle Käes, Roxana Ilasca et Liudmyla Harmash (chercheuse invitée LE STUDIUM 2025-26 au sein de l’UR ICD)

• Raffaele Modugno (University of Salerno, Psychology): “When narratives harm: affectivating epistemic violence. A case study from the Balkan Route”

This talk explores representational and epistemic violence affecting migrating people aiming at reaching Europe. Epistemic violence creates the conditions of dehumanization within which physical and psychological violence becomes allowed and normalized, while also directly and affectively harming people on the move. Drawing on ethnographic field experience along the Balkan route, the presentation examines how illegalized migrating people live and narrate a context in which violence constitutes the fabric of everyday life, what psychological and social consequences dehumanizing narratives entail, and which forms of response and resistance can (or cannot) emerge.

Suggested reading: Thom Davies, Arshad Isakjee and Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik, 'Epistemic borderwork. Violent pushbacks, refugees, and the politics of knowledge at the EU border' (2023).

Raffaele Modugno is a PhD student in psychology at the University of Salerno, in Italy, where he is conducting an ethnographic research focusing on migrating experiences at the European Union borders, which often take place in a context of daily violence and human rights violations. His research interests include social and critical cultural psychology, as well as the questions of borders, liminality, forms of resistance, epistemic violence and social justice. Among his last publications, one may mention ‘Affectivating Positionality. Autoethnography of an Extreme Field’ (Human Arenas, 2025) and ‘A Critical Sociocultural Understanding of Evidence-Based Research and Practice Paradigm in Contemporary Psychology’ (Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 2024).
 

• Jacqueline Aiello (University of Salerno, Linguistics): “‘I can’t let this narrative of self-defense go any further’: the (re)narration and discursive (re)construction of the shooting of Renee Good”

On 7 January 2026, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sparking national controversy and sharply disparate accounts of the event. The federal narrative framed the act as self-defense, while local officials and grassroots actors challenged and rejected this view, with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz maintaining that it was fruit of a “propaganda machine.” This presentation draws on narrative and (multimodal) discourse analysis to explore competing (counter)narratives of this violent event. It focuses on discursive strategies of epistemic positioning and (de)legitimization processes to show how conceptions of truth, public trust, and politico-ideological commitment are (re)constructed across media, institutional, and local discourses.

Suggested reading: Michael D. Jonesa and Mark K. McBeth, 'Narrative in the time of Trump. Is the narrative policy framework good enough to be relevant (2020).

Jacqueline Aiello is Associate Professor of English language, translation and linguistics at the University of Salerno, Italy. She earned her doctorate in Multilingual and Multicultural Studies from New York University and has received a Fulbright ETA grant and two NYU Global Research Initiative Fellowships. She is the author of Negotiating Englishes and English-speaking Identities (2018, Routledge), winner of the 2019 AIA Junior Book Prize, and The Discursive Construction of the Modern Political Self (2023, Routledge). She also serves as an Associate Investigator of the PRIN 2022 PNRR project “Acceptability strategies through variations of ELF in multicultural and multimodal discourse types.”
 

• Giuseppina Cersosimo and Lucia Landolfi (University of Salerno, Sociology): “Gender-based violence narrative in onlife: implications for women’s wellbeing and health”

This talk focuses on a new form of violence against women that is no less aggressive and has real consequences for the victims' well-being and health: cyberviolence. Cyberviolence is part of a continuum of violence, emphasising that its various manifestations derive from a common cultural root and are intrinsically linked. It is no coincidence that gender-based violence against women and girls in the digital sphere, or cyber-VAWG, exacerbates the discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion of women from society. This is not an isolated phenomenon, but one that arises and is fuelled by institutions marked by deep inequalities and structural discrimination. As a matter of fact, online relationships, including those involving love and emotions, are not only a private matter of gender-based violence, but also a public practice involving actions and reactions when they are presented, posted, and published online. Content posted online leaves permanent, reproducible traces that can affect women's offline lives. Cyberviolence leaves indelible marks on women's bodies and minds. Building on the WHO report (2021), this presentation will demonstrate how violence against women is exacerbated by digital technology and environmental changes. It will also show how this issue will have long-term repercussions for women's health and well-being.

Suggested reading: Giuseppina Cersosimo and Lucia Landolfi, 'De-normalizing Obstetric Violence in Italy. Digital Storytelling as Source of Information and Identification' (2025).

Giuseppina Cersosimo is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Political and Social Studies at the University of Salerno, where she teaches sociology, sociology of health, and web sociology and social impacts. She also lectures in the Master’s degree programs in Medicine and Surgery, Dentistry, and in the degree programs in the Health Professions at the Department of Medicine, Surgery and Dentistry “Scuola Medica Salernitana” of the University of Salerno, where she teaches sociology of health and gender inequality. Professor Cersosimo has lectured and conducted research at several European institutions, including the University of Bath, Cardiff University, Uppsala University, Transilvania University of Brașov, Universidad de Málaga, and Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville. Her main research interests include the sociology of health and medicine, health promotion, gender-based violence, gender and identity, healthily and active ageing, qualitative research methods, and social theory, with a particular focus on symbolic interactionism and the reconstruction of women’s presence in the classical sociological canon. She is scientific coordinator of the Preventing and Responding to Gender-Based Violence (PaRGeV) laboratory.

Lucia Landolfi is a postdoctoral researcher currently involved in the project “Gender-Based Violence: Social and Health Implications Across the Life Course” at the Department of Political and Social Studies of the University of Salerno. In 2023, she obtained her PhD degree in Social Theory, Digital Innovation, and Public Policies at the University of Salerno and since that time has been a lecturer in healthcare management sciences. In 2023-2024 she also conducted a training session on “Affectivity, sexuality and gender identity” as part of a project on HIV and STI prevention among adolescents.