The aim of this project is to examine the role and/or perspective of socially marginalized groups and individual subjects on events and/or phenomena of historical importance. Social marginality in this respect is defined as the process by which the possession of a personal characteristic or combination of personal characteristics has caused a group and/or individual subject to be actively and/or passively discriminated against, and thereby ‘pushed’ to the edge of a given social or political unit. Here, their ‘voices’ go ‘unheard’ or ‘silenced’ as they do not have, or are explicitly denied, equal access to the mechanisms of public discourse enjoyed by others, such as political office, space in a newspaper column, or creative control of films and television. Gender, race, nationality, income group and disability are well known characteristics wherein there have been and continue to be hierarchies of discrimination and privilege.
This understanding of social marginality underpins the project on the lives of non heterosexual and/or non-gender conforming individuals who participate or have participated in the fight against the mafia in Sicily (the so-called Cosa Nostra) from the1970s until the present day.