Storie, memorie e differenze di genere. Antropologia delle voci e pratiche di restituzione in Terra d'Otranto

This paper presents an anthropological and visual study of women's status in the 20th century in Terra d'Otranto, based on the life stories of twenty women from diverse social and professional backgrounds. From a gender perspective, the essay analyzes the cultural construction of female identities and persistent inequalities in roles, responsibilities, and opportunities, while also highlighting forms of agency, resistance, and emancipation. Two years after the conclusion of the fieldwork, the essay focuses on the reflexive and ethical dimensions of ethnography, the role of the archive, and restitution practices as tools for the production and transmission of memory, positioning itself within an anthropology committed to and oriented toward the democratization of knowledge.