Decolonizzare lo sguardo sperimentando la cura. Il progetto M.A.R.G.E. per il supporto alla genitorialità competente e all’empowerment nel materno

The contribution presents the preliminary project M.A.R.G.E. – Mothers in action-research process (Hall, 1997; Lucisano & Salerni, 2002) conducted in contexts of educational complexity and marginality (Iavarone & Girardi, 2026) in Naples. The intervention involves networks of young local mothers and refugee and asylum-seeking women in mediation-education pathways focused on care and migrant motherhood (O’Neill, 2018), with the aim of fostering competent parenting (Iavarone, 2025). Through creative practices (McNiff, 2008), the participatory workshops – including collective walks and mapping activities, listening circles, and embroidery – activate processes of self-narration and peer learning, taking shape as open relational spaces within the local community. From the perspective of situated intersectionality (Schmoll, 2022) and decolonial thought (Borghi, 2020), the expected outcomes concern personal empowerment, the strengthening of the parent-child relationship, and the development of forms of active participation. In this way, the project promotes alternative narratives that value the margin as a generative space of care, transformation, and individual and collective self-awareness.