Anti-Violence Centres and Shelters in Italy: Between Resistance and Institutionalization

Anti-Violence Centres (AVCs) are conceptualised as feminist communities of resistance, capable of generating counter-hegemonic knowledge and relational practices oriented toward social transformation. However, this configuration is neither given nor homogeneous: it unfolds within a heterogeneous field shaped by growing processes of institutionalisation and bureaucratisation. Drawing on feminist epistemologies and Bourdieu’s field theory, and based on qualitative research – including 35 interviews with practitioners and two focus groups with representatives of feminist networks – this article examines how performance-oriented pressures and administrative standardisation threaten the epistemic and political autonomy of AVCs. The article highlights the strategies enacted by feminist grassroot centres to sustain transformative practices, assert alternative interpretive frameworks, and build alliances within territorial contexts increasingly shaped by institutional actors operating under divergent paradigms. It argues that the survival of AVCs as feminist communities of resistance depends not only on their capacity to counter marginalisation from decision-making processes, but also on their ability to build cross-sectoral solidarities grounded in an intersectional perspective.