Per una nuova grammatica dei diritti: vivere, esistere, agire

The essay focuses on two pivotal aspects of the historiographical themes examined in depth by Angela Groppi: the social history of “total institutions” and the history of women’s political rights. Groppi tried to investigate the complexity and the specific logic of the relationship between the institutions of “social control” and the interned, as well as the role of their relatives and other mediation figures. In an original way, she studied the theme of women’s citizenship during the French Revolution and the beginnings of the welfare state. She shows, in both fields, the importance of a more flexible category of power and how the struggle to live, exist and act was the most important goal for the 19th-century popular classes.

Keywords: social history, historical method, women’s internment, citizenship rights