F Cerchiaro
Biographic Data
| ID | 20207 |
|---|---|
| NAME | F Cerchiaro |
| GIVEN NAMES | F |
| FAMILY NAME | Cerchiaro |
| SIGNATURE | CERCHIARO F |
| AFFILIATIONS | KU Leuven |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7761-9501 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Metaphors at work
Metaphors operate as symbolic infrastructures that shape how the social world is conceptualized and rendered intelligible. This article develops a cultural sociology of metaphor, arguing that metaphors encode epistemic, normative and aesthetic logics within the architecture of theoretical reasoning. Moving beyond cognitive and illustrative models, it introduces the concept of metaphorical infrastructure to describe how dominant metaphors conditio…
The Spiritual Turn and 'Feminization
Although women and men identify as 'spiritual' in similar numbers, far more women participate in the holistic milieu. We seek to solve this 'gender puzzle' by fleshing out the gender scripts the holistic milieu fosters, and their varying relationships to the wider gender order. Surveying existing scholarship, we show that, for women, participation serves to naturalize a script of postfeminist femininity that combines gender essentialism with poli…
Advancing research in couple studies
The everyday dimensions of stigma. Morofobia in everyday life of daughters of Maghrebi-Spanish couples in Granada and Barcelona (Spain)
Negative attitudes towards Muslim minorities are an increasingly common phenomenon in many European countries. This stigma is often associated with religious discrimination; on others, it has a more marked racial connotation. Based on biographical interviews with 19 daughters of mixed Maghrebi-Spanish families in Granada and Barcelona (Spain), this article disentangles the notion of stigma, showing how the experiences of these young women are cha…
From son to father
Contains fulltext : 296598.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)
Why do we have to circumcise our son?' Meanings behind male circumcision in the life stories of mixed couples with a Muslim partner
Circumcision is an important symbolic practice that involves parenting and intergenerational transmission. Nevertheless, previous research has not investigated what it actually means to the partners, its significance in countries where Muslims are minorities and — above all — if people marry outside their own religious group. Through an analysis of partners’ narratives, the article explores the meaning attributed to circumcision by mixed couples …
Displaying Difference, Displaying Sameness
Drawing on qualitative research involving Christian-Muslim couples in Italy, France and Belgium, the article explores the concept of mixedness by employing Finch's concept of 'displaying family' to reach two goals: how the concept of mixedness bears multiple meanings and how the narrative tool of display works in the life story approach. The analysis distinguishes three main dimensions partners deploy to articulate the concept of mixedness. These…
Above and beyond social boundaries
n Contains fulltext :\n 292628.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access)\n
‘When I told my parents I was going to marry a Muslim…’
Based on biographical interviews held in Italy, France and Belgium with mixed couples where one partner has a Muslim background and the other a Christian one, the analysis highlights the factors involved when a relationship generates negative reactions among the family of the majority partner. The article questions the assumption according to which mixed marriages are the result of the diminishing of group boundaries. Its findings suggest that th…
Stage fright and romanticism in Il Giro del Mondo
Dissonant masculinities? Migration, emotions and masculinities in marriages between Italian women and Moroccan men living in Italy
Through the life stories of 20 couples comprising Italian women and Moroccan men living in Italy, this article explores the interconnections between emotions, masculinity, and migration. The aim is to understand the extent to which a mixed marriage challenges particularistic definitions of masculinity. The article contributes to gender and migration studies in three ways. First, it investigates how partners produce multiple coexistent and contrad…
Identity loss or identity re-shape? Religious identification among the offspring of ‘Christian–Muslim’ couples
Previous research on interreligious marriages has indicated that they tend to cause both ethnic and religious ‘dilution’ and ‘loss’, but these concepts are misleading and cannot explain different and often contradictory identification processes. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with 66 sons and daughters raised in families where one partner is an immigrant from a majority-Muslim country and the other Italian, this article explores the off…
‘In the name of the children’
This work draws on the life stories of 18 couples, of which the men, married to Italian women, come from majority-Muslim countries. These couples incorporate more layers of differences: religious, as the two partners are socialised into both Islam and Catholicism, and racial-ethnic, as a white Italian partner is married to a non-white immigrant partner. Partners’ narratives are analysed according to the naming practices they adopt. Although mixed…
Fighting for What? Couples' Communication, Parenting and Social Activism
Mixed families have historically been considered to be a direct consequence of a process of social and cultural integration of migrants within the host society, although this link has recently been problematized by scholars. By focusing on the case study of an association of "Christian-Muslim" families in Belgium, this article offers a better understanding of the social consequences of mixedness. The article seeks to shed light on the private and…
Christian-Muslim couples in the Veneto region, northeastern Italy
Based on a three-year ethnographic study of processes of identity construction in 15 Christian-Muslim couples in Italy, this paper focuses on religion and analyses how partners rely on various strategies in order to deal with religious differences within the context of family life. Does religious pluralism emerge as a problem actually perceived by those couples? Chosen as a paradigmatic case study of ‘mixed’ couples, the analysis shows how partne…
Identity loss or identity re-shape? Religious identification among the offspring of ‘Christian–Muslim’ couples
Previous research on interreligious marriages has indicated that they tend to cause both ethnic and religious ‘dilution’ and ‘loss’, but these concepts are misleading and cannot explain different and often contradictory identification processes. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with 66 sons and daughters raised in families where one partner is an immigrant from a majority-Muslim country and the other Italian, this article explores the off…
Displaying Difference, Displaying Sameness
Drawing on qualitative research involving Christian-Muslim couples in Italy, France and Belgium, the article explores the concept of mixedness by employing Finch's concept of 'displaying family' to reach two goals: how the concept of mixedness bears multiple meanings and how the narrative tool of display works in the life story approach. The analysis distinguishes three main dimensions partners deploy to articulate the concept of mixedness. These…
Fighting for What? Couples' Communication, Parenting and Social Activism
Mixed families have historically been considered to be a direct consequence of a process of social and cultural integration of migrants within the host society, although this link has recently been problematized by scholars. By focusing on the case study of an association of "Christian-Muslim" families in Belgium, this article offers a better understanding of the social consequences of mixedness. The article seeks to shed light on the private and…
Dissonant masculinities? Migration, emotions and masculinities in marriages between Italian women and Moroccan men living in Italy
Through the life stories of 20 couples comprising Italian women and Moroccan men living in Italy, this article explores the interconnections between emotions, masculinity, and migration. The aim is to understand the extent to which a mixed marriage challenges particularistic definitions of masculinity. The article contributes to gender and migration studies in three ways. First, it investigates how partners produce multiple coexistent and contrad…
The Spiritual Turn and 'Feminization
Although women and men identify as 'spiritual' in similar numbers, far more women participate in the holistic milieu. We seek to solve this 'gender puzzle' by fleshing out the gender scripts the holistic milieu fosters, and their varying relationships to the wider gender order. Surveying existing scholarship, we show that, for women, participation serves to naturalize a script of postfeminist femininity that combines gender essentialism with poli…
Stage fright and romanticism in Il Giro del Mondo
From son to father
Contains fulltext : 296598.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)
Why do we have to circumcise our son?' Meanings behind male circumcision in the life stories of mixed couples with a Muslim partner
Circumcision is an important symbolic practice that involves parenting and intergenerational transmission. Nevertheless, previous research has not investigated what it actually means to the partners, its significance in countries where Muslims are minorities and — above all — if people marry outside their own religious group. Through an analysis of partners’ narratives, the article explores the meaning attributed to circumcision by mixed couples …
Christian-Muslim couples in the Veneto region, northeastern Italy
Based on a three-year ethnographic study of processes of identity construction in 15 Christian-Muslim couples in Italy, this paper focuses on religion and analyses how partners rely on various strategies in order to deal with religious differences within the context of family life. Does religious pluralism emerge as a problem actually perceived by those couples? Chosen as a paradigmatic case study of ‘mixed’ couples, the analysis shows how partne…
‘In the name of the children’
This work draws on the life stories of 18 couples, of which the men, married to Italian women, come from majority-Muslim countries. These couples incorporate more layers of differences: religious, as the two partners are socialised into both Islam and Catholicism, and racial-ethnic, as a white Italian partner is married to a non-white immigrant partner. Partners’ narratives are analysed according to the naming practices they adopt. Although mixed…
Fighting for What? Couples' Communication, Parenting and Social Activism
Mixed families have historically been considered to be a direct consequence of a process of social and cultural integration of migrants within the host society, although this link has recently been problematized by scholars. By focusing on the case study of an association of "Christian-Muslim" families in Belgium, this article offers a better understanding of the social consequences of mixedness. The article seeks to shed light on the private and…
Identity loss or identity re-shape? Religious identification among the offspring of ‘Christian–Muslim’ couples
Previous research on interreligious marriages has indicated that they tend to cause both ethnic and religious ‘dilution’ and ‘loss’, but these concepts are misleading and cannot explain different and often contradictory identification processes. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with 66 sons and daughters raised in families where one partner is an immigrant from a majority-Muslim country and the other Italian, this article explores the off…
Stage fright and romanticism in Il Giro del Mondo
Dissonant masculinities? Migration, emotions and masculinities in marriages between Italian women and Moroccan men living in Italy
Through the life stories of 20 couples comprising Italian women and Moroccan men living in Italy, this article explores the interconnections between emotions, masculinity, and migration. The aim is to understand the extent to which a mixed marriage challenges particularistic definitions of masculinity. The article contributes to gender and migration studies in three ways. First, it investigates how partners produce multiple coexistent and contrad…
Above and beyond social boundaries
n Contains fulltext :\n 292628.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access)\n
‘When I told my parents I was going to marry a Muslim…’
Based on biographical interviews held in Italy, France and Belgium with mixed couples where one partner has a Muslim background and the other a Christian one, the analysis highlights the factors involved when a relationship generates negative reactions among the family of the majority partner. The article questions the assumption according to which mixed marriages are the result of the diminishing of group boundaries. Its findings suggest that th…
Advancing research in couple studies
The everyday dimensions of stigma. Morofobia in everyday life of daughters of Maghrebi-Spanish couples in Granada and Barcelona (Spain)
Negative attitudes towards Muslim minorities are an increasingly common phenomenon in many European countries. This stigma is often associated with religious discrimination; on others, it has a more marked racial connotation. Based on biographical interviews with 19 daughters of mixed Maghrebi-Spanish families in Granada and Barcelona (Spain), this article disentangles the notion of stigma, showing how the experiences of these young women are cha…
From son to father
Contains fulltext : 296598.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)
Why do we have to circumcise our son?' Meanings behind male circumcision in the life stories of mixed couples with a Muslim partner
Circumcision is an important symbolic practice that involves parenting and intergenerational transmission. Nevertheless, previous research has not investigated what it actually means to the partners, its significance in countries where Muslims are minorities and — above all — if people marry outside their own religious group. Through an analysis of partners’ narratives, the article explores the meaning attributed to circumcision by mixed couples …
Displaying Difference, Displaying Sameness
Drawing on qualitative research involving Christian-Muslim couples in Italy, France and Belgium, the article explores the concept of mixedness by employing Finch's concept of 'displaying family' to reach two goals: how the concept of mixedness bears multiple meanings and how the narrative tool of display works in the life story approach. The analysis distinguishes three main dimensions partners deploy to articulate the concept of mixedness. These…
Metaphors at work
Metaphors operate as symbolic infrastructures that shape how the social world is conceptualized and rendered intelligible. This article develops a cultural sociology of metaphor, arguing that metaphors encode epistemic, normative and aesthetic logics within the architecture of theoretical reasoning. Moving beyond cognitive and illustrative models, it introduces the concept of metaphorical infrastructure to describe how dominant metaphors conditio…
The Spiritual Turn and 'Feminization
Although women and men identify as 'spiritual' in similar numbers, far more women participate in the holistic milieu. We seek to solve this 'gender puzzle' by fleshing out the gender scripts the holistic milieu fosters, and their varying relationships to the wider gender order. Surveying existing scholarship, we show that, for women, participation serves to naturalize a script of postfeminist femininity that combines gender essentialism with poli…
Sociology (14 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Anthropology (6 works) · Ethnic group (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (5 works) · Social science (5 works)