Decolonizing the gaze through the practice of care. The M.A.R.G.E. project for supporting competent parenting and maternal empowerment

This contribution presents the preliminary project M.A.R.G.E.- Mothers in Networks for Parenting Empowerment as a Participatory Action Research practice (Lucisano & Salerni, 2025), implemented in contexts of social complexity and educational marginality (Iavarone & Girardi, 2026) in Naples. The initiative engages networks of young local mothers and refugee women seeking asylum in Mediation-Education pathways focused on care and the maternal dimension (Girardi & Gemma, 2024), aimed at fostering competent parenting (Iavarone, 2025). Through creative practices (McNiff, 2008), participatory workshops - emotional mapping, listening circles, and embroidery - activate processes of self-narration and peer learning, configuring themselves as open spaces of interaction with the local community. Within a framework of situated intersectionality (Schmoll, 2022) and a decolonial perspective (Borghi, 2020), the expected outcomes concern personal empowerment, the strengthening of the parent-child relationship, and the development of forms of active participation, promoting alternative narratives that reframe the margin as a generative space of care, transformation, and individual and collective self-awareness.

Keywords: parenting;mediation;empowerment;social inclusion;PAR

Sara Gemma, Maria Luisa Iavarone, Francesco Girardi, Decolonizzare lo sguardo sperimentando la cura. Il progetto M.A.R.G.E. per il supporto alla genitorialità competente e all’empowerment nel materno in "EDUCATION SCIENCES AND SOCIETY" 1/2026, pp 238-252, DOI: 10.3280/ess1-2026oa22491