Il Baule: Carrying stories of distance among post war second generation Italian Australian middle-aged women
A talk with Dr Teresa Capetola
When: Thursday 29 October 2026, 6:30-8pm
Where: CO.AS.IT., 199 Faraday St, Carlton
Free event. Registration essential for in person participation Here
The streaming link will be sent to people who register Here
This event will be recorded and live streamed; the recording may be shared publicly on digital and media platforms.
Following the second World War migration boom, more than 300,000 Italians settled permanently in Australia. Today over one million Australians identify with an Italian heritage. At this historical juncture when first generation migrants are aging and many have passed away, and as the second generation are entering middle age, pertinent questions for them, and future migrants, are raised. What have been the legacies of migration and settlement experiences for the second generation? What distances and proximities do Italian migrant heritages create for migrant daughters’ identities and belongings in settler-colonial Australia?
Join Dr Teresa Capetola as she explores these questions in her doctoral research and how this work led to the establishment of the multigeneration creative collective Ascolta Women Inc.
Ascolta Women anthologies will be available for purchase at the event.
Teresa Capetola lives and works on the unceded and sovereign lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin nations. She is the proud daughter of post-World War II Italian Abruzzese parents. Her migration legacies have informed her scholarly, professional and community-based practices. In her earlier career, Teresa contributed to migrant women’s health and wellbeing through the Refuge Ethnic Workers’ Program, the inaugural State-wide women’s health service Healthsharing Women, the Victorian BreastScreen program and as Chair, Board of Governance, Women’s Health in the North. Teresa has been a longstanding academic in the School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University. Her contribution to teaching, learning, research and community engagement has been recognized through multiple awards including the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Teaching and Learning. Teresa has extensively researched and published in the intersections of human health and environmental sustainability, including the mental health impacts of climate change on youth and frontline workers. Her research has informed undergraduate and post graduate curriculum and courses through environmentally aware pedagogy and Education for Sustainability. In 2016 Teresa reconnected with her Italian migrant heritage through her doctoral research exploring the lived experiences of post-World War II second generation Italian Australian middle-aged women. Her doctoral award was conferred in July 2026. This innovative and multi-qualitative research led to the establishment of Ascolta Women Inc., an international creative collective of Italian, Italian Australian and affiliated diasporic women. Teresa is the inaugural and current president of Ascolta Women Inc. and honoured to call Ascoltesse women sorelle.
