The role of gender in the professional practice of mediation: the picture through the eyes of Italian mediators

In Italy, community interpreting and public service interpreting are often subsumed under the label of mediazione (“mediation”). In official documents, mediazione appears to be a form of conflict management, heavily dependent on the empathy and trust stemming from a shared language, culture, country of origin, age, and gender between mediators and migrants. Informed by gender and queer studies, this article aims at investigating the role of the gender dimension in building such empathy and trust, particularly when mediating for survivors of gender violence, through interviews with women working as professional mediators in Italian women’s centres and associations. The analysis of responses reveals that interviewees are acutely aware of the importance of gender issues when mediating for survivors of gender violence, and that they perceive a need for specific training in this field, which, however, seems to be lacking.