Work, Gender and Violence in Historiographical Debates on the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

Abstract

This paper analyses some historiographical debates linked to the so-called “transition” from feudalism to capitalism through the categories of biopolitics, history, labour and gender. We propose to situate the term “transition” as the result of an attempt to construct a common and/or universal history for the whole of humanity by some historiographical currents linked to liberalism. At the same time, from the works of Marx, Foucault, Federici and Haraway, we reconstruct the political, social and cultural genesis of capitalism as a social form, drawing at- tention to the themes, perspectives and questions that over the last decades have been incor- porated into studies on the origin and foundations of capitalist society.