Silvia Federici (; born 1942) is an Italian-American scholar, teacher, and Marxist feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at

Hofstra University Hofstra University is a Private university, private research university in Hempstead, New York, United States. It originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University and became an independent college in 1939. Comprising ten schools, includ ...

in New York State, where she was a

social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

professor. She also taught at the

University of Port Harcourt The University of Port Harcourt is a public research university located in Aluu and Choba, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. It was established in 1975 as University College, Port Harcourt and was given university status in 1977. The Univ ...

in Nigeria from 1984 to 1986. In 1972, with Mariarosa Dalla Costa and

Selma James Selma James (born Selma Deitch; formerly Weinstein; August 15, 1930) is an American writer, feminist, and social activist who is co-author of the women's movement book ''The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community'' (with Mariarosa Da ...

, she co-founded the International Feminist Collective, the organization that launched the campaign for

Wages for Housework A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remunera ...

. In 1990, Federici co-founded the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA), and, with Ousseina Alidou, was the editor of the CAFA bulletin for over a decade. She was also a member of the Academic Association of Africa Scholars (ACAS) and among the voices generating support for the struggles of students across the African continent and in the United States. In 1995, in the course of the campaign to demand the liberation of

Mumia Abu-Jamal Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Department, Philadelphia police officer C ...

, she cofounded the Radical Philosophy Association (RPA) anti-death penalty project, an organization intended to help educators become a driving force towards its abolition. From 1979 to 2003, she was a member of the Midnight Notes Collective. For several decades, Federici has been working in a variety of projects with feminist organizations across the world like

Women in Nigeria Women in Nigeria are a diverse group of individuals who have a wide range of experiences and backgrounds.We are a diverse community of individuals, each bringing a wealth of unique experiences and backgrounds that shape who we are. They are m ...

(WIN), Ni Una Menos, the Argentinian feminist organization, and Feminist research on violence in New York. For the last five years, she has been organizing a project with feminist collectives in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

to reconstruct the history of the women, who were persecuted as witches in early modern

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and raise consciousness about the contemporary witch-hunts that are taking place across the world. Federici is considered one of the leading feminist theoreticians in Marxist feminist theory,

women's history Women's history is the study of the role that Woman, women have played in history and Historiography, the methods required to do so. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights, women's rights throughout recorded history, ...

political philosophy Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...

, and the history and theory of the

commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...

. Her most famous book, '' Caliban and the Witch'', has been translated in more than 20 foreign languages, and adopted in courses across the U.S. and many other countries. Often described as a counterpoint to

Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

's account of " primitive accumulation", ''Caliban'' reconstructs the history of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

, highlighting the continuity between the capitalist subjugation of women, the

transatlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...

, and the

colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization, colonization of the Americas, involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. Norse colonization of North ...

. It has been described as the first history of capitalism with women at the center. Federici's work in ''Caliban'' has crystallized her reputation as a member of the Marxist and feminist theoretical canon.

Background

Federici was born in

Parma Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...

, Italy, in 1942. She moved to the US in 1967 to study for a PhD in philosophy at the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public university, public research university in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. ...

with support from a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

. She taught at the

in Nigeria, and was Associate Professor and later Professor of Political Philosophy and International Studies at New College of

. She was co-founder of the International Feminist Collective, and an organizer with the

wages for housework A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remunera ...

campaign. In 1973, she helped start Wages for Housework groups in the US. In 1975 she published ''Wages Against Housework,'' the book most commonly associated with the wages for housework movement. She also co-founded the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA), and was involved with the Midnight Notes Collective. In 1995, she co-founded the Radical Philosophy Association (RPA) anti-death penalty project. Federici lives in

Park Slope, Brooklyn A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. N ...

, with her partner George Caffentzis. In March 2022, Federici was amongst 151 international feminists signing ''Feminist Resistance Against War: A Manifesto'', in solidarity with the Russian Feminist Anti-War Resistance.

Scholarly contributions

Federici's best known work, '' Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation'', expands on the work of Leopoldina Fortunati investigating the reasons for the witch hunts of the early modern period, but giving a feminist interpretation. In it, she argues against the popular interpretation of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

's concept of primitive accumulation which is often viewed as a necessary precursor for

. Instead, she posits that primitive accumulation is a fundamental characteristic of capitalism itself—that capitalism, in order to perpetuate itself, requires a constant infusion of expropriated capital. Federici connects this expropriation to women's unpaid labour, both connected to reproduction and otherwise, which she frames as a historical precondition to the rise of a capitalist economy predicated upon wage labor. Related to this, she outlines the historical struggle for

the commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...

and the struggle for communalism. Instead of seeing capitalism as a liberatory defeat of

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

, Federici interprets the ascent of capitalism as a reactionary move to subvert the rising tide of communalism and to retain the basic social contract. She situates the institutionalization of

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...

and

prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...

, as well as the

heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Christianity, Judai ...

and

witch-hunt A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or Incantation, incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the ...

trials, burnings, and torture at the center of a methodical subjugation of women and appropriation of their labor. This is tied into colonial expropriation and provides a framework for understanding the work of the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of las ...

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

, and other proxy institutions as engaging in a renewed cycle of primitive accumulation, by which everything held in common—from water, to seeds, to our genetic code—becomes privatized in what amounts to a new round of

enclosure Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...

Publications

Books

*(1975)
Wages Against Housework
'. Bristol: Published jointly by the Power of Women Collective and the Falling Wall Press. * (1984, with Leopoldina Fortunati) ''Il Grande Calibano: Storia del corpo sociale ribelle nella prima fase del capitale''. Milan: Franco Angeli *(2004) "Il Femminismo e il Movimento contro la guerra USA", in DeriveApprodi #24 *(2004) '' Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation''. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. License
online copy
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. *(2012
''Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle''
Brooklyn/Oakland: Common Notions/PM Press. Links to full text:
epubpdf
*(2018)
Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons
'. Oakland, CA: Kairos/PM Press. *(2018)
Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women
'. Oakland, CA: PM Press *(2020)
Beyond the periphery of the skin: rethinking, remaking, reclaiming the body in contemporary capitalism
'. Oakland, CA: PM Press *(2021) ''Patriarchy of The Wage: Notes on Marx, Gender, and Feminism.'' Oakland, CA: PM Press.

As editor

* (1995) (ed.) ''Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its "Others"''. Westport, CT, and London: Praeger. *(2000) (ed.) ''A Thousand Flowers: Structural Adjustment and the Struggle for Education in Africa''. Africa World Press. *(2000) (eds.) ''African Visions: Literary Images, Political Change, and Social Struggle in Contemporary Africa''. Westport, CT, and London: Praeger.

Notes

References

External links

Silvia Federici page at LibComMidnight Notes Collective

Silvia Federici Papers
- Pembroke Center Archives, Brown University
Tribute to Silvia Federici in The Commoner
*[http://vital.seals.ac.za:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:19989?site_name=GlobalView&view=null&f0=sm_creator%3A%22Federici%2C+Sylvia%22&sort=null "Academic Freedom and the Enclosure of Knowledge in the Global University"] by Silvia Federici at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. 19 September 2013. {{DEFAULTSORT:Federici, Silvia Living people 1942 births American Marxists Italian Marxists American feminists Italian feminists American political philosophers Women Marxists Marxist feminists Feminist historians Autonomism Women's historians Marxist theorists Scholars of feminist philosophy American women philosophers Italian women philosophers 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians 20th-century Italian historians 21st-century Italian historians 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century Italian women writers 21st-century Italian women writers American women historians Italian women historians American socialist feminists Italian socialist feminists Italian emigrants to the United States American expatriates in Nigeria Italian expatriates in Nigeria People of Emilian descent University at Buffalo alumni Hofstra University faculty Academic staff of the University of Port Harcourt