Overriding theme_item_list in a context
You can to get rid of the surrounding  wrappers by overriding theme_item_list($variables) function in you template.php or module and comment hardcoded lines:

    $output = '&lt;div class="item-list"&gt;';


and 

    $output = '&lt;/div&gt;';


See details on http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes!theme.inc/function/theme_item_list/7