Activist and Integrated: Madalina must stay in Italy! # Stand4Madalina

The estrangement of Madalina from Italy because of her activism is against the political participation of migrants and European citizenship. Madalina, a Romanian activist of Housing Rights Movements in Rome, has received an order of estrangement for 5 years from Italy. Authorities judge that her activism means she is 'not socially integrated'. A resistance campaign …

Urban forests, regeneration and conflicts: the case of Prati di Caprara in Bologna (Italy)

by Andrea Zinzani and Enrico Curzi An analysis of the socio-environmental conflict in the course of the regeneration process of Prati di Caprara in Bologna (Italy): how urban political ecology can help us framing the politics and nature of urban forests. At the end of November the first World Forum on Urban Forests, promoted by the …

Italian eco-narratives – Paths into the nationalisation of forests

by Roberta Biasillo and Marco Armiero What if we let Italy talk through its forests? What if we unfold Italian history through its forests? Today’s blog discusses Italian forest narratives and how they may be read. This article was originally published on whitehorsepress and is inspired by an article published in Environment and History. "That Italy’s …

Trespass. An environmental history of modern migrations

by Marco Armiero In a new book, Marco Armiero and Richard Tucker have edited together important contributions to the emerging field of the environmental history of modern migrations. Three main 'styles' of research delineate the contours of a timely research effort. Histories in the Present Tense We are in the midst of a massive migration …

Toxic Bios: A guerrilla narrative project mapping contamination, illness and resistance

by Ilenia Iengo and Marco Armiero By bringing to the fore the affective, bodily and narrative dimensions of environmental injustices, the project Toxic Bios aims to open new paths of collaborative research and grassroots activism focused on "guerrilla narratives" and counter-hegemonic storytelling Toxic Bios is a Public Environmental Humanities project based at KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory in …

On ‘the Political’ in Environmental History

By Stefania Barca* Like all history writing—and much of science-making itself—environmental history cannot help but be political. Stefania Barca reflects on the political implications of what environmental historians do. “Only mass social movements can save us now.” Naomi Klein makes this point in This Changes Everything, and I couldn’t agree more. Since their emergence in …

Fault Lines – Earthquakes and Urbanism in Modern Italy

By Giuseppe Forino* In his recently published book Fault Lines, Giacomo Parrinello delves into the environmental history of two major earthquakes in Sicily in the last century, allowing the earthquakes to narrate a fascinating journey into the dynamics and continuities between urban modernization and reconstruction efforts before and after the disasters. Sicily is one of …

The earthquake in Central Italy: stereotyped narratives and missing social science

by Giuseppe Forino* The analyses proposed in the aftermath of the earthquake that hit central Italy on August 24th overlook social and political dimensions of disasters, or reduce the issue to stereotypical explanations. We need to add human and social perspectives to disaster studies and actions for deconstructing such partial and superficial narratives. The disaster According to the Civil Protection Department, …

Drivers of illegal waste disposal: the case of Campania, Italy

Illegal economic practices are often labeled as aberrations of the market logic, but few realize their role in sustaining capitalist accumulation and power hierarchies. Uncovering the drivers of illegal waste disposal in Campania demonstrates that illicit and legal economies are often intertwined and mutually beneficial.* Prologue The Pellini Group is a family-run company managed by the three Pellini brothers, …

Sblocca Italia: Extractivism made in Italy

The Unlock Italy Law, recently passed in the Italian parliament, is a festival of deregulation and legalised plunder. From fossil fuel extraction to construction permits, the country is put on sale to restart growth. But from the targeted territories, social movements are waging resistance. And they bring another idea of prosperity. Italy’s current Prime Minister, …