Antropologia pubblica

Editoriale

Maria Carolina Vesce — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Ecologies of Urban Environments: Challenges in Applying Anthropology

Giacomo Pozzi, Luca Rimoldi, Sabrina Tosi Cambini — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Following the path that the Urban Environment Lab – UrbE-Lab – Antropologia applicata agli ambienti urbani, a permanent laboratory of the Italian Society of Applied Anthropology, has been following since its foundation, the contribution proposes a reflection on contemporary urban anthropology in the light of its applicative uses in the national and international sphere. In particular, the article focuses on the notion of the urban environment, understood as an essential axis for the articulation of a relational and applied anthropology. The first part of the article reconstructs the historical and intellectual context that led Italian contemporary urban anthropology to adopt an applied approach. The second part discusses in detail the theoretical approaches, themes, methodologies and perspectives that characterise the work of UrbE-Lab. The third part, based on a dialogue with the contributions in this dossier, discusses some theoretical and ethnographic proposals for articulating the notion of the urban environment in the contemporary world, always in the light of its applicative and public repercussions.

Unraveling/Abandoning the City: Where There Once Was a Factory, Now There Are Weeds

Manuela Vinai — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Biella, ritratto di una città fabbrica was a 2019 project that, through a “wall exhibition”, provided a vivid visual narrative of the city’s industrial past, using photographs and documents from Biella’s archives. The focus, as indicated by the title, was on the city’s industrial history.
In early 2022, the Est-Urbano project was launched, in which I was directly involved. Its goal was to foster collective reflection on a “complex” part of the city: “a few square kilometers of regenerated industrial areas housing renowned foundations, the former Ospedale degli Infermi, the abandoned Lanifici Rivetti factories, a notable natural balcony, an imagined “city forest,” a cultivated area for organic farming supported by sustainable agricultural networks, active factories like the Lanifici Cerruti complex, and two neighborhoods with schools and activities, plus the main train station”.
This contribution presents an ethnography of the participatory process shared with a group of citizens during ten months of collaborative work that marked a journey of responsibility and dialogue about the vacant Lanifici Rivetti and Pettinature Rivetti factories. The analysis reveals the roles of various social actors and explores the interaction with the non-human, highlighted by the juxtaposition of factories with the “natural balcony” and “city forest.” Particularly, the study focuses on the black locust (Robinia) offering insights into “weedy emergence” (Tsing 2017).
The analysis thus centers on abandoned urban areas and their repurposing, acknowledging that, as anthropologist Morisset notes, it is “impossible, en effet, d’espérer requalifier la ville sans faire de même de sa société” (2017, p. 49).

Favela and “G World”. Gendered Urban Geographies in Rio de Janeiro

Silvia Stefani — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Based on ethnographic research and qualitative interviews, the article analyzes the relationship between a group of gay, travesti, and lesbian youth from the favela of Cidade de Deus (Rio de Janeiro) with the urban territory. Exploring how spatial and social relations mutually shape each other, it will examine the urban experience of this group, located at the intersection of different axes of oppression. The bodies of these youth are not expected and legitimized bodies in the Carioca public space, informed by a heteronormative culture. Specifically, the youth involved in the research draw different maps of fear and control that orient their performance in public spaces. These maps are influenced by the “semi-public” status that characterizes favelas and the controlling role of gender and sexual morality exercised by narcotraffickers. Exclusion from the city is also manifested in the sphere of housing and rights, especially the right to study. Taking up the concept of the “continuum of violence”, it will analyze how homotransphobic violence directed toward this group is actually an amplified version of violence affecting the broader population of favelas and subaltern classes, on which the development of the city itself has historically been based. Finally, the forms of legitimization, recognition, and rebellion that this group advocates will be described, tracing a path from the space of parties to the space of rights and institutions.

Plastic karma. Collection, Reuse, Recycle and Buddhist Consecration of Urban Waste in Thailand

Amalia Rossi — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This paper outlines a first interpretative hypothesis around an increasingly articulated repertoire of ecological practices that have arisen in the Buddhist milieu in urban contexts of Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand. The production of monastic robes from recycled plastic collected in the canals of Bangkok and in provincial cities is an example of how the decades-long commitment of eco-Buddhist environmentalism, which arose in Thailand in rural areas around the problem of deforestation, has been extending since 2010 to urban areas, and to the waste recycling sector. The aim is then to describe the new forms of social and cultural life that accompany these practical and ideological transformations of Buddhist religiosity in urban contexts and that lead activist monks to build new networks and to rethink the critical spaces, both terrestrial and aquatic, of Thai cities. The case of the Chak Daeng temple, located in the southern skirts of the mega city of Bangkok, will be scrutinized, as it shows the capability of engaged Buddhist monks and lay people to interact with associative networks, also meeting the interests of local institutions and those of the corporate and the business sectors, in the realization of socio-environmental projects where ecological “transition” and “conversion” can sometimes coincide. This case-study also shows that the appeal of religious authorities to the “sustainability” of lifestyles and urban production/consumption practices may pass through ecosophical speculations on the “sacred” nature of the material world.

Urban Frictions, Projects and Divergent Peripheries. Anthropological Dynamics of the “Eastern Roman Model”

Francesco Pompeo — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This paper is the first elaboration and evaluation of a long-term ethnographic work. It represents the summation of two territorial intervention experiences, two action research projects in the former Eastern Roman periphery (2009-2011/ 2017-2022), the Casilino-Prenestino, which administratively the V Municipality, i.e. almost a municipality of 240,000 inhabitants. These limits have manifested themselves in various local crises: in the context of the difficult political-administrative transition of the post-Mafia capital, in the call for “security” as in the case of the “mosque crisis” (2017-2018) and the subsequent recurrent alarmist representations of an already structural migratory presence. While the most advanced response strategies are still those that work on participation and the implementation of shared governance, the research has shown that a participation policy based only on rhetorical and ritual evocation, but lacking analytical depth and reflexivity, has many conceptual blind spots that local government struggles to take into account. In fact, the process analysis highlighted the friction between the recognition of the actors of the so-called “civil society” (stakeholders), where they come into play together with the competence, the experience of relations with local authorities, as opposed to the ideologically claimed anonymity of the voice of the “citizens”.

Pictures of a Regeneration. Ecologies of the Urban Environment and Anthropology Applied to the Milanese Territory

Paolo Grassi — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Like many other cities, Milan’s urban ecology is characterised today by the presence of vast spaces that are apparently “empty” or in need of renovation, objects of regeneration interventions, either in progress or merely planned. They are often interstitial spaces, because they are “abandoned”, under-utilised, re-naturalised, or considered obsolete, effigies of the past and stratified. They are, however, anything but “marginal” spaces. Stadiums, racetracks, former industrial areas, railway yards and military areas, on the contrary, provide insight into the future of the city, its policies, and its development dynamics. Urban regeneration is therefore a field full of meanings, a prism through which to observe transformative processes. This observation poses two challenges to anthropological research. The first has to do with the multi-scalarity of the object in question and makes explicit a cognitive instance: how is it possible to investigate the anthropological dimensions inherent to urban macro-processes from an ethnographic approach? The second relates instead to the theme of representation and refers to the choice of an authorial strategy: how to account, through the written text, for this multiscalarity? I will try to answer these questions by relating some field notes collected in different places and times in Milan between 2022 and 2023. In conclusion, moving to a more applied level, I will reflect on the social use that this type of analysis can offer, beyond its critical and deconstructive power.

Margins, Connectivity and Transitions. Urban transformations in vulnerable areas from an anthropological perspective

Irene Falconieri — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The paper analyzes the transformation processes currently underway in the historic center of an island city in southern Italy (Catania, Sicily), starting from an area deeply ingrained in the local imagination: its historic market. This context is characterized by peculiar environmental configurations and stratified urbanization that, combined, have contributed to generating a condition of vulnerability to flood risk. At the same time, it is traversed by sudden socio-economic and cultural changes that redefine the materiality of the urban space, its imaginaries, and the relationships that run through it. The analysis of the context and social processes observed will use the concept of ecotone to show the complexity and historical density of the environmental and social relations of the place. The different dimensions of social life will be interconnected with the environment in which they take shape to better understand phenomena in the present.

Anthropology of urban logistics. Tourism, infrastructure, and localities in Exarchia, Athens

Anna Giulia Della Puppa — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This paper focuses on the transformative impacts of tourism mobility on urban spaces, with a particular focus on the role of infrastructures as tools of power and control. Through an ethnographic exploration of Exarchia, Athens, we investigate how the construction of Metro Line 4 station, as a key infrastructure project, entangles with gentrification processes and spatial inequalities.
Infrastructures, as socio-material assemblages, are deeply embedded within broader social, political, and cultural contexts, shaping patterns of inclusion and exclusion. The influx of mass tourism and its overburdening of existing infrastructures, results in spatial transformations that privilege specific modes of mobility and consumption.
The case of Exarchia highlights how infrastructures are implicated in processes of social control, inequality, but also resistance. By adopting an ethnographic approach, we delve into the complex relationships between people, places, and things, and underscore the temporal dimension of infrastructures in shaping urban imaginaries and experiences.
The paper emphasizes the Metro Line 4 station as a potential tool for gentrification, analyzing how its development may contribute to reinforce existing power structures and create new forms of marginalization. However, it also acknowledges the potential for counter-use and resistance within these infrastructures. By reframing infrastructures as political elements of the urban landscape, it becomes possible to envision spaces for genuine and non-rhetorical participation in urban planning, where infrastructures can serve as a true infrastructure of care.

Building an integrated approach and rethinking public action. Exploring an ecology of relationships in urban contexts

Carlo Cellamare — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The urban requires an overall vision of a multiplicity of aspects and, therefore, investigating the urban calls upon many different disciplines to dialogue and collaborate. In my experience as an urban planner, it was necessary to involve other perspectives and other readings, from sociological and anthropological ones to ecological and environmental ones. Living is a complex and difficult “profession” which, to be interpreted but also to be practiced, requires attention to relationality. In particular, the contribution will discuss the dimension of relations of use of space.
The paper will discuss the implications in rethinking public action, which is not simply the action of the State or, more generally, of institutions, but is the possible outcome of actions of different subjects/actors/people, institutional and otherwise, who interact in a general perspective of collective interest (not necessarily “public”) and who have systemic effects. This pushes us to rethink the role of institutions, on the one hand, and that of forms of self-organization and mutualism networks, on the other, with all the problems and critical issues that they bring with them.
These reflections will be supported by the return of various field research conducted for some years in the Roman suburbs, forms of action research aimed at “urban and social regeneration” through “neighbourhood laboratories” or “urban and social living labs” of different types and variously structured in Tor Bella Monaca, Quarticciolo, Centocelle and Bastogi, mostly public housing districts with great difficulties.

On Being Teachers with an Anthropological Background. A Reflection on “Second Generation” Students and Inequalities in Middle School

Giada Gentile — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The report aims to share and summarize the reflections developed during the years of work in the educational sector, from 2016 to today, lived as a person with an anthropological training, first as an after-school operator and then as a teacher. The geographical context is the western area of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, in the Northeast of Italy, in the former Province of Pordenone. By an experience within 13 classes in seven different middle schools, the condition of the “second generation” kids is addressed, related to power imbalances, self-identification and to the topic of citizenship, especially in the context of the teaching of Civic Education.

Interview with Monapaküy, Community Organisation. Women’s activism, defence of land and communality in San Mateo del Mar (Oaxaca, Mexico)

Cristiano Tallè — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Reviews

Marco Aime, Francesca Cerbini — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000