Fuori Luogo Journal of Sociology of Territory, Tourism, Technology

What Makes a City a City?

2025-01-02T11:06:32+00:00

Combining Safety and Equity in the post-Covid City: New Trends between Local Policies and Bottom-Up Practices. An Introduction

2025-01-08T11:07:18+00:00

Examining Cities’ Outdoor Spaces through the Lens of Children’s Rights

2025-01-08T11:07:17+00:00

The primary objective of this article is to instigate a discourse about the potential contribution of outdoor urban spaces to the complete fulfilment of post-pandemic childhood. The article focuses on the Italian context, but makes reflections that can be generalized to other European countries. The article originates from the observation that the rights of Italian children have been overlooked by the national political agenda during the Covid-19 pandemic. It considers, then, how this neglect should be seen not as an occurrence linked to the health crisis, but as a condition that has persisted for years and which the pandemic has only highlighted and exacerbated. The article examines a series of historically consolidated experiences and innovative practices developed during the pandemic in several European cities, featured by the objective of responding to the children’s rights to education, play, security, self expression, and to be listened through the use of cities’ outdoor spaces. Such inspirational case studies are firstly categorized according to the right to which they respond, following the International Convention on children’s rights, and then analysed following an interdisciplinary framework between environmental education and urban sociology. This analysis suggests that urban strategies should look at children both as beneficiaries and actors. The transformation of cities’ outdoor public and private spaces needs the integration of policy and action to overcome the fragmentation of initiatives that target specific urban sub-populations or cities issues. A whole-city approach which focuses on children’s development will deliver long-term benefits, affecting current and future generations, and contributing to build cities that are safe, healthy and inclusive for everyone.

Social capital and health: new frontiers and old problems in a working-class neighbourhood in Naples

2025-01-02T11:06:32+00:00

Rione Sanità is a neighbourhood in the Third Municipality of Naples.

The only hospital in the neighbourhood, San Gennaro, after being threatened with closure by the Region for over ten years, has now been included in the Campania Region’s territorial reorganisation plan, which implements the directives of Ministerial Decree 77; and should therefore become a Community Hospital.

This evolution of its role in the neighbourhood can be traced back to the great and constant work done by the Comitato San Gennaro, an expression of the neighbourhood’s protest. Does the Committee’s strength lie in a territorial social capital that has been able to fuel the protest? And in what way?

And, in light of the new health reorganisation plan in the area, can this resource be used by the public administration? And if so, is there a regulatory framework in which to give formal status to its role for the Hospital and for the entire territory?

In order to answer these questions, it was decided to carry out field research, using the method of participant observation as a privileged tool, and going into certain aspects in depth with semi-structured interviews with key players. Finally, using the available reference literature, we analysed the evolution and innovations that Ministerial Decree 77 is expected to bring.

Safety, mobility and sociality in urban spaces during the health emergency in Italy

2025-01-02T11:06:32+00:00

During the peak of the health emergency, the crisis in Italian cities was of such gravity that many scholars hypothesized the overcoming of current urban models, both in terms of structural aspects and modes of working, of consuming habits and of being together.

Using the major findings of a sociological study, started as soon as the Italian Government announced the national lockdown, as a starting point, this contribution aims to focus on some problematic changes that emerged since the early stages of the pandemic. The study was carried out in three phases, each of them with specific surveys in order to delve deeper into certain topics from a quantitative and qualitative point of view. These topics are: 1) social interactions; 2) the use of urban spaces; 3) insecurity and trust.

The results of the study allow us, on the one hand, to capture a significant moment and highlight the need to reorganize everyone’s daily life affected by Covid-19 limitations and new rules; on the other hand, they lead us to a necessary reflection on the micro and macro physical and social contexts, within which the different daily routines had to be redefined. More precisely, the study reveals an overall fragility of the urban development model that has prevailed over the last thirty years, as well as the growing demand for social security. In line with other studies that have investigated the social effects of restrictions and physical distancing in cities from different perspectives, our study outlines a critical reading of the organization of urban spaces and activities during the health emergency in Italy.

Public Authorities and Civic Actions Disentangled: Legibility and Scene Styles

2025-01-02T11:06:31+00:00

Recent developments in both urban governance arrangements and civil society organizations make the reciprocal influences between these two domains increasingly difficult to disentangle. Indeed, both hybrid civic organizations and neoliberal governments mean public administrations and civic actions cannot be assumed to be autonomous and separate spheres. This paper aims to overcome these difficulties by focusing on the scene styles that shape civic actions. Using the main results of an ethnographic study of three cases of third-sector groups and their relationships with public institutions, the paper illustrates how one can analyse two subtle effects: first, the influence public policies have on daily civic life and, second, the impact civic practices have on public policies. For the latter, the analysis will draw on the notion of “metaphorization” put forward by de Certeau to grasp how rules are always used differently from their formal definition. The category of scene styles fashions these uses and their implications, understood in terms of different action dilemmas. As far as the first of the aforementioned effects is concerned, the paper will show how certain scene styles are sustained by being particularly suited to the public conditions set by the ruling authorities, while other scene styles decline for the same reason. Overall, the discussion of the empirical results shifts the perspective on civil society from what it does to how it informally organizes itself in carrying out its actions, allowing complex public/civic relations to be analysed.

Italian Cities Looking for a New Normal: Economic and Social Opportunity between Reality, Perception and Hopes

2025-01-02T11:06:31+00:00

As has been pointed out, the ongoing pandemic had a profound impact on both the urban landscape of cities and the consumption patterns of residents, city users, and tourists. This led to changes in the lifestyle of users and in the use of spaces. Indeed, the pandemic months have transformed how people work, study, travel, spend leisure time, and, in general, live and plan for the future. Furthermore, the availability of living space for each household, the necessity to accommodate various activities and requirements within the same space, and the available technological resources are three variables that have significantly shaped the quality of life during the social distancing measures imposed by lockdowns.

Nevertheless, with the gradual easing of COVID-19 restrictions since the second quarter of 2021, there has been a gradual return to pre-pandemic routines, leading to a rejuvenation of urban areas and to urban rebirth. This notion encompasses the process of revitalization, renewal, and transformation that numerous cities have undergone in the aftermath of the global health crisis.

This paper presents findings from a research project titled "The Rebirth of Cities as an Economic and Social Opportunity: Realities, Perceptions, and Hopes," which focuses on the analysis of 100 face-to-face interviews conducted with merchants, entrepreneurs, and managers of commercial, leisure, and workspace establishments scattered throughout Milan's urban area. Many of these commercial activities can be described as hybrid spaces, multifunctional environments that integrate different activities, often providing opportunities for engaging in nonprofit cultural pursuits.

The interviews, conducted in November 2021, following a period in which Milan experienced the resurgence of a vibrant summer season marked by the return of tourists, including international visitors, and the revival of numerous institutional events, reveal a positive attitude toward the future.

The analysis highlights: 1) the desire to innovate; 2) the willingness to draw insights from the negative experience of the lockdown in order to improve the quality of the offered services also thanks to the adoption of social media; 3) the willingness to improve the established relationship with the inhabitants and the public and private institutions of the neighborhood.

From the “reception trap” to the “denied reception”. The tightening of migration policies and the centrality of informal settlements between segregation and resistance

2025-01-02T11:06:31+00:00

Abstract

Alongside the external borders of Italy, but also across its internal territories, we are witnessing an evolving process of production of new social relations and new micro-spatialities that tend to progressively change the territorial features. This new “presence” of asylum seekers across the urban spaces and the new strategies adopted to control it lead us to question the evolutions (and weakness) of that securitarian rhetorics and policies that have been at the center of the migrations government in Italy, for many years. Security policies that in recent years seem to have found new vigour and a certain hegemony even with respect to the right to asylum and reception.This paper, based on the observations collected during an ethnographic research carried out in Padua, explores the social implications of the frame of segregation, social abandonment and urban dispersion that characterize asylum seekers (and ex asylum seekers) daily surviving and resisting accross the urban areas.

Moreover we focus on the ways in which this internal “borderscapes” has become in certain cases a urban “battleground” that makes less linear the urban governance of the migrants within the securitarian paradigm. In this sense we have looked at the counter-conduct put in place against the lack of freedom and the violation of the rights especially for those excluded fron the institutionale reception system, so turning our gaze outside the reception facilities dealing with those who, forcibly or voluntarily, are populating the informal settlements that now materialize in Padova and many other Italian cities.

Unmasking the Effects of Airbnb in Barcelona

2025-01-02T11:06:30+00:00

The negative effects of tourism in mature destinations is a central debate in academia and everyday public life. The rise of tourism in the city of Barcelona was originally driven by the 1992 Olympic Games, which put it on the map of potential destinations of interest. Since then, the number of international visitors has increased year after year. This has also led to an increase in tourist accommodation in the city centre and its surrounding neighbourhoods, a rise in tourismophobia, and reactions from local administration in the form of institutional actions and public strategies. Specifically, this research analyses the volume and growth of homestays in the central touristic neighbourhoods of Barcelona (those in the Ciutat Vella district) and its effects in relation to gentrification, immigration density, protests by social movements, political reactions, heritage and community spirit. The main objective is to look in depth at the interests of different stakeholders and ways to keep the city centre attractive not only for tourists but also for local and immigrant residents, preserving their sense of belonging and attachment to the place. The secondary data used in this research was taken from records of officially registered tourist houses (Government of Catalonia), Open Data (Barcelona municipality), the InsideAirbnb website, Incasol and the Municipal Register of Inhabitants. The primary data was collected via in-depth interviews with local residents, leaders of social movements and political representatives. The results reveal that the priorities among the key actors are policy design and the reconciliation of all the different interests.

Endless displacements. Migration governance and segregation in Athens and Turin

2025-01-02T11:06:30+00:00

At the intersection of Segregation, Urban and Refugees Studies, the paper suggests the appearance of new patterns of residential segregation following the turn in European migration governance. I therefore propose a connection between the “urban diaspora” described by Arbaci (2018) and the emergence of “displaceability” as the “silent foundation of contemporary urban citizenship” described by Yiftachel (2018). The first part of the article analyses the evolution of reception policies, analysing the development of Italian “widespread reception” and the parallel ongoing process of “campization” in Greece, namely the process through which, since the "Refugee Crisis", the differences between the reception, housing and detention of migrants have become more and more nuanced (Kourachanis 2018; Kreichauf 2018). The second, departing from an ethnographic perspective, focuses on the displacement policies enacted against asylum seekers and refugees in two southern European cities, namely in the case of the “Ex-Moi” in Turin, a squat in the periphery of Turin inhabited by more than 1000 refugees, and the case of Eleonas refugee camp in Athens, highlighting how the mobilisation of xenophobic and criminalising rhetoric against the migrant population can be instrumental in legitimising new regeneration processes.

Public Spaces Transformations in Latin America during Covid19. Community resilience and Tactical Urbanism in Bogota, Quito and Mexico City

2025-01-02T11:06:30+00:00

The public space access restrictions and confinement measures due to the Covid19 pandemic caused important transformations in the use of living spaces and public space. The research presented here investigated the impact of those restrictions in the community, using an online survey deployed at the time of the lockdown worldwide (March-December 2021), collecting important information about the challenges and adaptation of housing and public spaces in Bogota, Quito and Mexico DF. Following on the topic, the project: Recreating Cultures: Heritage, memory and place as a base to strengthen social fabric in Tunal, Bogota¨, was aimed to strengthen social fabric and public spaces using heritage, memory and local art initiatives. This research was aimed to understand the adaptations/transformations of public spaces to the Covid19 phenomenon and access to public spaces, streets, parks and other urban spaces, and the importance of tactics such as tactical urbanism to revalue public spaces in health crisis times such as tactical urbanism and placemaking. Therefore, the lessons learned from the Covid19 pandemic will leave an imprint on the meaning and value of community and neighbourhood and suggest that political action on the territory must move towards community participation and community engagement. The revaluation of public space through participation, tactical urbanism and citizen activism can influence local governments so that urban agendas with sustainability approaches have a much faster implementation and concepts such as community engagement, security, walkability, accessibility and inclusion become priority actions for the recovery of public spaces and communities.

Fabio Corbisiero, Salvarore Monaco, Elisabetta Ruspini, The Changing Face of Tourism and Young Generations: Challenges and Opportunities, Channel View Publications, 2022

2025-01-02T11:06:30+00:00

Patrick Le Galès, Jennifer Robinson, The Routledge Handbook of Comparative Global Urban Studies, Routledge, 2023

2025-01-02T11:06:29+00:00

Emanuele Stochino reads Maurizio Bergamaschi (ed.), Migranti: la sfida dell’integrazione digitale. Innovazione e co-creation nel progetto H2020 MICADO, FrancoAngeli, 2023

2025-01-08T11:07:18+00:00

Old and New Problems after Covid-19: Having a Look at the US cities. A Talk with Ray Hutchison

2025-01-02T11:06:29+00:00