Dello scandalo
Alfio Mastropaolo
L’Aquila as a scandal
Recovering after a natural or artificial disaster is always extremely
difficult. In the case of an earthquake, the first problem is to provide a
suitable shelter for all those whose homes have been seriously damaged
and to help all those who lost their work, their revenues, their family and
friendship connections. The rebuilding programmes can subsequently start.
Post-war Italy has accumulated a very large experience in post-earthquake
recovery. Some of them have been successfully managed, in some other
cases the recovery process has been managed too slowly, inefficiently and
wastefully. Considering all these experiences, and considering the knowhow
which has been accumulated, it’s rather difficult to find a reason
for what happened in L’Aquila and its surrounding after March 2009
earthquake. The immediate rescue action was extremely efficient, but 18
months later the housing, monuments and workplaces reconstruction
hasn’t yet begun. A great part of the inhabitants live in precarious homes,
plenty of them still live away from their workplace, while the judiciary is
investigating several doubtful operations involving the Civil Protection
National Service and well known national politicians and even members
of national executive.
De L’Aquila non resta che il nome. Racconto di un terremoto
Domenico Cerasoli
L’Aquila: only the name is left. Story of an Earthquake
The earthquake of 6 April 2009 killed 308 people, ravaged the city of
L’Aquila and its surroundings and disrupted both the economy and social
relations in the area. The media praised the efficiency of Government’s
action and the «miracle» of New Towns built in few months around
the old city centre, one year after the earthquake. The article provides
a careful account of what happened after the earthquake and shows the
one-sidedness of such praises. Indeed, L’Aquila remains a destroyed city,
where society is paralysed and bad practices are becoming more and more
an alarming problem.
Un altro terremoto. L’impatto urbanistico del progetto C.a.s.e.
Georg Josef Frisch
Another earthquake. The impact the C.a.s.e.
project on city-planning
The unique monumental heritage of L’Aquila has been seriously
damaged by the 2009 earthquake, but it can be successfully restored.
Instead of providing temporary shelter for the inhabitants and start as soon
as possible a restoration program, the day after the disaster, the National
Civil Protection authority and the government, started an ambitious plan
to provide the population with an almost permanent accommodation; i.e.
the C.a.s.e. project which adopted a sophisticated anti-seismic technology
and planned to build 4600 apartments. This article argues that this was an
extremely questionable decision first of all for the city-planning, which
has devastated the country-side surrounding L’Aquila and its landscape.
It was also an extremely expensive measure, seriously damaging the
inhabitants’ social life and cultural identity, which is extremely difficult
to revert and which has been taken ignoring the democratic will of the
population and of its representatives.
Emergenza e ricostruzione dopo il terremoto: la resilienza comunitaria e gli interventi di sostegno
Alfredo Mela
Emergency and reconstruction after an earthquake:
community resilience and psycho-social support
Starting from the experience of the support to the Abruzzo’s population
after the earthquake of April 2009, this article develops some reflections on
the role of psycho-social intervention in an emergency context. The central
idea is that each local community hit by the earthquake is characterised
by a peculiar model of resilience, depending on previous experiences and
events. The main role of psycho-social support after a calamity is to help a
community to use its resources and to renew its resilience model in order
to cope with different types of problems.
I soldi e la mente. Politiche sostenibili per la rinascita delle comunità abruzzesi
Gian-Luigi Bulsei
Money and mind: sustainable policies for the rebirth
of Abruzzo communities
Looking into the future of the City of L’Aquila and its territory, the
article considers the possibility that the physical and social reconstruction
of the town and many villages affected by the earthquake, which have
always been an integrated local system, can represent an opportunity to
test new models of organization and development. Based on empirical
information, the article describes what has been done and what could be
done in order not to break in artificially and traumatic way the link between
urban space and everyday life of people. Public policies for the rebirth
of this part of the region should be inspired by participatory planning
criteria, with a real involvement of local governments and communities.
Ricostruire la comunità con la comunità. L’alternativa dopo l’emergenza
Francesca De Filippi, Sonia Montaldo, Andrea Pillon, Paolo Robazza e Matteo Robiglio
Rebuilding the community with the community.
The participatory alternative after the emergency
The article proposes some reflections on participatory planning in
emergency cases, starting with the analysis of some national and international
experiences as useful practices to envisage a bigger role for the inhabitants,
hit by natural disasters, during the different stages of the management of the
emergency and in the rebuilding of their own territory.
Lo spazio dell’abitare è una categoria dello spirito: un racconto fotografico sulle zone colpite dal sisma del 6 aprile 2009
Novella Oliana
La costruzione dell’«eccezionale» come risorsa per il consenso. Il terremoto tra celebrazione mediale e opportunismo politico
Giuliano Bobba e Cristopher Cepernich
Exceptional events as a source of support. The Abbruzzo earthquake
between media celebration and political opportunism
The article concerns the earthquake in the Abruzzi studying
strategies exploited by both journalists and politicians to use this
event as a communicative resource. Starting from the analysis of press
and television coverage, authors highlight the different roles played
by journalists, government and, overall, by the Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, focusing on a paradigmatic event: the delivery of new houses
for earthquake victims.
Oltre la «mala Protezione civile»: l’emergenza come stile di governo
Irene Bono
Emergency as a style of government,
beyond the Civil Protection’s scandals
Emergency powers are generally required in extraordinary cases, such
as when public safety is seriously threatened. However, in Italy their
exercise is increasingly frequent, since the definition of «emergency» has
been stretched to cover «big» and «mega» events. This article’s aim is to
shed light over the «normal» functioning of the Italian Civil Protection
Department, beyond the scandals which surrounded it since February
2010. After retracing the extension of the emergency’s definition, peculiar
ways of governing by dispensation and outsourcing are explored. It is
argued that such a style of government, generally justified in terms of
efficiency, allows the introduction, the legitimation and the perpetration
of opacity in governing ordinary situations.
Effetti economici del sisma: l’occupazione nell’area de L’Aquila
Marco Centra e Michele Raitano
The economic effects of the earthquake: the occupation in L’Aquila area
An exhaustive estimation of the economic effects of an earthquake is a
very complex exercise, due to the several aspects that should be taken into
account (e.g. short and long term ones, effects on incomes and wealth,
distributive consequences) and to the limited availability of data suited
for analyzing every aspect. In this paper we focus on the occupational
effects of the April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, because job losses are
the main source of income deprivation in the short term (especially
when, as in Italy, a generous unemployment benefit is not provided for
all workers). Comparing the recent experiences of Abruzzo and L’Aquila
to those of the other Italian macro-areas – also in order to distinguish the
specific effect of the earthquake from the common shock coming from the
current economic crisis – in the paper we present the most updated data
about occupational trends and about the provision of the benefit paid to
suspended workers (Cassa Integrazione Guadagni), showing that in the
months after April 2009 hardships of people living in L’Aquila area have
been exacerbated also by occupational difficulties.
Aiuti e miracoli ai margini del terremoto de L’Aquila
Antonello Ciccozzi
Aid and miracles around L’Aquila’s earthquake
On April 6, 2009 L’Aquila and its surroundings were hit by a disastrous
earthquake. An ethnographic observation of a traditional feast day in a rural
village – and of the exceptional elements conveyed by the disaster – has
highlighted how humanitarian aid may contain codes of political propaganda
that leverage the thaumaturgical rhetoric of miraculous healing.
Macerie d’Italia
Andrea Sangiovanni
Le teorie che non muoiono mai sono quelle che confermano le nostre ipotesi di base: cinquant’anni di familismo amorale
Emanuele Ferragina
The Theory that won’t die are those that confirm our basic assumptions:
fifty years of amoral familism
This article analyses Edward Banfield’s book, The moral basis of
a backward society. According to this American scholar, prioritizing
present orientation over future planning is the distinctive character of
backwardness. For this reason, in understanding backward rural contexts,
cultural factors are far more important than socio-economic factors. His
research is extensively discussed in the first section of the article. Then, in
the second part, the main criticisms in both international and Italian debates
over the book are presented in order to contextualize the reasons for the
strong scholarly interest generated by the theory of amoral familism.