Meridiana. 106, 2023. Temi ambientali

Introduzione: temi ambientali
Gabriella Corona, Rocco Sciarrone

Nelle tempeste della globalizzazione. Il «Molo polisettoriale» di Taranto fra dinamiche di mercato e bonifica ambientale (1977-2015)
Salvatore Romeo

In the Storms of Globalization. The «Molo Polisettoriale» of Taranto between Market Dynamics and Environmental Remediation (1977-2015)

The «Molo polisettoriale» of Taranto has become fully operational in 2001, after one of the world’s leading shipping companies – Evergreen – obtained a concession for its use. Several expectations are condensed around this step: those of the Italian government, which aims to transform the country into a «Mediterranean hub»; and those of the local community, which hopes for the start of a development process. However, these expectations must be confronted with the urgency of environmental remediation. The situation is further complicated by the increasing competition that followed the great crisis of 2008. Attempts by the central government and the local Port Authority to meet Evergreen’s demands finally proved unsuccessful.

Keywords: Remediation; Globalization; Port Authorities; Development policies

La sfida della «transizione giusta» in due aree di antica industrializzazione: Taranto e Sulcis
Lidia Greco, Sabrina Perra e Maria Letizia Pruna

The Challenge of the «Just Transition» in Two Old Industrial Areas: Taranto and Sulcis

Starting from the approval of the Just Transition Fund from the EU, this study reflects comparatively on the trajectories of socio-economic development undertaken by the two Italian areas targeted by the Fund: Taranto (Puglia) and Sulcis Iglesiente (Sardinia). It also contributes to the debate on the deindustrialization of old industrial areas. Firstly, the article observes that the Fund will impact on two different trajectories of deindustrialization. Secondly, although appearing as a positive stimulus, it raises some critical issues concerning the capacity of the two territories to renew their administrative action to implement the Fund’s objectives and to integrate them with previous strategies

Keywords: Just Transition, deindustrialization, Taranto, Sulcis Iglesiente

Fusion valley. Storia socio-ambientale dell’International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (2006-12)
Gabriella Rago

Fusion Valley. Socio-Environmental History of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (2006-12)

This article addresses the territorial impact of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion plant that is currently being built in Cadarache (France). This case study intends to answer two questions: how do the territories of nuclear experiments change from a socio-environmental point of view? Do they themselves become experiments? Indeed, even before the experimentation began within the walls of the Iter, it extended into the entire surrounding area, making it, in turn, a social, political, economic, and cultural experiment.

Keywords: Iter; Thermonuclear; Fusion

Alle origini della Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul ciclo dei rifiuti. Genesi, componenti e attività (1994-96)
Andrea Carnì

The Origins of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Waste Cycle. Genesis, Members and Activities (1994-96)

This paper analyzes the path that led to the establishment of the first parliamentary commission of inquiry into the waste cycle in Italy. A study that interacts with the sector literature and historiography, in the context of Italian politics and the history of the environment and Italian environmentalism. At the center of the essay are the proposals elaborated by Italian parliamentarians in the first half of the 1990s and the sources they used to prepare them. The contribution draws attention both to the genesis, as mentioned, and to the work of the unicameral commission of inquiry, the deputies who made it up, the missions carried out and the witnesses heard, the reports (quarterly and final) written, approved, and published.

Keywords: Environmental history; Ecomafie; Parliamentary inquiry

Un possibile modello di sviluppo sostenibile: Bacoli e la Piscina Mirabilis
Rodolfo Baggio, Cinzia Massa, Vincenzo Moretti,

A Possible Model for Sustainable Development: Bacoli and the Piscina Mirabilis

Beautiful places, endowed with a rich cultural and historical value, can be an important determinant for favoring creative and innovative practices leading, ultimately, to a balanced socio-economic development. The (strategic) management of such initiatives requires a good organizational culture and sound cooperative planning, involving extensive joint interactions of all stakeholders involved. Here we discuss the case of the Piscina Mirabilis in Bacoli (in Naples’ metropolitan area) run by the first Italian public-private partnership managing an archeological site. We examine the characteristics, the critical aspects, and the potential for a balanced and sustainable socio-economic development.

Keywords: Beauty; Sustainable development; Cultural heritage; Public-private partnerships

È finito il voto di classe?
Daniel Gaxie

Is the Class Voting Over?

The denial of socio-economic variables as determinants of voting behaviour, the refutation and minimization of class voting, or its classification as a thing of the past, has become common in electoral sociology. This denial re-proposes the perennial contrast between idealism, subjectivism, individual freedom and structuralism, determinism, and materialism. It is a denial also dictated by academic affiliations, such as that opposing political scientists to sociologists, as it is a consequence of the political preferences of observers and scholars, which are also a reason for the rejection of the «classist» explanations of politics. On the contrary, this essay intends to argue once again the hypothesis according to which the interests associated with the social condition of voters, defined also with the contribution of politics, as well as their religious affiliation, still contribute to guide voting choices.

Keywords: Electoral Behavior; Social classes; Electoral Abstention; Democracy

La criminalità organizzata cibernetica. Il reato associativo tra mutamento sociale e giurisprudenziale
Lorenzo Picarella

Cyber Organized Crime. The Criminal Association Offence between Social Change and the Evolution of the Case-Law

This article examines how the evolution of technology and the related social change have influenced the case-law on the criminal association offence. The rise of the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has created the conditions for the emergence of new criminal groups operating only in the cyberspace. The Italian criminal cases show that prosecutors charge these groups with the criminal association offence. The essay highlights a substantial change in the application of the offence, due to the cyber nature of the criminal groups, and assesses the knowledge of prosecutors and judges on ICT.

Keywords: Cybercrime; Organized crime; Criminal association; Cyberspace

Il genio introvabile. Note sulle origini del mito di Majorana (1938-75)
Giovanni Cavagnini

The Elusive Genius. Notes on the Origins of Majorana’s Myth (1938-75)

The article focuses on the memory of the physicist Ettore Majorana in Italy in the years between his mysterious vanishing (1938) and the publication of Leonardo Sciascia’s famous book on The disappearance of Majorana (1975). During that phase, especially from the late 1950s onwards, the young scientist was often remembered by journalists, relatives, scholars and film directors, who helped shape his myth in the eyes of their fellow countrymen. They – not Sciascia – were the first to claim that Majorana did not committed suicide but decided to disappear and seek refuge in a convent after foreseeing the tragedy of Hiroshima.

Keywords: Ettore Majorana; Physics; Atomic bomb; Illustrated magazines

Mutualità e consenso politico: il ruolo del movimento cooperativo nei Fasci siciliani
Samuel Boscarello

Mutuality and Political Consensus: The Role of the Co-operative Movement in the Sicilian Fasci

Between 1892 and 1894, co-operatives and mutual societies played a key role in the social mobilisation of the Sicilian Fasci. Despite this, historiography has not adequately investigated the unique bond between mutuality and the end-of-the-century revolt. The latter enabled the spread of new co-operative practices to meet bottom-up demands within a new political language based on social rights. Even though the Fasci were disbanded by the violent repression of 1894, opposing political and social actors saw co-operatives as tools for gaining popular support. This competition encouraged entrepreneurial experimentation, filling Sicily’s gap in the development of the co-operative business.

Keywords: Sicilian Fasci; Co-operative Movement; Social Rights; Mutuals

Presenze straniere nell’opera dell’Unla: il contributo dell’American Friends Service Committee (1947-62)
Francesca Leder

Foreign Presences in Unla’s Work: The Contribution of the American Friends Service Committee (1947-62)

The history of the National Union for the Fight against Illiteracy (Unla) is still largely unexplored. The essay reconstructs the collaboration between this organization and the American Friends Service Committee (Afsc), an American Quaker, pacifist association that has always been involved in social work in many crisis areas of the world. The Afsc will work alongside Unla for fifteen years, guaranteeing it economic support for the implementation of its numerous projects. The study anticipates the results of a wider research dedicated to the dense web of international relations that characterizes the work of Unla and its main actors.

Keywords: History of Mezzogiorno; Quakerism in Italy

Storia, memoria, soggettività, fonti orali: un nodo non sciolto?
Bruno Bonomo

History, Memory, Subjectivity, Oral Sources: An Untied Knot?

This article discusses the relationship between history and memory, focusing on the relevance and role of subjectivity and oral sources in contemporary Italian historiography. Starting from a review of Gabriella Gribaudi’s La memoria, i traumi, la storia. La guerra e le catastrofi nel Novecento, the article looks at a particularly interesting historiographical debate this book raised. It then reflects in more general terms on how the relationship between oral history and history without adjectives has evolved from the 1970s to the present, pointing to some key questions that remain open to discussion.

Keywords: History; Memory; Subjectivity; Oral history

Lo Stato «disaggregato»
Alessandro Agosta

The «Disaggregated» State

This article discusses thesis exposed by Melania Nucifora in her last work published in 2021 about the problematic institutional coordination between ordinary State structures and extraordinary authorities engaged in South of Italy during the XX century. The review, starting from the considerations of the author, reconstructs evolutions of public policies for the South in connection with the long debate about the Italian regionalism, the relations between regions and central State, the processes of modernization of public administration until the most recent European policies for territorial development. Following Nucifora’s reading of these phenomena, the analysis explains the historical reasons of the disaggregation of State and its difficulties to coordinate central and peripheral institutions.

Keywords: Regionalism; Technocracy; Decentralization; Development Policies