LIBRI DI MAURIZIO BERGAMASCHI

Recent studies about social policies have highlighted the remarkable level of innovation which has characterised the Italian public policies in this field over the past few years. In this essay we focus our attention on a crucial aspect of this great transformation: the importance that is now granted to the territorial dimen-sion of social work. We shall hereby analyse the role played by this variable, and the consequences of assuming it as a fundamental factor for the success of social intervention. The new means made available to our work are thus territorial in as much as they are related to an area which is assumed to be socially disadvantaged; such tools are not referred to a category of citizens in need, but rather to a whole territory, which is defined by a number of criteria acting as indicators of exclu-sion

Through this essay we want to try and recreate the history of the debate which developed in France from the 60s to the 90s on the topic of periurban areas. Referring mainly but not only to the French sociological literature, we shall discuss the way in which these new territories came into existence, their definition, and the major common features of the people that inhabit them. The phenomenon of periurban areas, often considered as a step back towards the countryside, is rather to be regarded as part of, and in line with, the process of urbanisation which has taken place in western societies over the past few centuries. A deeper look into periurban areas can help us perceive and understand some of the most significant aspects of the new "emerging city".

The article deals with the new condition of vulnerability experienced today by a heterogeneous aggregate of persons living a regular social and professional life. From the subjective point of view, these different biographies share the same un-certainty: after a relatively solid and stable existence, the risk of vulnerability is spreading out and one cannot be sure of one’s future anymore. This is the fate of the working poor, i.e. people who, though regularly working, are below the pov-erty threshold and find it harder and harder to come out of the precariousness they live in. Pain, fear, loneliness, uncertainty, shame, guilt, and uselessness are the commonest feelings of these individuals unable to think themselves as part of a human community.