RISULTATI RICERCA

The elderly condition is associated frequently to a partial or minor ability to be active part of own social context. Anyway, this widespread stereotyped is often contradicted by the reality; in fact, in several cases the elderly is a person curious about modern technology and foreign cultures, involved in the activities of associations and organized groups.This paper presents the principal results of a research promoted by the Social Work Coordination Office in the Council of Bologna. The project, named SAGE (Supporting Active aGeing in Europe), is born to promote the participation of people from five European cities (Bologna, Islington, Stravroupoli, Parität and Düsseldorf) in a range of local and transnational activities of social and cultural promotion

The paper tries to analyze the spatial definition of the Temporary Detention Centers for foreign immigrants and explores their relationships with urban context. TDCs were created in Italy in 1998, in enforcement to the Turco-Napolitano law; their original purpose was to receive and assist, for a brief period, people subjected to an expulsion measure. Yet, even if they are not part of the penitentiary circuit, these centers became more and more similar to a prison for their geographic collocation, the segregation and the control practices that characterize them. All of these aspects reveal a refusal alter, that is far from the notion of urban acceptance and that well represents a new frontier of the exclusion.

Microfinance has progressively acquired a wider interest over the past few years; this trend descends from many causes, not least the progressive reduction of aid to development. The progressive recognition of this theme has been testified by the recent UN proclamation of the 2005 International Year of Microcredit, underlining the fact that this strategy is highly recognised as an integral part of a collective effort to alleviate and reduce poverty pressures. After a presentation of the principal typologies of microcredit, this paper aims at analysing the characteristics and effects of the specific case of some rural Equator communities, through a project of non governmental Cooperation to Development.

The paper analyses the need situations that involves some fit for working adults after a period of complete social and professional integration. The present outlook seems to sketch a rising instability of life conditions, caused by the actual unsteadiness of family and working. These vulnerability situations don’t find a solution in Social working network, because it tends to favour the so called categories to guaranteed and consolidated representation.

Legal and Illegal city, Formal and Informal city; they are notions (and realities) meaning a condition of urban duality. These realities are not only a consequence of globalization processes, but contain cultural and historical values, that are very important in a new theory of the Latino-American city and global city. This paper focuses on the analysis path of informal settlements in some towns of Andes, in order to discover so far and unexplored ways of life.

This paper focuses on the opening of a new Italian season of local development and urban planning in recent years. Many questions are raised by the strong emphasis on governance. A governance approach is overcoming the traditional government approach to urban policies, at two levels of innovation: -the impact brought about by Europe’s key principles on technical and administrative culture of local authorities, through new forms of cooperation, collaboration and negotiation between the various sectors and levels of public administration; -specific practices generated by European urban programmes, with the promotion of thematic networks that have increased the number of individual and collective actors involved in urban policies, and have strengthened their capabilities of self-organisation. In this perspective, the paper aims to clarify some problems generated by the governance approach through the analysis of theoretical and practical implications about coordination activity, learning processes, a better understanding of problems, the capability of defining proposals developed in a wide range and the maximisation strategy coherence.

Farm holidays are a widespread phenomenon in several Italian Regions, even if they differ according to the local area. In Sardinia, people from the Province of Oristano began to be interested in it at the beginning of the 1960s, when a group of women of the Sardinian Farmers Cooperative started the first experience of rural hospitality. This initiative marked the birth of a peculiar type of tourism, in addition to the already existent seaside resort model (by which it was heavily influenced). During this embryonic stage, tourists were hosted by the families of farmers who lived in small villages, where they shared their resources in exchange of few money. Since then many changes occurred: tourism developed from an agricultural activity, primarily based on dining and accommodation services, to the current offer, that consists on: A) enterprises situated near the coastline; B) accommodation and dining facilities in urban areas; C) farm holiday enterprises separated from the actual farm, that are far of populated areas. Recently farm holidays placed firmly within the Sardinian tourism system, with original characteristics according to the different local areas. The case of the Province of Oristano is representative of this strong diversification.