RISULTATI RICERCA

La letteratura sui significati del lavoro ha mostrato che negli ultimi decenni si sono avuti cambiamenti significativi negli orientamenti dei giovani verso il lavoro, e cioè da un lato una perdita della sua centralità e dall’altro una pluralizzazione dei significati che i giovani vi attribuiscono. Sulla base di 50 interviste autobiografiche di giovani raccolte a Napoli, nell’articolo vengono analizzati l’importanza ed i significati del lavoro, al fine di comprendere se a seguito della crisi si sia verificata un’inversione di tendenza rispetto ai processi individuati nel recente passato. L’autrice mette in luce che in generale la crisi non ha portato né ad una rinnovata centralità del lavoro né ad un rafforzamento dei suoi aspetti strumentali, ma che tuttavia i suoi effetti appaiono molto differenziati in relazione alla posizione sociale. Viene anche evidenziato come, seppure per un numero ristretto di giovani, la crisi abbia fatto emergere una nuova visione e nuovi significati del lavoro, che ne mettono radicalmente in discussione la visione tradizionale, e come questi segnali di innovazione siano al momento appannaggio di una élite generazionale.

The bases of inequality regimes in luxury hotels are gender, race and age, which determine the role of workers within organizations characterized by deep differences, depending on work on the scene or behind. The organizational departments are also characterized by a rigid sexual division of labor, on which depends the existence of male and female jobs. In hotels recently opened in Paris, attended by the middle classes, gender inequalities are only apparently reduced: indeed, there is an extension of the transitional labor market. Working women belonging to middle management, at the cost of enormous efforts, manage the tensions generated by the recruitment of inexperienced student-workers and by the racialization of social relations, related to outsourcing, and then leave hotels luxury industry once they reach 30 years of age.

Drawing from Lipsky’s (1980) concept of street-level bureaucracy and the theories of justice (Rawls, 1971; Mashaw, 1983; Elster, 1992), this paper is focused on the dilemmas that social welfare services’ caseworkers face in their daily work. The field research is based on the collection and comparison of caseworkers’ narratives about complex cases. It was conducted within services located in the North and South of Europe: Bologna in Central Italy and Copenhagen in Denmark. Social work practices are analysed through caseworkers’ narratives to understand how their ideas influence the services. This study is intended to answer the following research questions: What challenges do caseworkers have to cope with? How do they manage their discretion to shape ‘fair’ decisions? What conditions and limits contribute to shaping the services’ final decisions? What principles of justice regulate the processing of cases, and thus what concrete ideas of social justice underpin the services?

The proposal of this text is to discuss, from the Brazilian context, the complexity present in the historically constructed forms of regulation/deregulation of labour, in which informality - and its combat - were at the centre of development policies and that, later, in a context of transformations of global capitalism, was re-signified as flexible work and entrepreneurship. Specifically, the authors will discuss this process through two categories of workers: workers in informal commerce and digital workers. The argument is that, even in very different categories - one traditionally associated with precarious, unqualified and low paid work and the other expression of modern, specialized and creative work - connections can be drawn between them at the level of the processes of flexibilization and hegemony of the entrepreneurial logic.

This article proposes an analysis of the extractive model of the on-demand economy platforms. The attention is focused on the emblematic case of Uber in the French context, specifically in the city of Paris. A field inquiry highlights how most of the drivers registered on the platform come from the banlieues and belong to the working-class. Our paper also aims at pointing out the ambition of these workers to a greater level of autonomy and social mobility, in light of the public policies encouraging self-employment and the marketing strategies through which Uber promotes the job as a driver. Nevertheless, the economic and management model of the platform seems to undermine the statute of independence of these workers, compromising the financial equilibrium of their activity. These are the reasons that have led to the organization of some mobilizations and legal actions against the platform, analysed in the concluding section.

The paper provides a perspective, empirically explorated in the context of food delivery, able to focus those factors which have developed the digitalizazion of the economy, but also why its benefits are not being redistributed among those who have been involved. The hypothesis is that this happens because digitalization is not only the product of technological development, but also of a ri-articulation of accumulation processes happening in the context of neoliberalism effects on the society. A process which is not only increasing the relevance of food delivery, but it is also transforming social relations inside such context. The paper presents empirical evidences coming from the analysis of four of the major food delivery platforms balance sheet. Furthermore, the author will analyze 5 interviews conducted among food delivery workers and 7 among restaurant’s manager. The author finally underlines how digitalization is producing a dependency from digital platforms which gets deepen by the way in which they operate.

This essay compares how digital money is conceptualized by the government with sense-making and practices among women workers in North India. The government promotes and envisions a future with large sections of the population within the fold of ‘Digital India’. The policy rhetoric emphasizes capacity building, both in terms of improving infrastructure and training. However, in its positive narratives, the inclusion of peripherals in the government of the digital economy. Further, through focus group discussions and interviews carried out with women working at the intersection of formal and informal economy.

Over the past few years, there has been a growing discussion about cashlessness. In several countries, economists, policy markers and financial institutions have advocated for a transition towards digital transactions, arguing that cashlessness can become an instrument of governance pivotal to the achievement of a more transparent and inclusive society. Conversely, cash has been described as a symbol of deviance, a symptom of illegal activities such as tax evasion and corruption. This paper focuses on the transition towards cashless transactions in India. Drawing on Noemi Klein’s definition of the shock economy, it argues that demonetisation in India can be considered as a shock therapy meant to facilitate the pursuit of a pro-corporate agenda. In a cash-based economy like India, demonetisation created a state of shock that forced large sectors of the population to adapt to digital transaction, in a process that undermined informal activities and used fear as a levy to push forward an agenda that largely benefited big credit card companies, the IT sector and fintech.

The object of the essay are the events concerning the mobilization of the working class and the action of the labor unions for the renewal of the national collective contract of the metal workers in 1969 and its aftermath. It is based on a direct experience of the author (acting as a union officer at that time) and analyses the relations among the workers’ struggles, the student movement and the birth of political groups of the radical left. The analysis takes into account also the reactions of particular State bodies, who organized a series of bloody attacks, while the violence of terrorist groups started spreading out. After the renewal of the contract, the workers movement fought for several years in order to improve and strengthen its achievements. Those years have been years of great social progress but the results gained by the workers have met great resistance by the entrepreneurial counterpart and by the political parties.

Although many studies consider knowledge-based urban development processes, the multiple functions that universities can play in suburban areas are rarely taken into account. This paper has a dual aim. First, it provides a systemic view of the characteristics of universities that impact suburban areas, and second, it proposes Naples as a case study wherein university suburbanization is a phenomenon that results in the creation of new urban geographies characterized by new suburban externalities.

L’adattamento dei sistemi urbani agli impatti del cambiamento climatico impone una più attenta gestione delle acque meteoriche. In Italia, nelle Regioni che hanno legiferato in materia, l’approccio più diffuso è legato all’invarianza idraulica. Dal confronto con il sistema di gestione nel Regno Unito, si individuano quei criteri applicativi che - superando l’invarianza - consentirebbero l’implementazione di sistemi di drenaggio urbano più sostenibili e resilienti come strumento di adattamento.

Il paper presenta una ricognizione critica dell’abitare sociale di Venezia, affrontando quantità e questioni del patrimonio residenziale pubblico della città. In un contesto di crescente conflittualità tra cittadini e turisti, scopo dell’indagine è restituire un quadro aggiornato di tali proprietà; definita una conoscenza di base, sono quindi individuati possibili territori per azioni politiche volte anche a ripensare, soprattutto nel centro storico, nuove forme di comunità.

L’articolo affronta il racconto della complessità dei luoghi da parte degli abitanti locali e la sua successiva codifica per mezzo di Sistemi informativi a base geografica. La riflessione si basa su un’esperienza diretta di mappatura partecipata in Vietnam seguita da elaborazione in ambiente GIS dei dati raccolti. L’obiettivo del processo è quello di mettere in dialogo sapere locale, conoscenza tecnicoscientifica e gestione politico-amministrativa per una pianificazione territoriale più efficace.

Il saggio indaga la parabola della nozione di sostenibilità dai momenti fondativi del "Pensiero ecologico", concentrandosi sui fallimenti delle politiche per la sostenibilità e sul limitato apporto delle discipline umanistiche e sociali per un diverso rapporto uomo/ambiente. Il percorso alla riscoperta del pensiero ecologizzato si chiude con un ragionamento su ricerca e modelli educativi dominanti, incapaci di affrontare la domanda di cross-disciplinarità richiesta dalla questione ambientale.

Alcune definizioni di periferia, un excursus su un pezzo di periferia torinese; qualche osservazione sui cambiamenti nei processi partecipativi e sulla natura dei conflitti sociali; una riflessione sulla politica di rigenerazione urbana oggi; alcune contraddizioni che caratterizzano attualmente le periferie e le politiche di rigenerazione urbana a Torino. In conclusione: le attuali condizioni per la rigenerazione urbana sono caratterizzate da contraddittorietà e frammentazione.