LIBRI DI MAURIZIO BERGAMASCHI

L'autore si concentra su esperienze di orti - giardini condivisi che, a volte anche molto diverse le une dalle altre, vanno a ridisegnare, almeno parzialmente, la morfologia e l'immagine delle città. Sempre più persone avanzano una domanda di verde urbano non solo da ammirare e fruire passivamente, ma nel quale intervenire attivamente progettando e organizzando attività culturali e iniziative di animazione sociale. Se la presenza di orti - giardini in città non è del tutto inedita, questi oggi presentano tratti del tutto specifici. Queste pratiche si configurano come micro-processi locali che fanno emergere nuove forme di urbanità a partire dal coinvolgimento attivo dell'abitante, nonché una sua responsabilizzazione nella gestione di questi spazi.

Gli autori intendono presentare al lettore italiano alcune piste di ricerca che caratterizzano oggi il panorama dell’etnografia urbana in Francia. Dai contributi presentati si evince che l’approccio etnografico consente di "andare oltre" la conoscenza standard che si ha dei fenomeni urbani. Gli autori ritengono che in questo sia possibile far emergere un’"altra città" che tuttavia, per poter essere scoperta, necessita dell’epistemologia e del metodo che caratterizzano il lavoro sul campo di tipo etnografico.

Le città hanno sempre rappresentato luoghi di inclusione sociale, spazi di libertà nei quali accogliere e rappresentare i cittadini. Tuttavia nelle città da sempre esistono anche zone d’ombra, aree povere e di esclusione sociale nelle quali i diritti formali non garantiscono uguaglianza sociale. Il volume condivide la convinzione che luoghi e tempi urbani rappresentino elementi costitutivi dei fenomeni sociali e che la morfologia sociale delle città contemporanee abbia aumentato, anziché ridotto, l’esclusione dei soggetti più deboli.

Città e spazio nel pensiero di Maurice Hallbwachs - City and Space in Maurice Halbwachs’ thought, In Italy as well as in France, Maurice Halbwachs is still considered a specialist of collective memory and little attention is paid to his theoretical contributions to European urban sociology. Nevertheless, a great part of Halbwachs’s reflection was centred on the development of the city, particularly on the spatial dimension of social facts. The aim of the present essay is therefore to reconstruct the development of Halbwachs’s thought on city and space by a close examination, in chronological order, of his major writings on these subjects. We shall thus analyse the main research steps which have taken Halbwachs from the study of social morphology to a more and more accurate definition of space as a sociological category. Key words: social morphology, city, Maurice Halbwachs.

This paper proposes two possible ways of analysing the relationship between poverty and urban space; in particular, poverty is intended as deprivation in the sub-system of economic resources. The first approach consists in localising poverty in macro-areas: this paper puts into evidence the limits of the available statistics on a national basis; it also deals with the problems involved in the delimitation of areas on the basis of which poverty thresholds are defined. The second approach, more micro, takes into account the territorial distribution of poverty in urban areas. In this case, the risks of a new labelling on a territorial basis are stressed; this kind of labelling is founded on a presumed homogeneity of the areas considered, an assumption which often results from a lack of field research.

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.

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.