Just another roll of the dice: a socially creative initiative to assure Roma housing in North Western Italy

This chapter concerns how social innovation relates to the social production of space. Usually, the scholarly literature on local welfare, social work, and ‘social cohesion’ at the urban level mostly fails to consider the relevance of space. The spatial dimension of a socially creative strategy is constituted in physical and symbolic boundaries, in the built environment, in situated objects and relationships. Space can significantly contribute to stigma and exclusion, notably in segregated places. In fact, space performs: it has social effects on people’s opportunities and on their self-esteem . Nonetheless the space is itself a social product; it is the object of strategies. Most social innovators invest in space, trying to shape it, to modify it, to make it more inclusive. They aim to use it as a lever for social innovation. Some such innovations use art as a tool to produce change in the spatial configuration for deprived groups. In this chapter we observe a case of a socially creative strategy in which a par- ticularly difficult housing problem was solved thanks to a holistic approach to the production of space. More specifically, we observed how a network of NGOs was able to manage a situation of housing exclusion for some highly stigmatized roma families. Yet the true character of this social innovation lay precisely at the level of the production of space. The main problem that the network sought to address was the issue of segregation that housing for roma usually reproduces. Welfare provisions for roma in Italy are traditionally part of the problem they are supposed to solve: they maintain segregation and fail to support roma inclusion in broader urban life. This network therefore decided to design a project and implement it in a very collab- orative way. They did not provide a specialized shelter for evicted roma people, or for roma housing emergencies; rather, they invented a participative path within the Turin metropolitan area to produce a space that could also, but not exclusively, welcome Roma families, without labelling them and without separating them from the wider local community

The Land of Fires. Evaluating a State Law to Restore the Narrative Power of Local Communities

This study proposes a public evaluation of the Law 6/2014, approved by Italian Parliament to counteract a longstanding waste emergency in the area known as Land of Fires, in the provinces of Naples and Caserta, Campania region. The authors intended to explore, together with its recipients and from a sociological perspective, a state law, its impact, and the complex and interactive link between health and popular mobilization. It is intended, therefore, to propose a concrete idea of evaluation that is not impose from above and managed by neutral evaluators (technical experts). Based on in-depth work field, the evaluation process described here is configured as a non-hierarchical participative act, realized through a methodology aimed at encouraging self-control practices, taking possession of their own context by subjects that are not evaluated but rather co-evaluator, within a space of negotiation that can also become a field of conflict, open to different interpretation

The Land of Fires. Evaluating a State Law to Restore the Narrative Power of Local Communities

This study proposes a public evaluation of the Law 6/2014, approved by Italian Parliament to counteract a longstanding waste emergency in the area known as Land of Fires, in the provinces of Naples and Caserta, Campania region. The authors intended to explore, together with its recipients and from a sociological perspective, a state law, its impact, and the complex and interactive link between health and popular mobilization. It is intended, therefore, to propose a concrete idea of evaluation that is not impose from above and managed by neutral evaluators (technical experts). Based on in-depth work field, the evaluation process described here is configured as a non-hierarchical participative act, realized through a methodology aimed at encouraging self-control practices, taking possession of their own context by subjects that are not evaluated but rather co-evaluator, within a space of negotiation that can also become a field of conflict, open to different interpretation

When home and work are not enough. The challenge of international migrants' agency in the Italian Alps

Even when they have access to housing and employment, international migrants struggle to develop their own agency, i.e. the capacity to act in their own life contexts, exercising citizenship rights within substantive inclusion processes in the wider communities. The territorial context in fact, especially in rural and mountainous areas such as the Alpine ones analysed here, seems in many ways to represent a limit to the development of capacities and exercise of rights. Difficulties in accessing public space and public sphere, scarce social recognition, low status, housing isolation (as is the case of those who live in small mountain villages), professional ghettoisation: these are factors that, even in presence of an acceptable working and housing inclusion, make it difficult for international migrants to exercise their rights, to have their skills recognised, and, ultimately, to develop an agency genuinely linked to their capabilities. In this article, with reference to the action-research activities carried out in 2020-22 by the Horizon2020 MATILDE project in the Italian Alpine areas of South Tyrol and the Metropolitan City of Turin, attention is focused on the policies that could favour the effective migrants’ agency in mountain territories.The paper is published by the European Journal of Spatial Development (EJSD). The previous version of the journal was host by Nordregio

When home and work are not enough. The challenge of international migrants' agency in the Italian Alps

Even when they have access to housing and employment, international migrants struggle to develop their own agency, i.e. the capacity to act in their own life contexts, exercising citizenship rights within substantive inclusion processes in the wider communities. The territorial context in fact, especially in rural and mountainous areas such as the Alpine ones analysed here, seems in many ways to represent a limit to the development of capacities and exercise of rights. Difficulties in accessing public space and public sphere, scarce social recognition, low status, housing isolation (as is the case of those who live in small mountain villages), professional ghettoisation: these are factors that, even in presence of an acceptable working and housing inclusion, make it difficult for international migrants to exercise their rights, to have their skills recognised, and, ultimately, to develop an agency genuinely linked to their capabilities. In this article, with reference to the action-research activities carried out in 2020-22 by the Horizon2020 MATILDE project in the Italian Alpine areas of South Tyrol and the Metropolitan City of Turin, attention is focused on the policies that could favour the effective migrants’ agency in mountain territories.The paper is published by the European Journal of Spatial Development (EJSD). The previous version of the journal was host by Nordregio

Migration by Necessity and by Force to Mountain Areas: an Opportunity for Social Innovation

This article discusses current European migration flows, their impacts on the European Alps, and future options for addressing issues of migration. It explores these issues from the perspective of regional development, taking into account the currently prevailing goals of economic competitiveness and local self-interest. It focuses on the Alps, a region in which rural areas are losing economic, demographic, and decision-making power due to outmigration. An end to outmigration in the Alps is currently unlikely, but there may be other ways to stem the resulting losses. Based on a review of migration literature and 3 case studies, the article explores ways in which programs for hosting and integrating migrants can also benefit long-time residents by contributing in many different ways to the development of mountain areas. From this perspective, efforts to integrate migrants can be seen as a form of social innovation that can contribute to the future of the entire Alpine economic space. Rather than focusing on drivers of migration or its humanitarian or constitutional aspects, the paper explores the potential benefits to all parties of a better integration of migrants into the host regions, and the possibility that this could become a model of social innovation. It suggests an agenda for research on how to reach this potential and agenda points for policy regarding measures to fulfill the potential

When home and work are not enough. The challenge of international migrants’ agency in the Italian Alps

Even when they have access to housing and employment, international migrants struggle to develop their own agency, i.e. the capacity to act in their own life contexts, exercising citizenship rights within substantive inclusion processes in the wider communities. The territorial context in fact, especially in rural and mountainous areas such as the Alpine ones analysed here, seems in many ways to represent a limit to the development of capacities and exercise of rights. Difficulties in accessing public space and public sphere, scarce social recognition, low status, housing isolation (as is the case of those who live in small mountain villages), professional ghettoisation: these are factors that, even in presence of an acceptable working and housing inclusion, make it difficult for international migrants to exercise their rights, to have their skills recognised, and, ultimately, to develop an agency genuinely linked to their capabilities. In this article, with reference to the action-research activities carried out in 2020-22 by the Horizon2020 MATILDE project in the Italian Alpine areas of South Tyrol and the Metropolitan City of Turin, attention is focused on the policies that could favour the effective migrants’ agency in mountain territories

When home and work are not enough. The challenge of international migrants’ agency in the Italian Alps

Even when they have access to housing and employment, international migrants struggle to develop their own agency, i.e. the capacity to act in their own life contexts, exercising citizenship rights within substantive inclusion processes in the wider communities. The territorial context in fact, especially in rural and mountainous areas such as the Alpine ones analysed here, seems in many ways to represent a limit to the development of capacities and exercise of rights. Difficulties in accessing public space and public sphere, scarce social recognition, low status, housing isolation (as is the case of those who live in small mountain villages), professional ghettoisation: these are factors that, even in presence of an acceptable working and housing inclusion, make it difficult for international migrants to exercise their rights, to have their skills recognised, and, ultimately, to develop an agency genuinely linked to their capabilities. In this article, with reference to the action-research activities carried out in 2020-22 by the Horizon2020 MATILDE project in the Italian Alpine areas of South Tyrol and the Metropolitan City of Turin, attention is focused on the policies that could favour the effective migrants’ agency in mountain territories