Socio-psychological aspects of grassroots participation in the Transition Movement: An Italian case study

In this article, we present a case study investigating the socio-psychological aspects of grassroots participation in a Transition Town Movement (TTM) community initiative. We analyzed the first Italian Transition initiative: Monteveglio (Bologna), the central hub of the Italian TTM and a key link with the global Transition Network. A qualitative methodology was used to collect and analyze the data consisting of interviews with key informants and ethnographic notes. The results provide further evidence supporting the role of social representations, shared social identities, and collective efficacy beliefs in promoting, sustaining, and shaping activists\u2019 commitment. The movement seems to have great potential to inspire and engage citizens to tackle climate change at a community level. Grassroots engagement of local communities working together provides the vision and the material starting point for a viable pathway for the changes required. Attempting to ensure their future political relevance, the TTM adherents are striving to disseminate and materially consolidate inherently political and prefigurative movement frames \u2013 primarily community resilience and re-localization \u2013 within community socio-economic and political frameworks. However, cooperation with politics is perceived by most adherents as a frustrating and dissatisfying experience, and an attempted co-optation of the Transition initiative by institutions. It highlights a tension between the open and non-confrontational approach of the movement towards institutions and their practical experience. Corresponding to this tension, activists have to cope with conflicts, contradictions, and ambivalence of social representations about community action for sustainability, which threaten the sense of collective purpose, group cohesion and ultimately its survival

Geochemical background values in aquatic systems

Pollutants, natural sources, anthropogenic sources, background values, GIS, hierarchical cluster analysis

The abandoned antimony-mines of SE Sardinia: impact on surface waters

This study investigates the impact of abandoned Sb-mines on the Flumendosa River, which is the most important water resource in southern Sardinia. Hydrogeochemical surveys carried out in 2005 and 2006 indicated a significant impact of waters flowing out from adits, slag, tailings and waste materials on surface waters. The contaminated waters show alkaline pH, and high dissolved SO4, Sb and As (up to 1900, 9.6 and 3.5 mg/L, respectively). Although the flow rates of drainages from the mining area are usually low (in the range of < 0.1 to 1 L/s), the contribution to dissolved concentrations of Sb in the streams downstream of mines is high. Sampling under high flow conditions in the Flumendosa River before the confluence with the contaminated streams showed Sb concentrations below the limits established by the guidelines of World Health Organization for drinking water (i.e. 20 g/L), while downstream of the confluence dissolved Sb was 32 g/L. Contamination in the Flumendosa extended 16 km, and attenuation (15 g/L Sb) was only observed close to the Flumendosa mouth

Removal of Kirschner Wire That Migrated from the Pelvic Bone into the Right Ventricle of the Heart

A sixty-year-old man was admitted due to chest pain. He had a history of pelvic bone fracture fixation with Kirschner wire about 20 years earlier. On examination, we detected a Kirschner wire that had migrated into the right ventricle. Without cardiopulmonary bypass, we removed the migrating Kirschner wire via median sternotomy. The patient recovered without complications and was discharged on the 5th postoperative day

Costruttivismo ed esperienzialismo per l'apprendimento dell'italiano L2 nelle visite museali

The present PhD thesis evolves from the need to grow awareness of the didactic methods that could be adopted in the field of the acquisition of Italian as a second language, and that could contemporaneously be optimal instruments to give value to museums and to consider them as ideal learning settings. Therefore, the aim of my research is, first of all, to show the dynamics of the acquisition in museums. Afterwards, I make an excursus into the theories postulated by scientists who (has) studied and supported Constructivism and Experiential Learning. Moreover, I explain how to reify scientists’ thought and I focus on two Sardinian museums: Museo del corallo in Alghero and Museo-Casa di Grazia Deledda in Nuoro. On these two structures I have constructed ad hoc two didactic paths consisting of different steps and also including materials whose objective is to allow students to intimately dialogue with the exposed items in order them to learn Italian language and culture. The working sheets are accompanied by the analysis of the activities from the Constructivist and the Experientialist perspectives. Ultimately, to confirm the functionality and the value of the two approaches, I present the results of an experiment conducted in the Museo del corallo with a group of Erasmus students hosted by the University of Sassari, highlighting the strong points and providing conclusive considerations for eventual future executions of the initiative

Coping with Territorial Stigma and Devalued Identities: How Do Social Representations of an Environmentally Degraded Place Affect Identity and Agency?

This article examines people-place relationships in a carbon-intensive area-i.e., heavily dependent on the steel industry and marked by severe environmental degradation-involved in the EU Just Transition Mechanism (Taranto, Italy). Drawing upon a psychosocial perspective grounded on social representations theory, this article focuses on intertwining the sense of place, identity processes, and agency to understand the dynamics of place stigma and identity devaluation. In-depth semi-structured interviews with active residents were thematically and discursively analyzed. The results suggest both theoretical and applied insights. Overall, they highlight a widely shared negative representation of the place related to territorial stigmatization, ambivalent place attachments, and devaluation of place-based and social identities. To cope with such processes and dynamics, identity processes seem to act as self-protective mechanisms both at a personal and social level. The article concludes by inviting a more comprehensive conceptualization of just transition, harm restoration, and related territorial planning to include the psychosocial processes underlying the community's well-being and identity

Abandoned landscape project design

AbstractConversion and transformation of historic buildings and industrial site reclamation projects are becoming topics of renewed interest. Many industrial buildings beckon architecture design theory to revitalize urban areas and make new use of public space. Ruins and historic sites speak to us about the need to rethink settings which belong to long-lost ages and yet are contemporary in the stories they reveal. There are present-day problematic and sensitive areas (abandoned quarries, ex industrial plants, landfills, etc.) which inspire renewed critical thinking; themes of memory and recollection touch us in the here and now. In contrast with the 1970s and 1980 s' tendency to treat such topics with a mix of lightheartedness and nostalgia, the projects presented in this work regard history as a process of revision and reclamation of profound spatial and social principles. Contact with historic, industrial and modern spaces pushes us to apply new methodological approaches in an effort to re-write the present. In fact, nowadays it is imperative that we engage a relationship with the past which takes into consideration not only ancient legacies but also those entrenched in 20th century crises—uncomfortable memories often embodied in areas of great landscape or historic value. How are we to approach our relationship with these legacies? Critical studies illustrate the value of those projects capable of breathing new life into the fabric of urban space by creating public areas and city parks. Memory, seemingly pushed into a playful, irreverently lighthearted vein for years, is thus allowed once again to speak to us of the human and social desire to reclaim time and provide urban and suburban areas with new opportunities for regeneration and growth

Requisiti ambientali per il progetto della città lagunare nella Sardegna Centro Occidentale

The assumption of the thesis is that the city and the territory be considered two inseparable realities. Placing ecological issues and city design side by side can have an important influence in developing planning forms that will take into account the physiology of the region, and pay significant attention to the dynamic aspects and ecological processes underway there. Starting with the debate on low-density settlement situations and referring in particular to lagoon areas as ecologically complex environmental and settlement spaces, the thesis focuses on the city in terms of a territorial space interpreted as an intricate autotrophic and heterotrophic ecosystem in continuous evolution. Attention is explicitly focused on some critical environmental spheres, namely the lagoon areas, urban systems that are sensitive to the changes occurring in the environment due to human activities carried out on a hydrographic basin scale. The context examined is the Oristano region in west-central Sardinia, especially the territorial areas of the Cabras and Santa Giusta lagoons, where one of the important issues is the management of the integrated water cycle, linked with agricultural and fishing problems, but above all with the future of the small urban realities and the quality of the spaces they own for fruition of the environment

From hydrocarbons to carbon Nanostructures: a theoretical analysis of surface-catalysed cyclodehydrogenation

Tesis doctoral inédita. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada. Fecha de lectura: 16-12-201

Public engagement and social acceptability in energy system change: A socio-psychological analysis of a regional case study

The transition towards distributed low-carbon energy systems coincides with the introduction and materialization of renewable energy technologies (RETs) and associated infrastructures at the local level and implies a complex re-organization of the territories and a careful consideration of the relationship between energy sources and technologies and the local scale. Indeed, the design and effective implementation of energy policies and technologies require engaging multiple actors across scales in identifying measures ideally fitting with the given political, socio-cultural, economic and territorial contexts, building the acceptability and support of diverse publics. Social research on social acceptance of RETs and associated infrastructures has grown in the last decades proposing several conceptual frameworks. However, this literature still presents some limitations, such as the scarcity of studies on social acceptance of the whole energy system change instead of single technologies/projects. Moreover, studies often rely and focus only on a single level or dimension of social acceptance, notably community acceptance at the local level, or political and socio-economic acceptance at the national level. Thus, studies integrating market, socio-political and community aspects or triangulating/combining findings from different levels are limited. This thesis presents a longitudinal and multi-scalar investigation of public discourse and stakeholders’ perspectives on energy policies and technologies in the Marche region (Italy) by connecting public and institutional arenas. The research adopts Social Representations, Justice and Identity Theories and a discursive analytical approach to investigate public engagement and social acceptability in energy system change. The research consists of three studies: a longitudinal discourse analysis of the public sphere (2011-2017), involving document materials and naturalistic data (i.e. local media, political and public debates) to examine the historicity and territorialisation of RETs and related people’s responses; an analysis of public consultations and environmental assessments' reports (2015-2016) regarding the regional energy plan 2020 and twenty-two narrative interviews (2017-2018) with key informants and actors operating at different scales (i.e. policy, market, expert and civil society actors). The first study shows that people opposition to the territorialisation of RETs were motivated by different factors involving procedural (engagement, authorisation, regulation, guidelines, and assessment in RET deployment), distributional (environmental and social impacts, fit with place materiality and symbolic meanings, distribution of costs and benefits between places and actors) and recognition elements of justice (recognition and treatment of local communities and authorities). Moreover, the study found that different RETs are conceptualized as strongly intertwined, considering the distributed generation of RETs as a physical aggression and multiplication of impacts devastating the territory. Territorial features and memories of unsustainable economies (overbuilding and soil consumption, widespread industries and pollution, landscape disruption) played a great role in public conceptualization of and responses to RETs considered as aggravating environmental criticalities, putting at risk local economies based on agriculture and tourism and reinforcing distrust toward firms and politics. To face this situation, the Regional Government started a re-configuration process with the elaboration of energy and environmental policies by means of preliminary and inclusive participation. Despite the institutional participatory pathways have addressed many critical issues, enhancing the timely recognition and inclusion of different normative appraisals in planning and decision-making, and enhancing the overall quality and legitimacy of the plan, this remains constrained by different factors constraining the potential for a sustainable and effective implementation of the strategy and undermining socio-political, economic, and community acceptance. The findings are discussed in light of the theoretical, methodological and applied (policy) implications of the research on social acceptance and deliberative governance