Eco-theater, biodiversity and environmental discourse: the perspective of ecocritical geo-politics. – The objective of this article is to analyse, from an ecocritical geopolitical perspective, a particular artistic practice, namely eco-theatre, i.e. theatrical performances that aim to convey an environmental message. To this end, a concise historical account of environmental theatre is provided, commencing with Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (1882), followed by the experimental endeavours of The Diggers (1960s) and of the Reinhabitory The-ater (1970s), culminating in the climate change works of the 2000s and the contemporary proliferation of initiatives. The article then examines the different narrative strategies and suggests what should be analysed in the texts (plot, role of human and non-human characters, relationship with the audience, etc.) in order to grasp the environmental discourse of each text and its potential for creating an affective atmosphere.

Environmental metaphors in the lyrics of contemporary Italian songs. – Music, understood as an expressive form of popular culture, can become a moment for artists to reflect and become aware of current issues and a tool for the production and dissemination of environmental discourses. In a hybrid field between environmental, cultural, and media geographies, this contribution analyses the lyrics of 20 recent Italian songs dedicated to the defence of the planet. The aim is exploring how musical texts has represented the intricate relationship between the environment and human beings, particularly using metaphors. The research reveals that musical lyrics under examination have associated nature and the Earth with various scientific or religious concepts, but also with multiple images of women, reproducing environmental discourses centred on anthropocentric or patriarchal ideologies.

A public geography note. Not exactly encouraging signs on ecological transition in Italy. – There is quite a lot of narrative around ecological transition (ET) these days, especially with reference to the post-covid 19 economic recovery. In Italy, within the Draghi’s gov, a special Ministry has been established to that purpose. We shall clarify, however, that the ET approach is not only a sequence of actions to fix what was damaged on the territory, or a number of punctual works here and there. It’s rather a wide prospect with multiple sub-sets that will evolve in the long term through a coher-ent set of transcalar measures.
Two events oppose this ET idea, both happening in Italy during the course of May 2021: i) the return of the “nuclear discourse”; ii) the re-duction of the Sirente-Velino Regional Park size.
We will discuss about this shortly, looking at it from a public geography perspective. In addition, we will summarize some of those critical ele-ments of the ET ongoing implemented practices.