Living with austerity, rebuilding care. Social infrastructures in crisis and practices of self-organization in Antico Corso, Catania. – This paper examines how the dismantling and partial rebuilding of care-related social infrastructures in the Antico Corso neighbourhood of Catania has reshaped everyday life and local power relations. The closure of three historic hospitals—an outcome of prolonged urban austerity—has profoundly altered the neighbourhood’s sense of place. Drawing on a qualitative approach that includes ethnography, interviews, document analysis, and participant observation, the paper shows how institutional narratives present these closures as inevitable and beneficial, legitimizing top-down “urban regeneration” while excluding residents from meaningful decision-making. Many inhabitants respond with a mix of anger and resignation, perceiving the loss of the hospitals as a wound to the neighbourhood’s identity. At the same time, feminist collectives, civic committees, and grassroots organizations are developing alternative narratives and practices of social and territorial care. These initiatives contribute to redefining the neighbourhood from below and contest the spatial consequences of austerity. The paper argues that the crisis of social reproduction manifests not only as an economic issue, but as a spatial and political struggle that generates both new forms of marginalization and innovative practices of resistance and belonging. The case of Catania highlights the specificities and contradictions of austerity urbanism in Southern Italy.

The bitumen mine of Monte Camicia (Gran Sasso - Abruzzi): a geosite to develop. – The presence of geological and historical landmarks on the southern slopes of Monte Camicia (Gran Sasso Massif, Abruzzo, Italy) makes this area a candidate for site development and preservation. This paper aims to illustrate the links between geology and the history of the area, to highlight its societal value. Key features are three Aragonese coat-of-arms engraved in limestone boulders or on limestone cliffs and the “Miniera di Lignite”, a bitumen extraction plant that was built but never in operation. The story of the geological studies in the area – dating back at least to the first half of the 1800s is summarized, including the tragic events that led to the death of three geologists who were researching in the area in 1958. In conclusion, it is suggested that the area become a geosite in connection with the development of the Fonte Vetica and Campo Imperatore areas.

Southern transhumance routes between old and new economic perspectives: the case of Basilicata. – Transhumance is the seasonal movement of livestock guided, from dawn to dusk, by groups of shepherds together with their dogs and horses between the mountains and the plains along constant and marked routes between five geographical regions of the South. Since 2019 it has been included in the UNESCO heritage with its ways and can still be a driving force for economic and social growth for the regions of Southern Italy. In this work, taking into consideration the changes taking place on a global scale, we want to promote greater awareness of the genesis and evolution of the ways of transhumance and its economic vocations, of the production chains respecting cultural values and territorial identities, lifeblood for many fragile territories. A particular case is represented by the Basilicata region, so strongly interested in improving the quality of life of its smaller towns crossed by grass roads.
The contribution mainly examines the pilot project Parcovie 2030, as part of the Recovery Plan 2021.

Territorialization practices in the L’Aquila Apennines: transhumance, emigration and tourism. – The paper discusses the interconnected human and animal flows that have characterized the mobility in the high lands of L’Aquila province since the unification of Italy, when flocks and shepherds crossed their paths with emigrants, while tourists began to populate the mountains with different purposes, up to the present day, when the Abruzzo mountains are experiencing new opportunities to enroot the population and promote the territorial revitalization. Subsequently, the socio-spatial dynamics of some food productions of the southern slope of the Gran Sasso d’Italia connected to the practice of Transhumance are presented: secondary products of the pastoral economy of the past, mainly connected to the wool trade, which currently play a central role in creating employment opportunities of small local communities, with important repercussions also in the redefinition of tourist trajectories.

(Un)doing urban margins. Policies, practices, and discourses of marginalization in Danisinni (Palermo). – Due to its key position within the “Arab-norman Palermo” UNESCO World Heritage Site, since 2015 the neighborhood of Danisinni - one of the most marginalized in the Southern Italy city of Palermo - has experienced a wide range of culture-led regeneration initiatives. By focusing on a qualitative mixed-methods approach, this article aims to critically analyze the contested geographies of urban marginalization from a Southern Europe perspective. Drawing on Ananya Roy’s works, I consider the margin as a particular mode of urbanization, showing how discourses, policies and practices actually contribute to (re)produce it in the case of Danisinni.

Transhumance and landscape: relationship between settlements and tractural roads in central southern Italy – The study analyzes the historical and spatial evolution of the settlement system in central-southern Italy, with reference to Abruzzo aquilano, affected by the phenomenon of transhumant farming. The main element examined is the historical evolution of the settlement
structure with respect to the tractural ways, understood as a fundamental morphogenetic element of the urban systems and the landscape. The objective of the analysis is the identification of a series of elements useful for the protection and enhancement of the paths and of the historical and landscape pre-existences attributable to the phenomenon. The methodol-ogy is based on the analysis of the bibliography, especially recent innovative elements about the degradation of the “Tratturi” system, and, with cartographic analyzes and in situ surveys, it defines the critical issues and the territorial resources to lay the basis for a valorization project.

The places of the comedy along the via Casilina. – This contribution begins with a re-reading and re-interpretation of the Divina Commedia from a geographical perspective. Operation useful for capturing symbols and signs that still manifest themselves today in those places mentioned, in the Commedy. These places, located along the via Casilina, if put into a system, outline a potential itinerary dedicated to the figure of Dante Alighieri, representing a piece of the mosaic of routes that structure the network of routes in the territory of the Lazio sub-apennines (via Francigena in southern Italy, way of st. Thomas, food and wine itineraries of the cesanese lands, path of the parks, etc.).

Conflicts over the land-use of the Gaeta coastal zone (southern Lazio, Italy). – The aim of this contribution is to highlight the conflicts that have arisen over the centuries on Gaeta coastal zone in southern Lazio. The conformation of the Gulf, in which it faces, has favoured its vocation of mooring and therefore of maritime activities since ancient times. However, its defence capacity soon made it impregnable to attack by sea, making it a military fortress, so they interrupted its reputation as a commercial port and refuge for vessel. Fortunately, just outside the fortress, a fishing activity and a shipbuilding industry continued to be. These activities relaunched Gaeta until after the Second World War, and still survive today waiting for a new revival. The destruction of the historic walls also rehabilitated that part of the city that was enclosed there, but in it there are also the NATO fleet support and the military vessels controlling and safeguarding the coast of the entire gulf. Meanwhile, in the last decades, Gaeta has regained the role that had belonged since Roman times to a holiday resort. In the summer months, a large number of tourists pour out, especially on the different beaches that are developed on the coast just off the gulf. Over time, bathing, refreshment and accommodation services have been provided to them, threatening valuable coastal habitats, protected by both the Region and the 2000 Nature Network. This relationship between nature and man can be balanced only if the conditions of co-existence are known and respected. Similarly, it can be said for the maritime activities that develop in the Gulf of Gaeta.

For a model of governance of Cultural Routes: Territorial Business Systems. The case study of the Via Francigena between Monti Prenestini ed Ernici. – Cultural routes and way are gradually assuming a leading role in territorial planning policies because on the one hand they are capable of responding to the criteria of environmental, social and economic sustainability and, on the other, of favoring an expansion of the tourist offer with a strong connotation identity. The study aims to support the hypothesis that a geographical approach by aggregates can represent the indispensable premise for the development of a governance model which, through the itinerary and the way, guarantees the implementation of actions aimed at enhancing and managing extended coherent territorial areas.

Safe and non-safe space: an investigation on new dwelling strategies in the context of Covid-19 pandemic. – The experience of Covid-19 gave us the need to rethink organisational methods of contemporary society, particularly public and domestic spaces. Our research used the pandemic struggle to examine current ways of looking at the safe and unsafe, entailing new practises of social action.
This research was structured in two different stages. First we investigated a series of behaviours and perceptions within public and domestic spaces. Second we examined the strategies through which the subjects reorient the spaces and define new habitus and practices of dwelling. In both cases we focused on hygiene procedures and alternative measures undertaken to diminish the risk of contagion.
The case studies are grouped by three different ranges of contagion in northern, central and southern Italy. They are discussed with reference to theoretical and methodological debates within social geography and cultural anthropology.

Southern Italy and Euro-Mediterranean development. Cultural Routes for a new territorial vision – Cultural routes have assumed, for our country and especially for the South, a particularly important value and are becoming nowadays ever more instrument and opportunities for tourism innovation. The perception is that we are at the gates of a new historical phase in which a substantial reflection on new forms of enjoyment of territories contrasts with the aggression of the great cultural heritage.
To the south and along the trajectories of cultural and historical itineraries, the common Euro-Mediterranean root of crossed territories and the ties between communities deserve a different consideration, new forms of integrated tourism and a different narrative ability.
For these reasons an organic reflection on the prospects of territorial development, starting from the routes that run through and give life to the Southern Italy and Mediterranean tourist realities, erroneously defined minor, becomes particularly important nowadays, and probably one of the concrete sources of feasible sustainable development.

The problem of the failure and/or unsatisfactory development of Southern Italy recurs insistently and from various point of view in the political and scientific debate. The contributions range from the analysis of the determinants of political ineffectiveness in promoting a better development path, to the proposition of formulas capable of correcting this situation and thereby establish paths of interregional convergence or catching-up. In this framework, is useful to studying Sardinia as a "laboratory" to examine the main institutional trends and variables at the base of the north-south dualism that characterizes the Italian economy, as well as to deepen and explore new approaches and solutions to the problem of interregional imbalances. The paper, moving from this assumption analyze the causes underlying the disappointing socio-economic development promoted in Sardinia. Moreover suggests possible reforming paths of political institutions and new economic measures of intervention with particular reference to the need for a re-enactment of the federalist principles and the idea of the guaranteed minimum income.

Scipione Breislak (1750-1826) was a Roman geologist and naturalist who studied the volcanic areas of central and southern Italy in the 1780s and 1790s. The Topografia fisica della Campania (1798) – written in Breislak’s stay in Naples where he worked as a teacher of Physics in the Military Academy of Nunziatella and was the Director of the factory alum of the Solfatara of Pozzuoli – shows the results of his investigations on the phenomena of the Vesuvius and the Phlegraean volcanic area. In this report Breislak explains his thoughts on the so called Grotta del Cane. These thoughts show us for the first time the directional concept of the Earth directional and his theory on volcanoes. By rejecting the hypothesis of iron sulphides, adopted few years before in the Essais mineralogiques sur la Solfatare de Pouzzole (1792), Breislak argues that the combustion of the petroleum is the cause of eruptions of Vesuvius. This assumption rules out the Huttonian idea of a correlation between the activities of volcanoes and the heat of the Earth.

The “Via degli Abruzzi”. a key route to local development. – The renewed attention paid by Institutions, public authorities and scholars to main historical routes as well as their more serious consideration of rural areas’ development suggest the author to focus his interest on the ancient route of the “Via degli Abruzzi”, which played a crucial role for several centuries for religious, cultural and most importantly commercial purposes, connecting Central and Northern Italy to Southern Italy. This paper aims not only to discover again such a history, but also to let re-emerge nowadays a network of potential relationships and a renewed interest in the areas covered by this communication route, by stimulating new cultural tourism flows which could travel through this route again, and even envisaging a possible institutionalisation of its itinerary, for a more varied and efficient use of its environmental and cultural resources.