DOCUMENTI GEOGRAFICI - N. 1 (2018)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Articoli

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Environmental protection and National Energy Balance. Geographical Considerations in the Perspective of a Process of Virtuous Innovation. – The EU’s European Environmental Agency defines the target of pollution limits to be observed by our member’s for the progressive reduction of environmental impact. Italy as a whole respects the limits of the Effort Sharing Decision to 2020, but presents problems of concentration of NO2 and PM10 in many urban areas. Analyzing national energy consumption, we identify the geopolitical and geoeconomic structural causes that condition the structure of the hydrocarbon dependence of the National Energy Balance. Within this “scenario”, the contribution discusses the strategies and interventions necessary for the reshaping of energy consumption towards stable results of active environmental balance.

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Smart: Opportunities and Risks for Urban Development and Challenges for the African Continent. – In recent decades there has been a proliferation of studies, research and approaches to the “smart” theme, viewed with interest as the “new” frontier of sustainability, which seeks to combine technological development with territorial development, social inclusion with environmental protection. This seems very stimulating for the develop-ment of the poorest regions of the Earth, which, following political instability, or economic difficulties, or structural and infrastructural back-wardness, are lagging behind the richest and most stable regions, although in recent years they are witnessing a very fast GDP growth rate. Starting from some definitions of “city”, I will examine the concept of “smart city” and will try to identify the approaches that best respond not only to objective needs for the development of a territory, but also to its qualitative characteristics, in so that “smart” urban and territorial planning projects represent a real and effective instrument of integrated and lasting development, also in urban and rural Africa.

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Migrations: between imaginaries and transnational dynamics. Research ideas from Guinea Bissau – The article analyzes two aspects of the migration process. On the one hand, the role played by migratory imagination in the definition of emigration choices and strategies and, on the other hand, through the case study of Guinea Bissau, the role played by family, association and village networks in establishing transnational relations of mutual collabo-ration between the host country and the country of departure.

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Perceived Risk Effect and Nimby Syndrome. Analysis of the "No-Tap" Conflict in Puglia. – In the first half of 2017, a series of protests and clashes in the Salento region of Puglia attracted media attention. At the origin of such clashes, there is a desire to counter an infrastructure project with an international scope for environmental, landscaping, economic and social reasons. This is the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which involves the construction of a natural gas pipeline from the Shah Denizinin fields in Azerbaijan to the Italian coast, and then distributed to Europe. Beyond the underlying motivations of mobilization, what emerges as relevant is the phenomenon associated with the environmental conflict, defined in literature as NIMBY syndrome.
The purpose of the paper is to analyze the nature of environmental conflicts, how they emerge, what characteristics they assume and how they can be managed and contained. To this end, will be addressed the issue of risk, perceived risk and probabilistic statistic risk, clarifying the difference, as it is closely related to the theme of environmental conflicts. A review of the literature on the NIMBY and LULU phenomena will be presented, and finally, the case-study of the NO TAP movement in Puglia will be treated.

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Breathing the Atmosphere of the Past. The “Strada dello stracchino e della pietra”. – Since many decades the cultural heritage has a very important role in the construction and development of territories. It can be tangible and intangible and it is a factor of the territorial production. Among them several cultural expressions, one of the most important is the typical magri-food production. In this article the attention is focused on the traditional production of stracchino and to its related civilization, which has produced tangible signs in the territories which today represent the authenticity of the territorial development. This is strictly connected to the new and modern forms of tourism, which compose the frame of a “total leisure experience”, such as the one of the valleys studied in this case study.

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Defining the “Home”. – The article addresses the question of dwelling as an expression of life. Must a home be confined by the four square walls of a traditional building, or can it be a place on the streets within an urban area? Modes of dwelling are reflecting the socio-economic and cultural life of a person, family or social group. Also they situate the inhabitants. On the one hand the homes of the rich are becoming ever more luxuriant to the point of obscenity. On the other hand, the ever-increasing problem of homelessness reveals a politically legitimised destruction of “homes”. Thus we need ethical homes. This is not meant to promote the individual pursuit of happiness, but to seek standards by which people can live well together.

Agorà (Responsabili Giovanni Mauro, Maria Ronza)

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Per me la geografia è quella dei fiumi, della graduatoria dei più lunghi, dal Po all’Adige al Tevere. E i laghi, i più grandi: Garda, Verbano, Lario, Trasimeno...La geografia umana è un’altra cosa. Eppure la parola chiave è geo. Terra. La terra madre, Gea.

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È ben noto come il processo di urbanizzazione degli abitanti del pianeta coincidente con la prima rivoluzione industriale abbia proceduto a ritmi serrati e come negli ultimi decenni, in parallelo con le trasformazioni della produzione di beni e servizi, e della sua articolazione a livello geografico, abbia subito una ulteriore straordinaria accelerazione con proiezioni di medio periodo dello stesso segno.

 

 

 

 

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Durante la bella escursione in Tunisia tra settembre e ottobre 2017, per i 150 anni di attività della Società Geografica Italiana, ho accennato qualche volta a paralleli paesaggistici fra il Paese maghrebino e la Sicilia. E la Sicilia che con maggiore evidenza presenta paesaggi e retaggi simili alla Tunisia è quella occidentale, soprattutto il Trapanese.

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Il concetto di sviluppo sostenibile continua ad arricchirsi grazie a nuove sintesi del dibattito in corso a livello internazionale e a nuovi spunti di riflessione provenienti da numerosi ambiti disciplinari, non da ultimo da due libri pubblicati di recente: uno a firma di Enrico Giovannini, dal titolo L’Utopia Sostenibile (Laterza, 2018), l’altro scritto da Francesco Rutelli, Contro gli immediati (La Nave di Teseo, 2017).