DOCUMENTI GEOGRAFICI - N. 2 (2019)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Articoli

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Geography of the sacred: mystical literature as a source of knowledge. – The paper addresses the question whether mystical visions can offer a contribution to the knowledge of territories with regard to historical geography. The attention is limited to Christian mysticism, on which a rich literature is available, accompanied by in-depth critical analysis.
In several cases the authors provide us with significant details about the environment that is the background to episodes of sacred history, that is the geography of the Holy Land at the beginning of the 1st century. Without discussing the theological problems, the paper investigates the writings from two mystics almost a century apart, the German Anne Catherine Emmerick, a blessed nun of the 19th century and the Italian Maria Valtorta (died in 1961). These are examined in order to ascertain the validity of the geographical information contained therein and their originality with respect to the knowledge to their time.

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Financial Systems between conflictuality and territorial coexistence. Islamic Finance and the United Kingdom case. – Recent years are characterized by the increasing spread of Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) in the Western countries. This could be explained, on the one hand, because the Islamic communities are even more numerous, becoming an important interlocutor and an opportunity for the western economies. On the other hand, Islamic finance Islamic finance has several ethical characteristics that could identify them as a more stable financial model.
The present contribution aims to address the particular issue of Islamic finance, looking at the global diffusion of the phenomenon, in order to understand its differences and conflicts with the traditional financial model.
To this end, it will be treated the case study of the United Kindom where the phenomenon seems to have had more success than in other countries.

 

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Semantic Web and Sentiment Analysis to Investigate the Territorial Image. Updates on the Salento Case. – Starting from the deep difference between cyberspace and cyberplace, this paper is developed in the second field of space: the cyberplace. In its recent conceptualization it is intended as the connection between offline and online actions. It is therefore the interstitial place that is generated by the encounter between virtual space and real space. The cyberplace reflects all the stages of the journey of a smart tourister and therefore becomes a container of numerous information relating to the tourist experience and destination in the tourist gaze 3.0, as Urry recalls. Online, from the tourist's gaze, new territorial narratives are spreading that arouse different reactions from the habitual users of the tourist destination who polarize in the opposite behaviors of strengthening the sense of identity or denial of the tourist narrative and reaction. The proposed empirical case is an update of the study conducted four years ago on the perception and online narration of the tourist destination Salento. The methodology used for the qualitative analysis of the semantic web, used in the first study updated, is the Sentiment Analysis which, after several experiments, proves to be increasingly useful for the study of the cyberplace and of the geographical narratives that spread in a-material squares (Fayyad, Piatetsky-Shapiro, & Smyth, 1996; García, Gaines, Linaza, 2012; Grabner, Zanker, Fliedl, Fuchs, 2012; Hippner, Rentzmann, 2006; Kasper, Vela, 2011; Liu, 2011; Pang, Lee, 2008; Hu, Liu, 2004). Thanks to the proprietary App2Check sentiment analysis software, it is possible to understand the stories that spread on the Net and, above all, to investigate which new (though changeable and short-lived) feelings, images and identities are developing in Salento.

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Space, diversity, security. Anthropological notes on symbolic control of migration flows. – Focusing on the Italian recent «decreto sicurezza» (Security bill) the article provides an interpretive frame for understanding the symbolic implications of regulating migration flows across the states. While politics would tackle in the past both security and welfare, neoliberal expansion of autonomous capitals has progressively confined the role of professional politicians to preserving security for their constituencies. National decision makers thus need emergencies to legitimate their existence as securitization agents. That exasperation by politics of the sole security dimension of social life within the nation state has exacerbated the otherization of migrants through space (clandestinification) and the space production (local and national) through the otherization and widespread physical marginalization because of their mobility status of people in transit.

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The Protection of Agricultural Areas and Urban Legislation. Reflections on Building Uses of Rural Soils. – Since the Second World War, the dynamics that have animated the processes of urbanization have generated a radical transformation of the Italian rural landscape causing a change not only in order to the localization modalities residential functions but, more generally, on the whole organizational structure of the territory. As far as the protection of agricultural areas is concerned, the Italian town planning legislation has taken on a role only in recent times, referring to the concept of reducing land consumption.
Starting from a brief overview of the international context, the contribution focuses on the regional scale highlighting the critical issues of the regulatory system of reference, identifying some critical elements relating to the lack of protection of the agricultural territory.
In the conclusions some brief indications for updating the regulatory framework are proposed.

 

Agorà (Responsabili Giovanni Mauro, Maria Ronza)

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The (human) face of the Earth

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The Iron and Steel Plant in Taranto: An Announced Disaster?

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The Geographies of War. Considerations in the Light of the New Role of Space in Conflicts...

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Southern Reality and Perspectives: Rethinking Marginal Areas