Climate and coasts: transdisciplinary research practices for adaptation to climate change in italian coastal territories. – The contribution presents the first results of the Research Project of National Interest PNRR 2022 on the contrast to the effects of climate change on Italian coastal geosystems, entitled “From the Beaches to the Coasts: towards an Integrated Coast Protection”. The PRIN involves a group of researchers from different SSD (lawyers, geographers, urban economists and statisticians) and Italian universities (Bocconi, Cassino, Iuav, Roma Tre, Urbino). The first results that will be illustrated in the article concern the design of collaborative research practices and transdisciplinary open science in the field of integrated coastal zone management and the Atlas of sustainability and integrated coastal management in Italy.

Rethinking the places of life and work: the inner areas facing the challenges of syndemics. – After a ten years long debate on the SNAI and the goal of demographic in-version to be pursued with a «reversal of the gaze», or «bringing the margins to the center», we can talk about the controversial process generated by this objective, still ongoing: centering the strategy on a spatial practice (living) has led to a concentration of scientific and policy responsibilities on territorial planning which, while certainly crucial, works if the project is equipped in advance with a strong analysis of the places. This is the basis of the thought on inner areas that must be strengthened so that these places can be freed from intellectual subalternity. In fact, the theory and practice of planning also need to recover a good description of the territory, that ability to interpret the complexity of the relationships between natural space and human action, which is the work of the geographer. The paper aims to reflect on the need to re-think the descriptive investigation as a prerequisite for good planning, due to the urgencies issued by climate change and the pandemic shock, phenomena which, closely connected to each other, have shown how unpredictable and diversified they can be territorial responses to external stresses. The complementarity between description and planning, i.e. the alliance between geographers and architects, will be adopted as a guiding category to be able to read the depopulation of internal areas not as a merely housing issue but, rather, in a holistic vision, as the effect of the limits of a production system based on unsustainable territorial hierarchies.

Climate Change: More Than Just Geography. – The ongoing climate change and its potentially severe consequences concern us as thinking human beings, regardless of whether we are historians, geographers, geologists, urban planners, economists, sociologists, or psychologists. The common endpoint of our reflections – and of the suggestions we offer regarding actions to be taken or avoided – engages us as citizens of the shared good that is the Earth, whose survival we value not only for ourselves today but, above all, for future generations, many of us being parents and grandparents. Naturally, it is both inevitable and important that each of us contributes based on our own disciplinary knowledge – be it historical, geographical, geological, or otherwise. However, in my view, the focus of our reflection should not be on the role each of these sciences can play, but rather on the responsibility that each of us must assume as citizens of the Earth.

Hydric resources as patterns for a community regeneration: the Gleno dam between memory and innovation in Scalve Valley. – Geography offers tools for territorial analysis and planning which, by integrating field research with geographic information technologies, propose innovative approaches to support re-generation processes. This is strategic in mountain contexts where, over time, water resources management has been at the core of a delicate co-evolutionary relationship between humans and non-humans and, sometimes, has caused catastrophic fractures induced by anthropic action, like dam collapsing. The essay presents the case study of the Gleno Dam in the Scalve Valley, province of Bergamo, where, since the collapse centenary (1923-2023), the geographers of the Imago Mundi Lab at the University of Bergamo have been carrying out research aimed at reconstructing the territorial stratification generated over time, focusing on the role of water and the disastrous results of the dam collapse on the entire valley. Many places abandoned after the disaster can today be regenerated through co-design processes using mapping systems and placing water at the centre of new symbolic meanings, cultural functions, and production practices.

A research-action path for the participatory and collaborative management of water bodies: River Contracts in Friuli Venezia Giulia. – Starting from the experience acquired through a research-action which involves the geographers of the University of Udine in the coordination of the Regional Board of River Contracts, in agreement with the Autonomous Region Friuli Venezia Giulia, this contribution analyzes the results and effectiveness of some initiatives implemented for the promotion of participatory and collaborative governance of water bodies. Through participant observation and the analysis of a questionnaire, the facilitation and training role of geography in the process of River Contracts to make participation more effective and aware, will be highlighted.

Marginal Narratives from a “Undisciplined” Excursion to the Architecture Biennale 2021. – If Neil Smith and David Harvey find space at the Arsenale, if at the Giardini the exercise is to dis-explore the Earth, it is because the Biennale is about surveying the crisis space of globalisation: it forces us to interrogate the geopolitical map of contemporaneity between the Anthropocene, techno-capitalism, encroachments and adaptations. This is why we thought of sharing a visit to the Biennale with those geographers for whom the exercise proposed by Architects is essential to our theoretical, disciplinary, ethical, civil and very human present of being geographers.
Our notes in the margin depend on this invitation to investigate the potential of the object of marginality starting from the concept of “hole in the plot - which - nourishes the other plots” (Negarestani, 2021, p. 106). Hole or absence that stands for the missed encounter between Geography (the material on display) and geographical discipline to imagine plots, narratives and “undisciplined” alliances to come.

Reasons and topics of a conference. – The introductory text illustrates the project of the Conference within the framework of the celebrations for the seventh centenary of Dante Alighieri’s death and it underlines its interdisciplinary nature. The debate between Geographers and Italianists, focused on the reinterpretation of Paolo Revelli’s work – L’Italia nella Divina Commedia – has deepened the topic of geographic realism in the poem, the author’s political vision, the current tourist interest for the places of Dante. It is thus led a cross-reading of the essays that compose the Proceedings of the conference.

Geographers and cartographers from Sicily between the 16th and 19th centuries. – The study aims to analyze the development of geo-cartographic culture in Sicily between the 16th and 19th centuries in relation to the evolution of geographical studies in Europe induced by the progress of scientific knowledge and the discovery of new territories, the result of great geographical explorations.
After a brief examination of the affirmation of Geography between the Renaissance and the modern age in the various European countries and in Italy, the study will proceed in the delineation of the development of geo-cartographic culture in Sicily through the examination of the production of Sicilian geographers and cartographers, certainly minors and often misunderstood, active on the island between the 16th and 19th centuries, trying to grasp the most significant aspects in relation to the various events which, over time, have conditioned the island’s culture.
They are often exponents of the local aristocracy and of the clerical class open to culture and relationships with scholars from other countries who, acknowledging scientific progress, devoted themselves to geographical studies and elaborated cartographic surveys no less significant than those produced outside the Isola, certainly stimulated by the desire to know the peculiarities of the island in different historical moments, but sometimes by the need to study and graphically represent the changes induced on the land structure by natural events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and plagues, or by episodes of war that exploded between the various political forces which tended to impose their power on the island.

Landscape education as a practice of geographical mediation in the processes of resignification of places and reduction of conflicts in San Lorenzo district in Rome. – San Lorenzo district has a marked historical-identity component which, however, has not managed to safeguard the neighbourhood from phenomena of deterritorialization and gentrification. The main cause of the recent condition of degradation and conflict has to be found in the urban layout which has triggered a series of interferences in the identity of the place, for example the external pressures exerted by the university. In this case, therefore, the “configurative profile” (Turco, 2010), made up of relationships, emotions and feelings, has been impoverished and has been transformed.
In this context are inserted the landscape education practices (Turco, 2020) promoted by geographers of Sapienza University of Rome, which propose themselves as cultural mediators in the process of re-signification of places and spaces. The presence in the field and the response to the cultural requests from the immediate surroundings of the University have been translated into events open to the public such as the International Night of Geography or the Roman Summer in San Lorenzo which combine the presence of institutions with activities of Public geography. The territory as a common good is such only if the community is the architect of its definition and recognizes the anthropological value of the space. In this direction, landscape education, strongly characterized on an emotional and cognitive level, contributes to implementing those reterritorialization processes which are the privileged tool of geography for the resolution of the impoverishment phenomena caused by situations of conflict and violence.

Anthropocene and geography. – The concept of Anthropocene is used today in many disciplinary sectors to thematize the issues concerning the enormous and growing impact of human activities on nature. His introduction in the field of geographic studies has placed at the center the reflection on the heart of geographic epistemology: the relationships between human societies and the environment, their ecological consequences, the interpretation of the landscape, the analysis and the critical deconstruction of representations, the relationship between physical and human geography in scientific investigation. The article discusses the contribution of geographers to research on the Anthropocene and presents some ideas on the role that geography can play in scientific research on the Anthropocene. On the one hand, geography can support the critical reading of the ways in which the Anthropocene has also become a concept widely used by the media, contextualizing and deconstructing narratives. On the other hand, also by using the potential of thematic cartography in visualizing data and allowing reflections and analyzes at different scales, helping to territorialize the Anthropocene narrative, highlighting the changes and processes in the different regions of the planet.

Geography and geographers in Italy from Unity to the First World War

Community Readiness for Local Covid-19 Management. – In these days, we are learning important lessons in citizen science. Today, local administrations must equip themselves with the management of infrastructures (unimaginable before Covid-19) for enforcing social distance and tracking positive cases. One of the tasks that geographers are expected to take up is the determination of the levels of societal readiness, the levels of integration in society of new technologies, products and services. The pandemic requires policies of social and cultural innovation that make communities ready to respond to catastrophic events on their territory through access to data, communities of practice, co-creation, reflection and inclusion. Finally, Covid-19 ought not to undermine the work done so far to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1 (Poverty), 3 (Health), 4 (Education), 5 (Gender), 6 (Water), 8 (Work), 10 (Inequalities) and 16 (Peace). Pope Francis has made it clear: «This is the moment to see the poor».

The Great War of Geography. – The First World War has been considered a turning point in the evolution of Italian geography. Following an unusual perspective this paper does not focus on the internal events of the discipline, but especially presents the implications of the very political and social transformations on it. Significant factors of the analyzed decisive historical period are therefore highlighted: the politicization of the discipline, the self-perception geographers had of their role, their relationship with ruling classes and with the public.

The Geographic Approach to the Analysis of the Consequences of “Brexit”. Who will Benefit? – The outcome of the referendum on the Brexit opened an era of uncertainty, questioning the relationship between UK and European Union, making it difficult to define future paths. The aim of this work is to analyse the possible consequences of Brexit through a geoeconomic approach which, focusing on foreign trade, will explore the different issues at international, national and regional levels. Aknowledging that from now on the British decisions will be crucial in defining the outcomes, the purpose of this study is not to achieve an indisputable conclusion but rather to present arguments to feed and enrich the debate on the matter within the scientific community of geographers.

 

In the past decades geographers and cartographers have been witnessed the inspiring and multilayered scientific discovery of the second text and power-rhetoric transmitted by maps. Although maps‟ basic function is to help the orientation, this is sometimes challenged due to social, historic, and most of all political rea-sons. This is especially true in contested geographical spaces where con-trasting parties are interested in not only justifying their standpoint but at the same time denying or silencing the opponent‟s similar wish. Based on examples from Cyprus and Karabakh, we present how the power-rhetoric, territorial and political claims influence mapping and how maps justify these claims by applying various cartographic tools and manipula-tions. By analyzing various tourist and road maps, present study shows how the parallel existing narratives are displayed on maps, resulting in exclusionary cartographies. Furthermore, present study argues that maps depicting territorial conflict zones are sometimes influenced and deteri-orated in such a grade that it questions the primer function of a map, namely to help the orientation.