Between Political Technology and Territorial Practices: Space, Power, and Territorial Practices in Late Medieval Sicily

Politics, Education, and Geography in the Early Modern Period: Notes for a Histor-ical Analysis. – This article explores the connection between political au-thority, education, and geography in the early modern period, analyzing how the teaching of geography became a fundamental tool for managing and controlling emerging territories. In a context of fragmented educa-tional systems, the article highlights how geography was used to address the new political, economic, and social needs of European powers. Schools, both secular and religious, particularly those run by orders like the Jesuits, played a key role in transmitting this knowledge, contributing to the creation of new skills essential for colonial expansion. Finally, the article underscores how geography, understood as both a scientific disci-pline and a political tool, became a point of convergence between educa-tion and power, legitimizing the imperial ambitions of European.

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.

Geopolitics of Early Modern Age. Global Lines, Territorial Power, and Geographical Uncertainty. – This article explores the origins of geopolitics in the early modern period (16th-17th centuries), demonstrating how three key elements – the establishment of global lines, the relationship between state power and territoriality, and geographical uncertainty – shaped both the politics of the era and contemporary geopolitical thought. Through the analysis of cartographic sources (e.g., the Cantino Planisphere, 1502), treaties (Tordesillas, Cateau-Cambrésis), and theoretical works (Schmitt, Bo-tero, Machiavelli), it argues that: global lines codified the division of the world into spheres of influence, foreshadowing bipolar or multipolar logics; political territoriality emerged forcefully, crystallizing in national borders and the principle of sovereignty (Westphalia), despite simultaneous global expansion; geographical uncertainty, stemming from discrepancies between maps and reality, became a defining feature of geopolitics, with echoes in today’s crisis of international orders. The article thus reinterprets the roots of geopolitics, locating them not in the 19th century but in the crucible of early modernity, with implications for understanding contemporary power dynamics.

Towards a new Geopolitics. Reflections on the challenge of theoretical clarity, in the complexity of the new Millennium. – In a historical phase of accelerating change, persistent conflict, falling ideological veils, and recognition of the importance of the spatial element in influencing politics and conflict, contemporary Geopolitics is faced with a formidable historical challenge: that of developing theoretical clarity. This is a difficult task, however, because of some legacies of classical Geopolitics and differences in approaches. Nevertheless, contemporary global political changes make it possible not only to broaden horizons, overcoming the state-centric paradigm and the theoretical rigidities of the past, but also to reorder concepts and theories, maintaining at their basis the stability of the geographic factor, albeit bal-anced by human action. It can also be done by seeking to broaden the investigation into territoriality, geographic space, and the territorial concentration of power. This can be achieved not only by extending the multidisciplinary dialogue, but also by synthesizing the most solid findings generated by different approaches and schools, such as Critical and Neo-classical geopolitics, in the direction of a dynamic Geopolitics, able to approach, even if in small steps, a general theory.

Rationalities and socio-spatial effects of hydraulic infrastructure in Sardinia. – The infrastructural processes of the water system unfold over extended periods, often resulting in nonlinearities within the processes themselves, despite originating as explicit projects aimed at material control over resources and territorial development. These constructions give rise to various interpretations of irrigation systems, intersectoral conflicts, and power struggles among the different actors involved in their management and use. The aim of this article is to engage in dialogue regarding the water infrastructure process in Sardinia, examining its intersection with the different rationales guiding water management and territorial development policies. It highlights both internal and external factors influencing these processes, as well as the significance of historical legacies.

Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Water Resources Management. Case Study: Gorgovivo, Ancona. – The urgent need to address challenges related to the sustainable management of water resources has prompted the scientific and technological community to explore innovative solutions that can make a significant contribution to achieving the goals and sustainability strategies of the UN’s 2030 Agenda. In this context, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a powerful ally, offering advanced tools for the collection, analysis, and management of water data efficiently and effectively. Using machine learning algorithms and neural networks, AI enables accurate prediction of water demand, facilitating optimal planning and allocation of resources. Moreover, the integration of smart sensors and monitoring systems allows real-time control of water resources, improving the response capacity to environmental variations and emergencies.
The purpose of the research is to examine how AI can optimize water treatment and distribution processes, reducing waste and enhancing the energy efficiency of water facilities; the use of predictive models based on historical data and environmental variables allows for proactive management of resources, thus contributing to their conservation and long-term sustainability. In this perspective, an AI-based system will be adopted to predict the groundwater levels of the Gorgovivo spring (AN), using historical data from the spring itself, the level of the Esino river, and rainfall stations. The proposed AI model is based on the Prophet predictive algorithm, specifically designed to manage time series forecasting applications; as adapted by us, the predictive model was evaluated using the mean absolute error (MAE), mean squared error (MSE), and correlation criteria.

Marginal places and resistance in the filmography of Djibril Diop Mambéty. – The filmography of Djibril Diop Mambéty allows reflection on the manner in which urban Senegal takes part in the narrative through a form of decolonial representation. The director focuses on the peripheries of Dakar, a territory marked by colonialism. As the camera explores the urban environment, images and sound become instruments with which to control heterotopic spaces. By redirecting power through a painful negotiation between colonial legacy and a new, deviant focus, these tools show the irreducible otherness of places within the filmic discourse. Mambéty’s critical gaze is also manifested through his protagonists, who belong to a human universe that remains on the fringes of society. These are subaltern figures who, through their sense of se débrouiller, implement practices of resistance within a social and territorial framework permeat-ed by the informal economy.

“Paese guasto” and “il bel paese”. Italian places of the divine comedy and Revelli’s Dante. – The places of the Commedia are dressed of a meaning physical and symbolic at the same time, and, the echo of this description, appears strongly detailed in Dante’s verses. The evocative power of the places can be measured from an effective comparison with Eliot’s poem which, with clear evidence, is inextricably linked to Dante’s Commedia; the dead country, as Dante defines it, can definitely be compared to the adjective waste used by Eliot. This evocative connection allows Dante to still live as a fundamental reference point for modern Twentieth-century society. As it is customary in the stream of Italian intellectuals operating in the early Twentieth century, we cannot ignore the fascination of Dante’s exegesis; Paolo Revelli, geographer as well as “dantista”, brings to fulfilment the intellectual custom we have spoken of. Dante and Italy are two indissoluble names and Revelli understands and emphasizes Dante’s role in the geography of Italy.

Textures and scalar relationships of transhumance between tradition and innovation. The Sportumanza project for a slow and responsible tourism. – Recalling the importance of transhumance as a territorial process and as the demonstration of the three attributes of space - scale, metric, substance – we can reveal the power of this ancient practice: it proceeds by multiscale relationships, foresees multiple metrics and it shows all its richness in substance, through the three characterizations of inhabiting (relational, functional and temporal). Through the case study of the vertical transhumance of the Orobic pre-Alpine context, we investigate how it generates relationships between human and non-human agents, functional practices for pastoral activity and for other ecosystemic services, care and preservation of biodiversity sites, enabling the shepherd and his animals to become sensors of environmental changes on a global scale. We then move on to the analysis of transhumance as an opportunity for innovation in the forms of living and doing tourism, especially in areas defined as peripheral and internal, by presenting the “Sportumanza” project.

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.

The use of force in interstate relations: theory and evolutions in geo-political practice. – The use of force in relations between states and other players on the world stage: theory, practice and developments in political geography. Based on the experiences of the twentieth century (world wars, genocides, ideological-totalitarian degenerations, decolonization processes), the geopolitical thought of late modernity, starting from the 1960s, essentially develops in a “critical” sense. Then it assumes, among its favorite themes, the discussion on the essence of power (whether or not it is intrinsically “bad”), of the state and of politics (if they inevitably have to rely on the use of force); then it starts the development of a method targeted to regulation and prevention of conflicts, based on a process of deconstruction of alleged “false” ideas of power, to prevent the effects of escalation that have led the whole of humanity to the risk of destruction and self-destruction. These needs are translated operationally into the search for the so-called “insider” factors, that is, those that, in a certain scenario, beyond an immanent and self-evident “casus belli”, cause effects of permanent and out of control conflict, to the point of making war an element that justifies itself (an end, rather than a means). Effects that confuse any causal chain, which make it difficult to identify links and motivations, and therefore the search for a solution, and with it the pacification of crisis scenarios (which in fact tend to perpetuate themselves in areas of “endemic” conflictuality. All this proceeding on the basis of a neo-Enlightenment (possibly neo-liberal) assumption, which almost deterministically assumes the affirmation of an open society, refractory to violence, and the assimilation of “evil” to the mechanisms of democratization, to open market and capitalist prosperity. All this in a context of multilateral policy development, the establishment of international organizations, and the consolidation of a trans-national geo-economic apparatus, of civil society as an “answer to war”, with the aim of progressively limiting, up to cancel the same occasions of conflict; and this to the point that an idea of war as something obsolete spreads (perhaps in an illusory way). The latest events, however, and recent developments, seem to contradict this trend, re-proposing themes and tensions that ge-ographic-political theory seemed to have abandoned for some time. A fact made even more evident by the current invasion of Ukraine, which leaves you dismayed, like aggression to troglodytic times, when the invasion did not need to have a justification; it seems to cause deliberate violence and destruction on a large scale, so much so as to question the entire “critical” paradigm. Putin 24th February discourse deliberately denies the right of Ukraine to survive as a national human community. Evolutions that make it necessary to rethink the practices of limitation and regulation, of the intervention and prevention devices of war, and of the same method of study of the scenarios; perhaps a return to models that, just until a few months ago, were considered outdated.

Geopolitics and Communication: First Analysis on the Epimedia Space of the Russian-Ukrainian War. – How do we translate the relationship between geo-politic and communication, when the wider analytical fields of the crisis have been solely reduced to the war dimension? This essay focuses on the Ukrainian crisis. Starting from the “epimedia space”, an analytical concept that proves to be of significant heuristic power, the paper explores the ways in which information is bent to the needs of communication. By mobilizing fake news, of course, and political propaganda techniques, to which manipulative paths of various kinds must be added.

Between art, culture and landscape. Three Famous cemeteries in Paris. – Along the centuries, a sort of pilgrimage to cemeteries, sometimes to very far ones, took place, as in the famous example of the travel of the poet Caius Va-lerius Catullus to the tomb of his brother.
On the contrary, in the 19th century the fashion to visit outstanding sepulchres, renowned for artistic or cultural purposes, emerged. The example of the cemetery of Genoa-Staglieno is well known, and the Novodèviciy monastery in Moscow was frequented, secretly and if possible, even under the Soviet power.
A recent statistic about the most visited graveyards worldwide reveals that, out of 417 places considered, 192 are Italians, lying in many regions: 55% of the total, while at the 2nd place is Spain with 29 places and 8,3% of the total.
In Paris this type of tourism reaches, above all, that of Père-Lachaise, and then that of Montparnasse and that of Montmartre.

The Afghan Wars: Between Economic-Cultural effects and Similarities in the Eura-sian Geopolitical Scenario. – The peculiar geomorphological configuration, characterized by imposing mountain ranges and desert areas, makes Af-ghanistan a difficult-to-access territory. Autochthonous peoples (different ethnic groups united by the war against “the foreigner” that also promoted the Taliban affirmation) widely exploited such a scenario suitable for guerrillas based on sudden attacks, difficulty accessing heavy weapons, and re-sistance to air attacks. The ability to counter invasions has been confirmed in the pushback of great powers, like Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America, which previously financed the mujahideen against Russian occupation. This management problem translates into the unexpectedly long democratization campaign of Afghanistan led by the Americans, which ended on August 15, 2021. The Enduring Freedom program, which envisaged the Western agreement of seventy nations for the implementation of a democratically stable situation and lasting in Afghan territory, proved a failure in the coexistence of the Americans in the cities and the Taliban in the valleys and mountainous areas. The withdrawal of American troops generated a sudden change in the international geopolit-ical scenario and, consequently, the Middle East balance. Through a brief historical overview of the conflicts that gripped Afghanistan, this work aims to provide a picture of the geopolitical, economic and cultural effects that have influenced the precarious balance of the Middle Eastern area of the world system.

The “renewed” wars of the post-bipolar period and the “new peace”. Analysis and perspectives to highlight the lack of logical, spatial and temporal interruption of today’s phenomena of belligerence. – Since 1989, the global system seems completely changed. The paradoxical equilibrium of the ideological division of the CW faded away, giving way to a chaotic and complex system characterized by the change of the localization of conflicts, the new rules of war and the end of military order. Through the analysis of the debate on the wars and the investigation of existing conflicts, the aim is to highlight how the demise of the established relationship between territory, sovereignty and monopoly of violence, led to a renewal of conflicts and wars, characterized, however, by the persistence of the same logic of power. This does not imply any solution of continuity with the past, but an adaptive evolution that ensures survival; therefore, it is not about new wars but only renewed ones. At the same time, it is highlighted how the boundary between war and peace has now become so weak that it can be considered as a real “contamination” between them.

New perspectives on Covid-19 and epistemic injustices. – The Covid-19 outbreak is often associated with pollution and overexploitation of common global resources. Less attention, though with a few exceptions, has been paid to the social and human origins of the crisis. In fact, asymmetric power relations among social groups can determine the outbreak of crises and a reallocation of their related risks towards social and territorial peripheries. Research shows how the concept of epistemic injustice can take on systemic connotations, as the use of inappropriate or ineffective analytic tools can lead to practices that are perceived as just, effective, or efficient, but in fact lack these requirements. The negative impacts of such an eventuality would far outweigh the mitigating effect and magnitude of the ongoing redistribution processes and may fuel increasingly unequal power relations between insiders and outsiders. In this scenario, the rediscovery of an ethic of the common good is an essential element in the design and implementation of a collective way out of the crisis.

Mural maps. Preliminary remarks on the little known case of Villa Mondragone. – Mural maps are a typical tradition of the XVIth Century cartography in the Italian context as symbols of knowledge, power and geopolitical struggle. While the main examples of the “Galleria delle carte geografiche” in Vatican and the “Sala della Cosmografia” in the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola have been well studied, in the Villa Mondragone, near Rome, there is a later example dated XIX Century which seems to follow the same tradition with different aims. It was the Sala Ciampi, which was part of the Collegium animated by the Jesuits. Nowadays the two mural maps are in very poor conditions, but old postcards remind us how the Sala appeared during the 20’s and 30’s. This contribution represents a first approach in the study of the origins of those maps in the context of the late Renaissance Villa Mondragone, which can emerge other research interests.

Geopolitics of pandemic: soft and hard power as reading keys. - The Covid 19
pandemic is one of the hardest challenge of the last century. With its
m edical emergency, Covid 19 has created a lot of changes in the
international relationships and in the geopolitical equilibrium. In this
paper, we are attempting to show and analyze global governments’
behavior against the pandemic through the use of both h ard and soft
power. We’ll see, particularly, Chinese and American government’s use of
hard and soft power. Then we’ll examine how European Union deal with
this global emergency. Each nation has carried on different diplomatic strategies to face the pandemic and to promote is own international image. Hard and soft power, in this sense, will be useful also to implement the social and economic policies and to make them effective in the post pandemic phase.

Territorial Reorganisation and Differentiated Autonomy: A Matter to be discussed in light of the Plague. – The arrangement of local self-government is one of the elements that the management of Covid-19 has involved most. During this period people saw many difficulties of the Italian administrative structure and it had consequences on the efficiency of the institutions and markets too. The arrival of Covid-19 has called into question many aspects of internal life in the country and the gained experience pushes for the revision of some aspects of Italian political affairs. This contribu-tion aims to underline – through two case studies – some themes of political geography raised by the new condition and to indicate the new opportunities they open up. To do this, the authors discuss, on the one hand, the reorganization of the state administration after Law 56 of 2014, the new hierarchy of administrative powers and the launch of the Metropolitan Cities. On the other hand, they address the debate on the request for Autonomia differenziata (differentiated autonomy) presented by three regions – Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna – in order to in-crease their spaces of power, and the consequences for the rest of the country.

Covid-19, from Venice to Wuhan: a historical recognition and potential mutations of globalization. – The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic follow an east-west direction (from Asia via Europe to the Americas) which matches the flow of Modernity. This work aims to assess how these events are resulting in a comeback of what we might envisage as modern measurable space in Geography, through a historical comparison with containment measures put in place in the 18th century by Venice, during the plague. Indeed, Venice may be considered an archetype of global powers dealing with risk management issues and struggling to harmonize public health policies with the „needs‟ of trade. After offering an overview of the most common containment measures put in place by the countries affected by Covid-19, we will see how some of the measures implemented by the Venetians are showing their effectiveness today, and we will assess the extent to which the space recovered in this process is likely to transform the idea of globalization as it was known up until very recently.

The geographic revolution of the Cardinal College and the redistribution from the center to the peripheries of the power to elect the Pope, between cities, nations and continents.

A Political Geography of post-Ebola Guinea. – Alpha Condè has been elected on November 2010, in the second round of the first free elections of the Republic of Guinea and actually on his second term. The President face a structurally complex situation. He took power after dictatorial regimes of Sèkou Tourè and Lansana Contè, lasted half a century. During his first term, the terrible disaster of the outbreak of Ebola prevents him to meet his program. At the present stage, Condè gives a firm geographical orientation to the government action, both internally giving a decisive importance to the reification of the territory (chantiers), and internationally, pushing the opportunities offered by a globalitarian globalisation on the geopolitical plan.

Il mio articolo riguarda l’arte contemporanea. Partendo dal presupposto che le carte geografiche siano espressione di potere e strumenti per costruire le identità politiche e nazionali, la mia ricerca esamina lavori artistici che, in qualche modo vi corrispondono.
Analizzerò tra gli altri, alcuni lavori di Maja Bajevic, Mona Hatoum, Zarina Hashmi, in cui l’uso della mappa è espressione visuale delle pratiche discorsive del potere: questi lavori mettono in scena con diversi strumenti, il meccanismo che unisce rappresentazione geografica e potere politico, rendendo visibile la costruzione del simbolico. L’arte permette di discutere in modo critico quanto le esperienze e le rappresentazioni siano parte del complesso processo in divenire, nel tempo e nello spazio, costruito dal discorso egemonico e anti egemonico. L’arte contempora-nea diventa per me strumento di analisi della relazione tra diversi tipi di rappresentazione e la costruzione del potere.

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.

For a regional typology of Italian agriculture: the contribution of social sciences . – The paper shows how hardly the agricultural statistics grasp the essence of social phenomena that take place into contemporary farming, for two main reasons. The first is the increasing complexity of such farming, due to the overwhelming power of the agro-industry. The second is the difficulty of organizing a reading of these newly appeared socio-economical phenomena, since the governmental statistics are mostly oriented by objectives of agricultural policy, in which the operational needs prevail over those of scientific knowledge. Finally, it is argued that a more systematic contact with the experience of other social sciences (in particular the historical studies are cited) could help the creation of statistical tools capable of a better understanding, or at least could improve the awareness about the limits of the existing tools.

Mauritius island has been nearly uninhabited until XVIth Century, when firstly Portuguese, then Dutch, French and Eng-lish powers took possession of it. The island’s population growth was due to two main causes: in the first moment to the commerce, then to the exploitation of resources, with important environmental transforma-tions.Until the independence was declared in 1968, the main economic source was the cultivation of sugar cane, for which African slaves, and then In-dian and Chinese workers was used.Starting from the independence period the economic structure of the is-land has changed, with a significant diversification of the productive ac-tivities. Beach tourism is now a vital economic sector of the island, but it hasn’t changed the population distribution of the island, mainly concen-trated in the internal areas.The aim of this article is to analyze the evolution of the populating dy-namics of the island and the economic trends and finally observe their territorial and environmental impacts.