The state of the nomos in the era of “planetary civil war”. – The structure of the nomos, according to Carl Schmitt, is mobilized as the full immediacy of a juridical force not mediated by laws, whose central problem is not the abolition of war but its limitation or regulation (Schmitt, 2006, pp. 63-65). The solution to the problem lies in the radical spatial separation between an inside and an outside – a boundary, precisely – which establishes the strength of the nomos itself and the immediate imposition of its structure as an order (political, ethical, geographical). This central theme, which has overwritten the Earth and legitimized globalization, is probably the one in which the disconnections, cracks, and farcical tones that disrupt the contemporary and superficial geography of the global are now most evident. If in the era of planetary civil war the categories of globalization no longer function, then it is from the cracks in the superficial geography of the global that it becomes possible to imagine different and unruly geo-political categories.

The Evolution of the State and Economy in the Modern Age as Premises of Contemporary Geopolitics. – The main institutional and economic phenomena that emerged in the Modern Age and that favored the subsequent birth of geopolitics in the 19th and 20th centuries are the following: the transition from the patrimonial dynastic State to the absolute State, the birth of political borders and related cartography, religious wars and their overcoming, the challenge of the Ottoman Empire to Europe, geographical discoveries, the capitalist organization of the world. These phenomena gave rise to a territorialist geopolitical thought in the Age of Imperialism, more sensitive, that is, to the political-military appropriation of the world than to the cultural, commercial and financial control of territories.

Counter-Geographies of Wine: Marginal Viticultural Practices and the Transition To-ward a Post-Alcoholic Enotourism. The Role of Acquata. – This article proposes a critical re-reading of contemporary wine geographies through the notion of counter-geographies, focusing on acquata—a traditional post-fermentative beverage derived from the rehydration of grape pomace—as an epistemic and territorial device capable of reconfiguring the cultural and ecological meanings of wine production. Building on the theoretical framework of post-alcoholic enotourism, the study explores how emerging “NoLo” (no- and low-alcohol) consumption regimes intersect with transformations in rural landscapes, sustainability policies, and socio-symbolic practices of conviviality. Historical and geographical analysis reveals that acquata, far from being a marginal residue of pre-industrial viticulture, embodies a vernacular knowledge system rooted in circular use of resources, social equity, and ecological restraint. Its historical erasure through modern regulatory frameworks reflects broader processes of epistemic and territorial exclusion within capitalist agri-food regimes. By reactivating ac-quata as a cultural and political tool, the paper advances the hypothesis of a regenerative geography of wine, in which residual practices and marginal knowledges serve as generative forces for more inclusive, sustainable, and plural forms of enotourism and territorial identity.

Climate Crisis and Tourism in the Maira and Vermenagna Valleys (Piedmont Alps). – This study examines the transformations driven by climate change in the alpine context, focussing on the Maira and Vermenagna Valleys in the Piedmont Alps, two areas marked by environmental vulnerability and significant exposure to ongoing climatic and socio-economic pressures. The research explores how rising temperatures and decreasing snowfall are significantly reshaping the local tourism supply, requiring a reorganisation of the sector.
Combining in-depth interviews with local stakeholders and quantitative analysis of tourism and climate data, the study reveals a growing awareness of the phenomenon and its socioeconomic impacts. The climate crisis has exposed the unsustainability of traditional ski-based tourism, prompting a shift toward more resilient models such as experiential, outdoor, and cul-tural tourism.
While the Maira Valley shows greater adaptability thanks to an already di-versified offer, the Vermenagna Valley, historically reliant on alpine skiing, struggles to transition. The findings highlight the urgent need for locally coordinated strategies that integrate sustainability, cultural identity, and innovation.

The global south as a transcalar geopolitical construction site: african profiles. – The last two years, with the post-Covid adjustments, the climate transition and two ongoing wars of global impact, have been marked by intense international attention towards the African continent, despite its vastness and diversity. On the one hand, this may please Africans, for the help that can come to the solution of their many problems; on the other hand, it worries them, given the historical precedents. There seems to be a new scramble for Africa underway due to the crumbling of the European and, more broadly, Western presence, against the backdrop of a more general reshuffling of the international order. In this reshuffling, the “Global South” seems to be playing an increasingly important role. Who will lead and how will the world’s economic, cultural and political evolution unfold? The game is complex, but Africa is certainly one of the main arenas of contention. As an immense reserve of raw materials - minerals, energy, agro-forestry - the Continent is emerging as the world’s leading area of demographic development while acquiring growing geopolitical relevance, due to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian crisis, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, but also, due to the conflicting profiles that are emerging in the Indo-Pacific, between China and the United States. In this fermenting context, heterogeneous events have taken place over the past couple of years (2023/24) that have recorded an impressive acceleration: two coups in Francophone Africa, three world summits that evoke a pan-African partnership (Russia-Africa, China-Africa, Piano Mattei), two geopolitical summits in Johannesburg and Nairobi (unified African position on climate change, September 2023). It is worth trying to trace a coherent geopolitical profile of this heterogeneous set of events.

Glaciers and Water bodies: Considerations and Emerging Prospects in Alpine Settings. – This research highlights the importance of the relationship between glacier health, snow cover, water resources availability and territories in the Alpine region. Snow has the strategic task of protecting glaciers, feeding freshwater reserves, regulating sea level and supporting local communities. However, snowfall is decreasing and snow and ice are melting faster due to global warming. Therefore, planning future risk management strategies is mandatory for water governance and environmental protection. In this regard Engadin represents an interesting case study. In this region, a local project aims at slowing down the retreat of the Morteratsch glacier. Moreover, a watercourse renaturation project has also been implemented in order to overcome the problem of substantially increased river flow due to rapidly melting glaciers. These are examples of policies that should take into account current climate changes and the physical conditions of the mountain environment.

In the Flood. Circumpolar cultures and global warming. – The imaginaries of water in circumpolar cultures are changing. The erosion of old cosmologies and the accelerated melting of permafrost and continental ice are gener-ating new syncretic narratives that are beginning to be studied by ethnology and cultural geography. In the Arctic, water has become a new concrete threat and the hydrogeological disruptions triggered by rising temperatures and human mechanical alterations are redefining the local way of describing the world and man’s place in the world. By relying on some case studies centered on real and symbolic risks that come from water, this contribution intends to illustrate how the Anthropocene is shaping the concrete and imagined geography of the circumpolar regions.

The Gaza War: how the language of destruction on Israel and the Palestinians overlooks the greater tragedy of the Nation-state. – In the global battle over public opinion regarding the 2023-24 Gaza War, and more specifically within U.S. university campuses, the historical complexities of the geopolitical situation have been reduced to slogans asserting the absolute “right” of one side or the other not only to disregard but also to potentially eliminate the other. Consequently, the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is often interpreted as advocating the removal or destruction of the approximately seven million Jews currently residing in the region, just as the Islamist group Hamas is equated with all Palestinians, rendering them collectively deserving of elimination-a nihilistic claim to destruction mirrored by the opposing side.
The historical reality, however, is far more complex. The creation of the State of Israel was intended to serve as a refuge from persecution for a widely dispersed group, offering Jews protection from the hostility and consequences of historical anti-Semitism. In doing so, however, any possibility of a collective Palestinian political future was necessarily compromised for the population that had historically predominated in the area. The competing claims to the same territory that this process entailed cannot simply be resolved through the adoption of “better language.”
The war over language obscures the fundamental issue at stake: both Israelis and Palestinians are inheritors of the logic of the territorialized (ethno) nation-state, imported from nineteenth-century Europe. This underscores the broader tragedy of the nation-state that the Gaza War exemplifies. A shared political space remains inconceivable as long as this logic prevails.

What the history of geography is about? Academic and widespread geographic knowledge during the First World War. – The First World War influenced the spread of culture, both in form and content. This phenomenon no less affects geography, with the alteration of the traditional balance between academic and widespread knowledge. Diversification of the protagonists and the heterogeneity of expressive forms becomes the characteristic of a radically transformed geographic landscape relative to the full, largely static and approved, picture of prior times.
By adopting an inductive research methodology that takes its cue from the empirical evidence of the profound structural changes that occurred in geographical production in Italy during the Great War, this article questions the protagonists of the discipline, reaching conclusions that could perhaps also be extended to the analysis of other historical periods: the need to overcome the narrow conception of the history of the discipline, which is focused upon the internal affairs of academia, in favour of a view which acknowledges the articulated complexity and plurality of geographical knowledge.

Vladimir Putin’s territorial trap: what the invasion of Ukraine reveals about the contemporary war-sovereignty nexus. – The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a clear demonstration of how the conduct of a war can highlight what purpose the war is supposed to serve. In this article, President Vladimir Putin’s putative objectives in the Ukraine war are connected to the war-sovereignty nexus through the concept of geopolitical order, arguing that war fulfills different objectives under different geopolitical conditions because different combinations of sovereignty regimes are operative under different geopolitical orders. Attention then turns to the discourse of sovereignty adopted by Putin and how it reflects a certain set of contradictory understandings about sovereignty implicit in the conduct of the war.

Exploring the margin to make a revolution with geography: DGEI in Detroit. –The contribution presents the geographical experience of the DGEI - still little known in the Italian academia-lead by Bunge and Warren, in which theory and practice were applied questioning “the geography of the status quo” in a Detroit poor neighborhood, Fitzgerald. The DGEI was certainly
unconventional in research methods and topics for the time, but relevant today for all those who deal with inequality, social injustice and the right to the city and are in search of new research directions and methodologies.

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.

NextGenerationEU between pandemic, war, and energy transition. – The energy transition has been strongly questioned by the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The European Green Deal – designed and approved before the Covid-19 pandemic – became fully part of economic recovery program of the pandemic, and the war as well. Actually, the Green Deal becomes one of the fundamental pillars of the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Plan, as well as of NextGenerationEU and, consequently, of the various national plans related to it, including the Italian PNRR. As a typical win-win policy, NextGenerationEU must solve the problems related to the economic crisis, and those related to environmental quality, through the energy transition, as well. Obviously, the economic recover does not necessarily fit perfectly into an energy transition program. Actually, the policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions might imply many issues, related to economy and labor policies. Added to this are the socio-economic gaps between the countries that make up the EU, which have produced an energy divide (different levels of energy demand, different efficiency, different composition of primary energy sources), which has also further increased. from the pandemic, which requires a “calibrated” approach. This condition produces a more complex energy transition, and in many countries - especially those with the lowest GDP per capita - it could create obstacles to economic recovery. Although a Just Transition Mechanism has been prepared, precisely to bridge these gaps, the energy transition could be perceived as an external interference and a brake on growth, becoming a lever for forms of nationalism and sovereignty in key anti-European. The proposed work - after analyzing the structure of the energy supply in the EU, highlighting the inconsistencies in it - will address the impact of the Green Deal in the energy transition process associated with the relaunch of the economy.

Shadows of militarism on the city. An urban perspective on military geographies. – Cities represent a relevant perspective for analysing military discourses and practices. Firstly, because the urban scale continues to be the key site of conventional warfare and a space of experimentation for new forms of militarism. Secondly, because the presence and the resulting construction of military discourse determine a complex system that influences both everyday practices and the dynamics of governance. The analysis of these influences allows us to highlight points of overlap between processes of militarization and forms of urban violence (to be understood both in relation to individuals and in connection to the construction/limitation of spaces). This contribution, through an analytical dialogue between the literature on military geographies and urban studies, aims to examine the relationship between militarism at the urban scale and the geographies of violence, in cities not directly involved in war conflicts.

Armed secessionism in the post-soviet space. The case of South Ossetia. – During the 1990s, several new independent States arose from the collapse of the Soviet Union were involved in ethnic conflicts that led to the secession of parts of their territory and to the self-proclamation of de facto republics supported militarily and diplomatically by Russia but lacking international recognition. The explosion and the lack of resolution of these conflicts can be linked to the Russian aim to exert a hegemonic influence on the former Soviet republics that pursue a pro-Western stance. This is the case of the “five days” war of August 2008, which saw Georgia and Russia fighting for the self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia, territory formally belonging to Georgia but outside its control. Here we want to retrace origins and repercussions of this conflict, also in light of the Georgian position regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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.

Conflict mitigation goes (also) through ecological economy. – «It is foreseeable that, once certain resources have been depleted, the scene will be set for new wars, albeit under the guise of noble claims»: this recent quote by Pope Francis (Laudato Sì, p. 57) has once again drawn the attention of world public opinion to the issue of the limitation of available resources, which already is one of the main causes of war and violence, and it is likely to cause even more in the future. The more the depletion of non-renewable sources, the higher the number of the conflicts, as well as their seriousness. In 2022, the Earth Overshoot Day underlined that mankind has depleted all the resources annually available on July 28th (a day earlier than 2021); moreover, land grabbing is out of control due to hyper-connection at the basis of global production chains. These processes also continued during the pandemic that, on one hand, mitigated overexploits thanks to lock-downs but, on the other hand, it has not driven to a U-turn in attitudes towards the environment and access to resources. In this essay, after a preliminary analysis of global value chains and of the social consequences with regard to the increase of fear and violence indirectly provoked by the quest to sources, we discuss an in-depth study of an ecological and circular economic development model, based on the regionalization of exchanges for the exploitation of domestic resources.

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 Italian Small Islands in the PNRR Missions. A vision of the future. – The paper aims to understand the possible effects of the PNRR on the Italian Small Islands. The relationship between insiders and external actors, as well as the relationship of interdependence with the mainland, highlight the Italian Small Islands as a promising “laboratory” for investigation, not only as case studies but also as a complex and articulated spatial and territorial context in which some of the general dynamics tend to be emphasised. The peripheral dimension of the Italian Small Islands (Turco, 1980) has meant that since the Second World War they have been included among the “underdeveloped areas” and subject to the interventions of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno. Within this scenario, the smaller islands were the subject of specific funding or actions, in some cases emphasising their dependence on the mainland. This dependence has also been recorded in the policies of the National Strategy for Internal Areas (SNAI), which classifies island municipalities as peripheral or ultraperipheral, without however taking into account deeper local dynamics that effectively cancel out these conditions of peripheralisation. The PNRR proposes some missions explicitly addressed to small island territories, such as the achievement of a circular economy, forms of development that dialogue between tourism and sustainability, but also more general actions aimed, for example, at the mitigation of territorial gaps. The paper seeks to connect PNRR, tourism development and the challenge of Small Islands’ seasonal geographies.

Bosnia and Herzegovina in front of an European war resurgence: violence does not stop, yet the word “war” does not exist anymore. – The end of the Cold war did not determine “the end of history”, nor it started a new era of world peace under the sign of political and economic liberalism, globally recognized values. On the contrary, starting with the early ‘90s there were wars even within Europe’s core that caused hundreds of thousands of victims and millions of refugees. Yet the word “war” is cancelled from the dictionary: nowadays conflicts are called “humanitarian bombings”, “peace missions”, or in the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, “a special military operation”. After the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict, the institutional asset imposed through Dayton peace did not satisfy the Country’s national élite’s expectations. So much that, in a context of poverty and unemployment where the nationalists of the Republic of Srpska – which stretches on 49% of the BiH territory – call for independence from Sarajevo in their programs through a unilateral rescission of the constitutional pact formed in Dayton, since 2021 there has been significant risk increase, both perceived and objectively measurable, of a new Balkan war, emphasized by the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Within this scenery of great insecurity for the Bosnian population it becomes clear that a rapid integration of the Western Balkans – the anti-historical residual black hole in the continent – into the EU is necessary.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict between Donbass and Crimea: spatial implications of a hybrid war – The Russian-Ukrainian conflict that began in February 2022 can be considered a peculiar model of «hybrid war»: it’s a conflict fought not only in a conventional way, but also with parallel activities, largely attributable to the world of communication, capable of use digital media strategically. These new modalities of war have particularly concerned Donbass and Crimea, two strategic regions in this conflict, highlighting the usefulness of geographical analysis in this regard. The purpose of this contribution is to illustrate and synthetically analyze the complex spatial roots of this conflict, then skilfully manipulated by the media systems of both sides.

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.

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.

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

Climate Changes and International Security. – «Global warming is potentially the most dangerous of all forms of terrorism»: this is the disturbing revelation of a report prepared for the Pentagon by two American futurists, Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall. All that might be caused by climate changes as result of accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere: the first to be hit would be, the Gulf Stream, which for centuries mitigates the climate of the east coast of the United States and northern Europe with a later «domino devastating effect». The report, which was to be secret, was for 2004 but was later published by various media organizations. Today, these positions are becoming increasingly important. On June 5, 2009, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing that global warming may cause a threat to international security and calling for UN agencies to «intensify efforts» to combat the effect emissions. But there are also dissenting voices.

Health emergency and closure of schools and universities. Culture gap as a further consequence of Covid-19. – Almost 185 nations in the world were forced to close schools and Universities between March and April because of Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, almost a billion and a half students had to suspend their educational path. UNESCO is monitoring this situation giving a warning about a cultural emergency as a further consequence of Covid-19. This paper, starting from the available data, aims at analysing the possible effects of partial or total school closure. Closing such centres make and will make social and technological differences more evident on both a European and global scale. Indeed, even in those areas where online learning has been established, gaps are emerging. For this reason, when the health emergency is handled thanks to the discovery of a vaccine, the socio-cultural effects will have left clear marks, which will require adequate political measures.

Covid-19: crisis of globalization and “revenge of the border”. The effects of the pandemic on the world economic and political future. – The rapid global spread of the Covid-19 virus has strongly highlighted, on multiple and transcalar levels, some problems that emerged worldwide after the end of bipolarism and the advent of the 21st century, i.e. the crisis of globalization and the “revenge of the borders”, which have clear repercussions on the world economic and political situation. The pandemic is entering a phase of global instability, linked to the tensions caused by the trade war between the United States and China, as well as the slowdown of the economy and the growth of populisms. In this sense, the consequences of the pandemic have caused the greatest shock to the international order since the Second World War.

The Italian agri-food industry between global and local: food habits before and during the pandemic virus Covid-19. – The pandemic generated by the virus known as Covid-19 is an expression of an unbalanced relationship between man and environment on which geography is called to investigate and also to redefine the spaces of intervention. It will be useful to propose the adoption of a trasncalar point of view that, if in one way widens the horizon to the entire globe in a contagion and in a need for collaboration that do not recognize nor can allow us to raise limits, on the other hand, it becomes a metaphor and a warning to create a new ecology and new social political relations to weave as much at a global level as at a local and personal level.
From the forced isolation – due to the rules of social distancing adopted in many European and non – European states – paradoxically emerged a glocal dialectic to interpret. As can be seen from observing what is happening in the Italian agri-food sector, on one hand we are forced to open our economic spaces recognizing the indispensable contribution of immigrant labour for the cultivation and harvest in the fields. On the other hand we are led to close the horizon of our primary needs without being able to address the question to our trusted provider and/or topographically closer even through the network that puts us in contact with the entire rural world. The authors, also thanks to the results of the direct survey, conducted on the purchases and the alimentary habits of the families during the pandemic, underline the opportunities of growth and valorisation of the Italian agricultural and food sector.

Towards an ice age of globalization? The Covid-19 and the revenge of borders. – The main question of this contribution is if the Covid-19 has put in crisis also the globalization process in its fundamentals. Considering the globalization as the overpassing of the national borders – standing on some famous theories referring the post-Cold War period – the pandemic seems to correspond to a sort of revenge of borders at different scales: national, re-gional and even “domestic”. At the same time, the pandemic seems to be the extreme result of the globalization itself and for the forgotten mean-ing of the borders before the crisis.

Global Event and Local Responses: The Case of the Flu Pandemic 1918-1919. – The experience of the flu pandemic in the year 1918 is considered an important event for understanding the First World War. The flu showed the interconnection due to political-military, commercial, information and news that allowed the virus to be physically transported to every continent and from there to find the possibility of spreading in every nation. Beyond the medical- health characteristics and the consequences derived from its seriousness, this episode shows the ability reached since the early years of the twentieth century to think of itself as an interconnected network that was used by the disease to advance rapidly and pro-voke its harmful consequences.

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.

 

The “Global ’68” of the Students. An Introductory Historiographical Survey. – The article highlights the historiographical issue represented by the planetary character of the youth movements that operated around 1968 in the Western world, in the Socialist world and in the developing countries. The wave of student protest is therefore considered as a phenomenon of global history, and presented in its various aspects in the light of the historiographical debate developed in the context of the Global History current. Particular attention is given to the problem of periodization and to the comparison between political, social and cultural history. 1968 emerges as a great watershed of the second post-war period, which acts as a hinge between the first globalization of Bretton Woods (the so-called Golden Age) and the new scenarios of postindustrial modernity.

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

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.

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.