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Copyright of Sociologia Italiana is the property of EGEA S.p.A and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on Raffaele Romanelli's extensive analysis of the formal and material constitution of the Italian Republic, highlighting the limited attention given to collective movements within the sociopolitical landscape. Topics include the emergence of a "society of movements," the debate surrounding participatory democracy, and the impact of the "counter-democracy" concept, exploring the complexities of democratic progress and reform in contemporary Western societies.

In Spain, rising rents are only the latest symptom of a broader housing crisis that has affected the country since 2008. The social consequences in terms of evictions, mortgage repossessions and difficulties in accessing affordable housing overlap with the effects of urban transformations, mass-tourism and gentrification linked to the so-called Spanish model. Historically, legal reforms have been used to foster deregulation, financialisation and the commodification of housing. After the bursting of the housing bubble that caused the 2008 mortgage crisis, Spanish governments prioritised the rescue and reorganisation of the financial sector, paving the way for a new phase of speculation. By making rental contracts more flexible and providing tax advantages to international real estate companies, the legal reforms passed during the height of the mortgage crisis contributed to the creation of a «rental bubble». Therefore, considering the main housing legislative reforms passed in Spain before and after the global financial crisis, I argue that they contributed to the precarisation of the right to housing. However, analysing the response of social movements, I also suggest that, by using a counter-narrative based on the right to housing, grassroots organizations were able to legitimise practices of everyday resistance to housing precarity and to contribute to a change, at least partially and especially in Catalonia, of the legal framework to guarantee the right to housing. This analysis shows how the use of legal reforms in the housing crisis can be considered ambivalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luhmann’s sociological theory has been received and criticized in many respects. Among the topics that have not been considered as they deserve, there is one particularly relevant: that of social immunology. In the early 1980s, Luhmann began to imagine society’s immune system as being made up of symbols of rejection – the universe of ‘No’, in relation to that of ‘Yes’. As he wrote in the chapter of Soziale Systeme dedicated to contradictions and conflicts: “the system does not immunize itself against ‘no’, but rather with the help of ‘no’; it is not protected from changes, but thanks to changes”.The immune system does not protect structures (always transient), but only autopoiesis: it protects from annihilation through denial. Social contradictions perform the alarm function “destroying for an instant the global claim of the system to be already reduced and ordered complexity. For an instant, the indeterminate complexity in which everything is possible is re-established”. In the following years Luhmann took up those seminal reflections to develop a theory where the ‘negative’ – where everything is possible – becomes an affirmative form and where the warning signals that society needs to react to highly problematic situations take on ever greater importance. With the theory of social movements, risk, and danger, Luhmann will then develop the foundations for understanding why and how society generates a real and capillary immune system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at exploring the current Italian ecologist archipelago by focusing on three main dimensions: organization, «frame» and action repertoire. By investigating these dimensions, we would like to address some fundamental questions: a) how does the environmental movement in Italy look like today? Who are the protagonists? What are their patterns of action and their claims? b) How the relationships between protest and ecologist groups are? c) Where environmental claims can be placed between materialist and post-materialist perspectives? By drawing on a mixed qualitative/quantitative methodology, we aim to provide an updated overview about Italian environmentalism. We first use the Protest Event Analysis (PEA) to trace the main trends in terms of institutionalization/radicalization, territorialisation, alliance structure and other aspects of the environmental protest, and eventually further explore the issue through the frame analysis approach based mainly on in-depth interviews and the analysis of documents drafted by social movement actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The violent death of George Floyd at the end of May 2020 triggered a global protest movement: Starting in the US, numerous rallies, demonstrations, and vigils took place around the world, taking a stand against racism and police violence. This protest was and is subject to different visual representations and mediated expressions, which have an important share in the production of meaning around the protest actions. Based on a picture type analysis of the (image) coverage of the protests in Austrian, German and Swiss newspapers as well as on visual expressions on Instagram in the context of demonstrations in German-speaking cities, the article deals with visual constructions of protest and discusses their meaning against the background of social, media, and political contexts. Different dominant image types emerge in each case: In media coverage, for example, images of demonstrators as a mass are predominant, which make the individual participants imperceptible. On Instagram, there are mainly internal perspectives of the demonstrations through individual self-dramatizations of the demonstrators. It also becomes clear that journalistic images show protests with a high news value, especially with regard to tense conflict situations in the US context, while on Instagram the communalization via group images and thus the staging and mobilization of the participants comes to the fore.

Civil resistance made a significant contribution to the largely peaceful end of the Cold War and has become an increasingly important factor of post-Cold War international politics. This essay proposes a historical reflection of civil resistance from the end of the Cold War to the present, in relation to some crucial issues on the contemporary international scenario. Taking 1989 as the starting point, the main aim of this study is to explore the legacy of the “Long 1989” in the evolution of civil resistance. The essay focuses on three main issues: i) the rise and decline of the post-1989 liberal cycle of civil resistance in Europe; ii) the consequences of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the emergence of a new Chinese authoritarian state capitalism; and iii) the impact of the technological and digital revolution on post-1989 civil resistance.

The essay dwells on the role played by some movements and associations within the vegan and vegetarian contexts in orienting and promoting changes in the European Union's regulatory policies on nutrition and sustainability. These norms, in fact, were misaligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. After reviewing the evolution of recent European legislation on food production and consumption, the focus turns to the legal dispute that arose around vegan product nomenclatures, by analyzing some public campaigns, including the one called "Stop the veggie burger ban". In this context, the role played by movements active in food and environmental matters proved decisive in the rejection of two amendments that could have caused significant damage to the image of veg products, as well as in terms of marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution proposes a theoretical and empirical reflection on the activism of relatives of Mafia and organized crime victims and on the role they play in undermining Mafia power through their initiatives, as well as civil and social commitment. Particular attention will be paid to structured forms of mobilization such as associations developed in high-risk contexts. Starting from the sociological literature of Social Movement Studies, the article then examines the peculiarities that characterize this - little investigated - form of mobilization. Specifically, the motivations that drive relatives to activism, the organizational methods, the repertoires of protest and the gendered characterization of these groups will be analyzed. Although starting from the Italian case, identified as a paradigmatic context, reference will also be made to an empirical research carried out in Mexico alongside a collective of relatives of victims of enforced disappearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sardines represented a significant novelty in Italian political landscape. This postmodern social movement emerged in the autumn of 2019 in Bologna “declaring war” (in a symbolic way) on Matteo Salvini and trying to avoid the victory of Lega and right-wing parties in the Emilia Romagna regional elections. The mobilization was largy successful by introducing this new movement into the national political debate and the media discourse. This has brought also some original perspectives compared with latest mobilization’s history of civil society in Italy. The article addresses the following issues: The roots and genesis of the Sardines; the contradictory (even if really successful, indeed) development and the potential and problematic steps for the institutionalization process; the communication strategies, the self-narrative and political discourse; the organizational and political metamorphosis due to the evolution of the pandemic. Las Sardinas representaron una innovación significativa en el panorama político italiano. Este movimiento social posmoderno surgió en el otoño de 2019 en Bolonia “declarando guerra” (de manera simbólica) a Matteo Salvini, y tratando de evitar la victoria de la Liga y de los partidos de derechas en las elecciones regionales de Emilia Romagna. La movilización fue realmente exitosa, introduciendo este nuevo movimiento en el debate político nacional y en el discurso mediático. Ha introducido también algunas perspectivas originales en comparación con la última historia de movilización de la sociedad civil en Italia. El artículo aborda los siguientes temas: las raíces y génesis de las Sardinas; el desarrollo contradictorio (aunque realmente exitoso) y el camino potencial y problemático hacia el proceso de institucionalización; las estrategias de comunicación, la auto-narrativa y el discurso político; la metamorfosis organizativa y política que implica la evolución pandémica.

When the spread of COVID-19 globally, it would be possible to affirm that tourism is in an authentic situation of life-support machine. Governments around the world are pouring money into the sector in anticipation of a speedy recovery. This is also the desire on the part of a business sector that hopes to return, as soon as possible, to the buoyant pre-pandemic situation. However, there are numerous voices, mostly from the academic sphere and social movements, which warn that the occasion is not being used to modify some of the old patterns that dragged tourism production. With the intention of taking advantage of old teachings, this article focuses on the role that social movements and the ideology of degrowth have played in protest actions against touristification in Spain in recent years. Although, these types of episodes have been frequent in cities such as Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Bilbao, Seville and Valencia, without any doubt those that have had the greatest diffusion and influence have been carried out in Barcelona. Desde la extensión del COVID-19 a nivel global, sería posible afirmar que el turismo se encuentra en una auténtica situación de respiración asistida. Gobiernos de todo el mundo inyectan dinero en el sector a la espera de una pronta recuperación. Éste es también el anhelo de parte de un sector empresarial que espera volver, cuanto antes, a la boyante situación pre-pandémica. Sin embargo, son numerosas las voces, en su mayoría provenientes del ámbito académico y los movimientos sociales, que alertan de que no se está aprovechando la ocasión para modificar algunas de las viejas pautas que arrastraba la producción turística a nivel global. Con la intención de aprovechar viejas enseñanzas, el presente artículo se centra en el papel que han jugado los movimientos sociales y la ideología del decrecimiento en las acciones de protesta contra la turistificación en España durante los últimos años. Si bien, este tipo de episodios han sido frecuentes en ciudades como Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Bilbao, Sevilla y Valencia, sin duda los que mayor difusión e influencia han ejercido han sido aquellos llevados a cabo en Barcelona.

Current research on right-wing populist communication is often confined to political parties, with social movements receiving much less attention. To help fill this research gap, we examine the frames and master frames of the PEGIDA movement and the role of the 2015 “refugee crisis” in shaping them. Using qualitative content analysis of speeches held at PEGIDA rallies between 2014 and 2016, we identify two distinct master frames, each consisting of five particular frames. Besides an initial master frame about the allegedly looming Islam- ization of Europe, a second master frame dealing with the Perils of Asylum emerge during the “crisis” – ultimately, both converge, with the latter incorporating central elements of the former. These findings buttress our interpretation of the “crisis” as an opportunity structure that helped right-wing populist social movements to revitalize their message and broaden their audience. However, its long-term impact still appears limited as PEGIDA’s influence has greatly waned in recent years.

Social movements outcomes has been analysed by different perspectives. Only recently social movements studies start to focus on the unanticipated consequences of social movements strategies and collective action. Talking about unanticipated consequences of social movements meets the need of deeper understanding social, political and cultural change and poses some important questions for social movements research. The article aims to outline some of these questions, also stressing on the reasons why social movements scholars paid little attention to the study of unanticipated consequences of social movements in the past; it also aims at proposing a new classification starting from the Weber's social action ideal type, with particular attention to the Merton's and Boudon's works. Finally, some methodological considerations will be made in order to better understand empirical issues around the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free culture communities support self-learning, peer production, and the distribution of knowledge generated without any restrictions. However, free culture communities are not isolated from the social inequalities of the outside world. Understanding (in)visibility as the (in)ability to address internal under-representation within these communities, this research aims to analyse their member profiles and their perception of this issue. To this end, an online questionnaire was administered to 290 communities and interviews were conducted with members of 37 of these previously surveyed communities. The respondents and interviewees acknowledged that technopolitics requires a broad knowledge of the technical implications of their values, which makes access to and participation in a community more difficult. They also criticised the gender bias of their communities and, last but not least, pointed to other inequalities relating to the sexual orientation, socioeconomic level, or ethnic origin of the members of their communities.

This essay aims to investigate the development of the organic agriculture movement and the evolution over time of its movement and consumer culture. The analysis is especially focused on the most recent evolution of the sector in the Italian context, which is characterized by a consumerist inflection and an institutionalization of the sector that, in parallel with its growth, leads to talk of a possible “conventionalization” of organic agriculture. The discussion, therefore, takes up the hypothesis of a “post-organic movement”, which is considered as a reaction to the above-mentioned processes and especially characterized also as a consumerist movement, identifiable in Italy in those alternative food networks characterized by the so-called solidarity economy. The post-organic hypothesis is therefore mainly presented as an analytical perspective that allows to shed light on some fundamental aspects of the recent evolution of the organic movement, as well as on the organic sector in general.

The paper deals with a topic particularly relevant in the current international sociological debate such as the varieties of capitalisms and their evolutions. In particular, looking at the Italian experience, in a context of increasing uncertainty and inequalities, it focuses attention to the main socio-economic changes and their impact on economy and society, searching for a more equal, sustainable and inclusive model of capitalism. These changes induced the scholars to talk about a new "great transformation" by adopting the famous expression of Karl Polanyi, used to describe the birth of the market economy. Starting from the literature and available data, the paper suggests new possible paths as well as complementary or even alternative practices that keep together economy and society in order to start a new age of a more sustainable, social and inclusive capitalism. The central idea is that self-regulating markets do not perfectly work; their deficiencies, not only in their internal workings, but also in their consequences for less advantaged people, are so great that the state intervention becomes necessary and that the pace of change is of central importance in determining these consequences. We argue that a paradigm shift is urgently needed, but this will certainly take time and a new governance which requires the involvement of several key political, economic and social actors such as international organizations, national governments, economic organizations along with social movements and no-profit organisations embedded at national and local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a book "The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" by Joel Peters and David Newman dedicated to the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It mentions negotiation point of view between Israel and Arab countries, culminating with the signing of the agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1979, the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine (PLO) in 1993. It also mentions history of Israeli peace movements since 1967.

A new social movement today challenges the commodification of contemporary society and carries out interventions on the ground aimed at eliminating the economic mechanisms of the market system and at creating systems of distribution of goods through the dynamics of "reciprocity". We will describe the principles of this vast social movement ignored by the media and examine some exemplary cases of interventions on the ground, considered as a special type of text, endowed with author, reader, utterance, interpretation, interpretative cooperation. We thus propose a general model of analysis of texts made up of social processes in progress, with their specific method of documentation, and a new general typology of texts.

The article explores the history of the process of deinstitutionalization in Palermo and Reggio Calabria in the context of the critical psychiatric movements in Italy (1960-78). It is consolidated the idea of a Southern Italy unconnected with the «psychiatric question» and anti-institutional practices, in Italy due mainly to Franco Basaglia and his team. The essay focuses on this issue in the South of Italy where, as well as in the other experiences, the actions were both political and scientific. The analysis considers also the connections of Palermo and Reggio Calabria movements, in particular with Democratic Psychiatry, and looks at the role played by social movements and political forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Peru, the mobilization against extractivist projects has contributed to a greater flow of communication between urban and rural spaces, resulting in the construction of networks between the feminist movement and rural women. I suggest that the construction of a discourse linking the feminist concept of bodily integrity with territorial autonomy has supported this process. I trace the complexities of this process in a country characterized by binary collective identities and the hegemony of the ‘lettered city’.

Copyright of Archivio di Etnografia is the property of Pagina Societa Cooperativa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The managerial transformation of Higher Education rules the university according to criteria of business efficiency and accountability (e. g. competitive diversification between academic structures, use of performance indicators, administrative and standardised evaluation of research, reward systems). In this paper we aim to investigate the university's managerialisation implications on the researcher's self-understanding, the pressures it puts on her/his ethos and professional ethics, and the reactions it elicits. In particular, we explore the focal points of experience, practices of self, counter-conducts and points of resistance expressed in appeals, editorial initiatives and movements which have briefly gained national prominence. By using a qualitative methodology through twelve in-depth interviews, we have identified three discursive focuses: the critique of the centralised device of evaluation and academic management, the resistance through the form of movement and processes of subjectivation and, finally, the salience of a gender point of view transversal to these dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to an extraordinary synergy between many heterogeneous factors, the fertile seedlings planted in the Sixties flourished and bore fruit in the 1970s. Slowly, their branches entwined throughout Western society up until the end of that decade and beyond. The elements influencing this metamorphosis are brought to light and discussed in the rich, in-depth articles collected in this monographic issue of Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, entitled The Sixties Reloaded. Exploring social movements, student protests and youth rebellion –a new exploration of the decade that has generally been relegated to the body of sociological and philosophical research. They were rich and dense years: the goal of the younger generations was to create a new symbolic imaginary, which took shape through music, fashions and alternative lifestyles that stood out in stark contrast to those enjoyed by their parents and grandparents. They went to the streets to protest: they alarmed the politicians in power who tried to convey through the media a very simplified version of the young, so missing the most significant development in the 1960s –the youth taking on a new role, becoming visible in “other” places, beyond the traditional spaces for protest, fighting for pacifism and civil rights, in an attempt to unite the utopian desire to change the world with a recognition of a strong subjectivity.

Copyright of Archivio di Etnografia is the property of Pagina Societa Cooperativa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of the article is to analyse the social transformations produced and observed in the field of waste management. In particular, the focus is on the «Zero Waste» strategy, which has been proposing for at least two decades at a global level an alternative model of waste governance to the one centred on incinerators and landfills. The article proposes a theoretical framework to describe the genesis of «Zero Waste» as a discursive practice, proposing to observe jointly its characteristic symbolic, technological and organisational elements. In reporting the results of an ethnographic research conducted on the case of «Zero Waste» in Italy, the article also focuses on the processes of knowledge exchange between social movements, local administrations, universities and municipalised companies, the conjunctions between ecological movements and movements for the commons, the start of processes of remunicipalisation of local public services starting from a new strategy of legitimation of the public vs. the private, and the progressive institutionalisation of political ecology in the European and local policy arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neither the Holy Roman Empire nor the Swiss Confederacy held colonies overseas. For this reason, studies on the German and Swiss past have long been situated within narrow European horizons, condemning to oblivion the many threads that connected these spaces to the Americas and to sub-Saharan Africa. In recent years, the historiographical rediscovery of the intertwined destines of these regions has been accompanied by heated public debates and memorial activism aimed at promoting a «decolonisation of public space». While these exchanges of ideas between historical research and activism have overall been fruitful, in some cases tensions have emerged between academic scholarship and decolonial claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation sets out to analyse Woodstock, 1969 upon the backdrop of the Heideggerian theme Being-towards-death. By focusing on the momentum behind the event, the importance of the festival itself crumbles and a real depth to the iconic countercultural occasion emerges. Under the yoke of nuclear terror, the countercultural movement had to carry the potentiality of their own death heavy on their shoulders. What this paper sets to argue, is that this threat of nuclear annihilation was a unique experience that led to a mass exodus towards an authentic societal model.

The essay is based on the international strike of March 8th 2017 and the gradual establishment of the Feminism for the 99% movement. According to theorists and activists, a class feminism able to articulate needs and political positions that speak to the complexity of experiences of ordinary women, so far neglected by the liberal dominant elite feminism. Against these events, notions like "redistribution" and "identity recognition" by Nancy Fraser, have been decisive in order to conceptualize a change which has occurred in these last decades within western politics. A transformation which has brought together the more impactful movements on the social protest level, unlike in the past, beyond a class interest perspective, as 'groups' or communities of value, aimed to reclaim their own identity and acquire "recognition". A significant shift of perspective in gender politics, but also paradigmatic of the contemporary political experience in the progressive field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary social movements focused on environmental and social sustainability, present an emerging need to combine, at least at a symbolic level, the changes in policies with profound transformations in everyday life and, therefore, a need to combine these lifestyle changes with corresponding imagery. The article presents a research on communication (websites, social media and visual identity) of 76 GAS, Solidarity Purchase Groups, active in Italy; among the numerous practices of political consumerism this requires more stable forms of engagement. The results outline a connected and dispersed movement, varying be-tween the mistrust towards the visual culture and the constructionof narratives consistent with their founding values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The movement for the commons has emerged in the past decade in opposition to neoliberal policies of privatization of resources and services. It claims the right to occupy publicly- and privately-owned spaces and to use them according to the principles of self-government and direct democracy. In the Southern European context, the movement for the commons has focused on the grassroots restructuring of public services otherwise eroded by austerity policies. This paper investigates the trajectory of the movement for the commons in Palermo and highlights how a social mobilization with a critical approach towards private property and socioeconomic inequalities has been partially co-opted by the public administration through an institutional rhetoric promoting legality and participation in public spaces. From the legal point of view, this process translated into the negotiation of a top-down administrative, regulation establishing that the commons should be managed through a public-private partnership. The risk is both the political weakening of the movement for the commons and the social marginalization of vulnerable subjects inhabiting the city centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looks into the language choices of social movements in the Barcelona metropolitan area, and the language attitudes behind them, taking into account that these grassroots movements sit between the public and private domains and the implications this may have in situations of diglossia. The methodology used were semi-structured interviews to a total of 12 activists, representing 9 cells of PAH (Mortgage Victims’ Forum), 15M and Marees Ciutadanes (Citizens’ Tides). The reported language choices were then compared to the actual practices in social networks and websites. The findings show that Catalan is overrepresented in formal outward communications if compared to its presence in in-group communication. The reasons for this are mostly related to the status of Catalan as the language of official institutions, and to cultural and historical reasons.

The paper analyses territorialization practices in Mourouj 2 district (Tunis) by focusing on Mourouj 2 Neighborhood Association’ activities during last decades. The case raises relevant issues regarding theoretical reflection on centre-margin paradigm in urban spaces and particularly in the Great Tunis area such as: margin social construction; resistance practices to spatial exclusion processes; conflicts over re-production of economic, political and social disadvantage; environmental and life quality link with spatial justice. In Mourouj 2 district key actors’ practices emerges as a common ground for community dialogue and conflicts with institutions and other informal powers over the right to the city. A nucleus of active citizenship emerges as a national precedent for urban space re-appropriation, from closure and conversion of Great Tunis landfill into an urban park in the nineties to wetlands and urban parks protection, community services and local development activities.

Is it possible a value-free social research and without an ethical/political involvement of the researcher? If so, is it desirable? After a brief excursus on the origins of the sociological debate to be sought in anthropology emancipated from colonial discipline, the engaged/detached dichotomy will be recalled, along with some research programs that presuppose (even if in different ways) the involvement of the researcher. In the second part of the article, the attention will be focused on the specific sector of social movements studies, in which these issues assume central importance. Finally, we will take into account some empirical researches, to make the previously issues tangible. The reference will be to the relationship with the social actors and the issues they refer to, as emerged in three case studies: on the No-Expo Network, on the animal rights movement and on the relationship between movement activists and the European Union.

The purpose of this article consists in finding recurrent iconographies in urban riots during Contemporary History. After a brief description of what can be considered a riot nowadays, it analyzes visual material that represents the most known social protests in contemporary History. From the French riots in 1830 and 1848 to the most recent events such as G8 Summit of Genoa, banlieues riots, Arab Spring, and so on. To do so, the paper is supported by a lot of different visual sources: paintings and newspaper's illustrations, photos and digital media. In fact, this iconographic research also deals with new media's images, such as videogames, social media, Google. The focus of this paper is to find and analyze the recurring patterns of urban riots' representations, that can be found through centuries and different visual materials. From the already mentioned traditional media to the new digital ones, any urban riot has common elements which are interesting to explore and deeply analyze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers the results of an ethnographic research consisting of a period of one and a half year of observation of the criminal proceedings against the activists of the 'No Tav Movement', as well as the analysis of the documents of the trials. The interpretation suggested here aims at highlighting these proceedings as contemporary phenomena of political trials in which both the principle of social defence - foundation and justification of the right to punish - and the principle of raison d'état are at stake. In conclusion, the contribution shows how these principles, which are already irreconcilable with the Magna Charta of the accused person, take on a new form when the State turns global. The public economic order is defended, while those who dispute the merit and the method of infrastructure by critically raising a debate on social and environmental issues prove to be a suitable enemy targeted by criminal sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Scienza & Politica is the property of University of Bologna, Department of Political & Social Sciences Alma Mater Studiorum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article investigates the political change of the 1970s, due to the emergence of new political movements, and their dialogue with political parties. In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the relationship between French and Italian socialist parties, on one side, and the political movements of opposition in the Eastern countries. The research will give some food for thought about the idea of the 1970s as a cleavage in the history of international relations, concerning new forms of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conflict around the water management of an important Andean lake, considerably aggraveted in 2008. The hydroelectric installations, that was grainted to Duke Energy company, was in fact occupied by the Peruvian rural community, Cruz de Mayo (CdM). This nonviolent conflict, after several years of impasse, has seen the recent introduction of various negotiating tables between CdM, Duke Energy, CEAS (a peruvian catholic association), local and state public institutions.

At present, the hegemony of neoliberal and neoconservative thought extends its utilitarian and commercial dominance over the state and on the daily lives of people, affecting their work, their relationships and their subjectivity, which implies greater job insecurity, relations little stable, fragile social institutions and labile subjectivities. With this social imagination the possibilities for future social projects, the inherent ability to instituting democratic nature, weakens. However, the new social movements, through a reflexive praxis based on cooperation and social action, seek to recover and conquer public spaces, politicized social aspects, and exercising active citizenship. Public School, though impregnated by hegemonic powers, is an autonomous field. If it stands as public space and as an ethical-political community, can promote autonomous social movements, instituting capacity, in order that future citizens can build their own future. Two specific cases that serve as examples: School garden as praxis which articulate social movement imaginary with School; and the parent of students movement for a public school. In both cases, put in play contexts, relationships and forms of learning that allow a pedagogy of social creation.

Access from the political left to power in various Latin American countries also seemed to announce adherence to government policies by intellectuals linked ideologically to progressivism, especially after the escalation of repression that followed the Cuban revolution. Today notes, however, a growing gap between making political demonstrations of the intelligentsia and government teams that should represent them. That disaffection comes together with a rise of the opposition of social movements in different national contexts and with a media transformation of social relations, which seems to intensify the dismantling of modern subjectivity. Chile and Uruguay in recent years provide significant examples of these trends, the effect in turn of a general crisis of modern organic nature in society.

This article asks how Italian alternative food networks have changed after the global economic crisis of 2008. The article analyzes the phenomenon in question through the use of two bodies of literature, the anthropology of value (deployed in the direction of food studies) and food regimes theory. After discussing the literature in reference to the central question, the article develops four hypotheses to try to answer it. These are: 1) generation, 2) strengthening, 3) obstruction and 4) irrelevance. In the second half of the article, a specific example of alternative food network called Fuori Mercato (‘outside the market’) is examined as a possible illustration of the first hypothesis, that of generation.

Here I wish to report on developments on three fronts concerning ‘religion’ in expanding global debates about the ‘the end of the world’ and ‘the ways we know it’, concerning: (1) the word ‘religion’ itself, as half of the religion-science binary, and its marginalization–or complete absence–in the construction of the modern scholarly disciplines and university departments, and influencing of ‘modern’ culture and politics; (2) proliferating doubts about the positivist (and secularist) epistemology of modern ‘science’; and (3) the growing sense that we are caught up in epochal transitions, in which we are significant actors, and that, far beyond what we can know ‘scientifically’, our responses involve leaps of hope and faith which contribute to tipping the balance among divergent possible futures.

The aim of this paper is to propose a theoretical reflection on the possible transformations of democracy in globalized societies. In this direction, the Author outlines the classical approaches to the analysis of democracy and then proposes a criticism of the static picture offered by the liberal conception. In the wake of Charles Tilly, a process-oriented and dynamic conception is proposed, by declining democracy in terms of democratization (and potential de-democratization). In this paper the different theoretical challenges to liberal democracy are also proposed, starting from the participatory conception that assumes the core of the democratic political process in contentious action of organized civil society. Special attention is also paid to the challenge of deliberative democracy in its two versions, liberal and deliberative. The paper then tries to figure out how to adapt these theoretical proposals to the new conditions of trans-local societies, from a rethinking of the concept of democratic citizenship in a post-national key. The paper ends with a reflection on cosmopolitan democracy and the opportunities offered by the major challenge of rethinking global governance in a democratic and participatory way

The conflict around the water management of an important Andean lake, considerably aggravated in 2008. The hydroelectric installations, that was granted to Duke Energy company, was in fact occupied by the Peruvian rural community, Cruz de Mayo (CdM). This nonviolent conflict, after several years of impasse, has seen the recent introduction of various negotiating tables between CdM, Duke Energy, CEAS (a Peruvian catholic organization), the local and state institutions.

The author proposes a cross analysis of the conditions that led to the foundation of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina (1977) and of the Movement of the Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) in Colombia (2005), considering them as paradigmatic examples of collective political subjects engaged in the recomposition of historical and political memory; as actors in their own processes of transitional justice; and as protagonists in the construction of international human rights law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible a value-free social research and without an ethical/political involvement of the researcher? If so, is it desirable? After a brief excursus on the origins of the sociological debate to be sought in anthropology emancipated from colonial discipline, the engaged/detached dichotomy will be recalled, along with some research programs that presuppose (even if in different ways) the involvement of the researcher. In the second part of the article, the attention will be focused on the specific sector of social movements studies, in which these issues assume central importance. Finally, we will take into account some empirical researches, to make the previously issues tangible. The reference will be to the relationship with the social actors and the issues they refer to, as emerged in three case studies: on the No-Expo Network, on the animal rights movement and on the relationship between movement activists and the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the positions of the Italian Communist Party towards the large political movement that took action on its left, especially “Autonomia Operaia”, in the late seventies, during the terrorism emergency and the crisis of national solidarity governments. The debate, internal to the PCI and between the left parliamentary forces, is analyzed through the documents, the newspaper articles and the declarations about a specific counter-terrorism trial, known as the “7th April case". This trial caused a large and heated public debate on terrorism, democracy and public order that saw two main political positions in opposition to one another. On one side the so called guarantee position represented by the “Partito Radicale”, some intellectuals, journalist and magistrates and on the other those who endorsed the firmness position, especially the PCI. At the same time, within the same communist party, the firmness front wasn't completely unanimous. On 7th April 1979 the deputy public prosecutor of Padua, Pietro Calogero, issued an arrest warrant that led to prison more than a dozen militants from the extra-parliamentary leftist area, “Potere Operaio” and “Autonomia Operaia”, including among others Oreste Scalzone, Franco Piperno, Nanni Balestrini, Emilio Vesce and Antonio Negri.

Resumen: El presente trabajo intenta vincular algunos aspectos de la Filosofía de la Liberación de Enrique Dussel con la tradición hegeliana, identificando tanto sus puntos de conexión como sus discusiones. El recorrido resulta una invitación a reflexionar sobre las prácticas de los movimientos sociales en contextos de crisis, donde aparece la otredad como categoría fundamental. A modo de cierre, proponemos algunas ideas que nos ayuden a pensar la necesidad de una institucionalización de las mencionadas experiencias sociales. Abstract: This paper attempts to link some aspects of the Enrique Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation with the Hegelian tradition, identifying their connection points as its discussion. The route is an invitation to reflect on the practices of social movements in crisis contexts, where the otherness appears as a fundamental category. To conclude, we propose some ideas to help us think about the need for institutionalization of the aforementioned social experiences.

The recent financial crisis and, especially, anti-austerity policies, reflects and, at the same time, contribute to a crisis of representative democracy. In this article, I discuss which different conceptions of trust (and relations to democracy) have been debated in the social sciences, and in public debates in recent time. The financial crisis has in fact stimulated a hot debate on “whose trust” is relevant for “whose democracy”. After locating the role of trust in democratic theory, I continue with some illustrations of a declining political trust in Europe, coming from my own research on social movements, but also of the emergence, in theory and practices, of other conceptions of democracy and democratic spaces, where critical trust develops. Indignados’ movements in Spain and Greece as well as the Occupying Wall Street protest in the US are just the most visible reaction of a widespread dissatisfaction with the declining quality of democratic regimes. They testify for the declining legitimacy of traditional conceptions of democracy, as well as for the declining trust in representative institutions. At the same time, however, these movements conceptualize and practice different democratic models that emphasize participation over delegation and deliberation over majority voting. In doing this, they present a potential for reconstructing social and political trust from below.