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This paper aims at scrutinizing from an historical perspective the deep transformations shaped by retail spaces and new consumption patterns challenging long-entrenched dichotomies, such as the centre-periphery one. In particular, the exploratory research explores the territorial reconfiguration of the main Eastern Sicily metropolitan areas, Catania and Messina, from the lens of the retail geography, namely after the diffusion of new suburban retail formats which have completely upset deeply-rooted relations between urban core and suburban rings.

On December 24, 2018, the Etna volcano has recorded a significant eruption. Linked to this phenomenon, after a seismic swarm of 72 shocks, a 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck a large area North of Catania city, on the Eastern coast of Sicily. Six villages reported 28 injured people and damages to the building. According to seismologists the earthquake had an unusual level of magnitude. Yet, despite the real danger of this event, many people who live around the volcano, in one of the most densely populated areas of Sicily, perceived these facts in an ambivalent way. Indeed, their lives continued as before even in awareness of the natural hazard, while several media presented the situation as really dangerous in a worried tone. This paper, part of a wider research still in progress, aims to analyse the perception of the risk towards the biggest and highest volcano of Europe by the inhabitants of some villages that rise around the Etna. Based on a previous research conducted in 2013 in the same area, this study compares the ways in which this recent earthquake was perceived by some residents in the area and the ways in which some online newspaper narrated the event. Therefore, by analysing and comparing the first results that come from interviews realized during a fieldwork and from online newspaper/magazine articles, this study tries to understand, from a geographical and cultural perspective, how the perception of the risk can be narrated attributing different values to hazard. The latter can have pragmatic implications because from this symbolic evaluation may depend the behaviour of an entire community.

This chapter deals with the evolution of retail geography in Italy through a double perspective of analysis. On the one hand, the work deals with the transformation of retailscapes in the country, ranging from the first department stores to the evolution of retail in central and suburban areas. On the other hand, the chapter scrutinises the emergence of retail geography in Italy as a sub-discipline, strictly linked to the urban and economic approach, in order to deeply evaluate the geographical contribution in interpreting as well as analysing the transformation of retail and consumption places, which, in recent decades, have been completely reshaping forms and functions of Italian urban and suburban spaces.

Sicily’s uneven geological structure is positioned within a system of tectonic plates, and its very active volcano has always made it prone to disasters. Many Sicilian cities have in fact been destroyed by natural events many times over the centuries. This can certainly be understood negatively as the destruction of entire towns, the emission of volcanic ash, and the mutation of landscapes by a terrifying force have instilled fearful memories in local populations. But from another point of view one must consider the positive elements of Etna. Its beautiful landscapes were a major attraction on the Grand Tour, and its inhabitants have long associated the volcano with the concept of rebirth and fertility. This paper analyzes two age groups of residents in the town of Nicolosi and is a small part of an ongoing research project that is much more complex, involving representative samples of the entire population of several towns around Etna