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The pandemic has played a catalyst role in the digitization processes of services and relationships between professionals and people, highlighting the existence of a "minimum technological vital" (Campedelli, Toc-cafondi and Vignani, 2021) which can draw the line between social inclusion and exclusion. The measures introduced to deal with the spread of the virus have imposed rapid transformations and, in just a few weeks, digital technologies have been integrated into all aspects of professional life, showing positive and negative effects (Lopez et al., 2020) . The introduction of numerous platforms, the use of which has exploded during the quarantine, has provided previously overlooked, if not ignored, opportunities to meet and interact with people in different settings. Digital technologies have helped professionals by providing virtual bridges and creating connections. At the same time, they have made it even more evident - through the observation of the negative effects of their absence - the relevance of access to services and its close connection with the success of inclusion paths; the close connection between information and access to health and the protection of rights has become even more evident, and the centrality of the role of telecommunications networks in guaranteeing the performance, even during the health emergency, of some essential public functions (Di Rosa & Tumminelli, 2022).

La riflessività relazionale è aspetto sempre più determinante per comprendere l'agency delle persone e la vita di coppia. Lo studio qui presentato analizza la ri-flessività in 32 coppie (25-40 anni), sposate o conviventi con almeno un figlio. At-traverso un approccio mixed method sono stati identificati 3 gruppi con diversi li-velli di riflessività relazionale (alto, medio e basso) ed evidenziate alcune differen-ze di genere, durante il processo di costruzione del "noi".

This work addresses gender dimension and other diversity aspects in warfare, including gender bias in data collection, to go beyond mainstream approaches in policymaking and to infuse gender awareness into conceptual models in international security affairs, according to the elements of a gender-responsive approach to arms control identified by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Gender perspective, based on the resource pack developed by the International Gender Champions (ICG) Disarmament Impact Group helps to shed light on the direct and reverberating impacts of warfare on women, men, girls and boys, such as the likelihood of being targeted by and the long-lasting biological and physiological impacts. focusing on analyzing sex and gender specific effects of emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs). The 2020 European Commission experts’ report Gendered innovations 2. How inclusive analysis contributes to research and innovation: policy review warns that human bias is amplified by technology, inter alia in the applications of machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics, facial recognition. Data sources on which this review relies include: UNIDIR, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Control Arms, Small Arms Survey, MOSAIC Module, Reaching Critical Will, European Institute for Gender Equality. The study aims to enhance the ability of the international community to redress gender inequality in warfare and to mitigate gender impact in armed conflict., Paper presented at the 5th Erasmus Gender Seminar 2023 (Erasmus GS23), held at the Military Academy, Amadora (Portugal), on 19-20 June 2023. https://www.mgs-erasmus.eu

Afterword to the volume: The genre taken seriously

Gender stereotypes are often viewed as one of the root causes of the gender gap in STEM. According to Eccles’ model, they would indirectly influence major choices by shaping expectations of success and values attached to the viable options. However, empirical findings on the link between implicit gender-science stereotypes and college major intentions are limited. To fill this gap, the current study examines this association in a mixed-gender sample of 302 Italian high-school students. Logistic regression analysis revealed that implicit gender stereotypes were directly associated with females’ intention of majoring in STEM. Unlike previous findings, the mediation analysis could not confirm that other relevant factors, i.e., interest in the subject, performance at school, identification with the subject, and value attributed to the job’s salary and social utility, moderated this association.

This article discusses the results of a study that collected information on a sample of 2,183 individuals through a web survey, conducted in Italy during the period of the first lockdown linked to COVID-19 and aimed at exploring the theme of risk perception at the time of the pandemic. Specifically, the paper will examine two aspects: (a) the socio-demographic char-acteristics of the respondents about risk; (b) the relationship between risk perception and the likelihood of adopting behaviours aimed at averting contagion.As regards the first point, the results show that those with a lower perception of risk are males, older, unmarried. The level of education only affects the fear of not surviving in the event of contagion (those with higher qualifications are less afraid). Concerning the second aspect, data show that those who per-ceive a greater risk tend to adopt individual protection measures with greater probability. The results of the study are useful for providing suggestions to improve the risk communication, that is a priority for public health agendas, and suggest to target it according to the specific profiles of the individuals to whom it is addressed.

Il volume è stato immaginato per gli studenti dei corsi di laurea in comunicazione, per gli studiosi e gli operatori della comunicazione pubblica. Integra infatti riflessioni su comunicazione e decisioni pubbliche, democrazia e media digitali, ripercorrendo il dibattito sulla consultazione elettronica attraverso discipline e settori differenti. Il testo, a partire da una riflessione teorica sulla democrazia deliberativa, esamina in modo critico la risposta tecnologica al declino della partecipazione politica a livello internazionale. Presenta le tecniche di consultazione pubblica on line, gli standard minimi, possibili strumenti di pianificazione (metodologica e comunicativa), in una prospettiva che combina ciò che avviene sulla Rete con iniziative sul territorio. Una ricerca empirica compara le prime consultazioni pubbliche on line realizzate in Italia e in Gran Bretagna attraverso l’analisi di documenti, l’indagine secondaria di fonti statistiche ed una ricerca su un corpus di 2075 consultazioni britanniche e 56 progetti italiani di e-democracy, presentando alcuni casi studio. In questa nuova edizione, riflettendo su continuità e mutamento, si aggiorna il dibattito sulla democrazia digitale e le consultazioni pubbliche. The book is designed for communication degree students, scholars and public communication practitioners. It integrates reflections on communication and public decision-making, democracy and digital media, tracing the debate on electronic consultation through different disciplines and sectors. Starting from a theoretical reflection on deliberative democracy, the text critically examines the technological response to the decline of political participation at the international level. It presents online public consultation techniques, minimum standards, possible planning tools (methodological and communicative), in a perspective that combines what happens on the Net with initiatives on the ground. An empirical research compares the first online public consultations carried out in Italy and Great Britain through the analysis of documents, secondary investigation of statistical sources and a research on a corpus of 2075 British consultations and 56 Italian e-democracy projects, presenting some case studies. In this new edition, reflecting on continuity and change, the debate on digital democracy and public consultations is updated.

The immigration and integration policies reveal the difficulty of the host society to institutionalize new models of social differences accompanying integration process. What happens when people of different cultures, values, religion live together? Immigrants who “arrive” continue their life in a place where they do not passively participate over time but become actors. Pressed by the hegemonic culture of the host society, immigrants do not cease to practice their religious and origin cultural expressions. Considering the impact of religion and origin cul¬tural values on public and private expression of differences, it is important to consider their role (between persistence and innovation), in the integration process. These dynamics have been analyzed in a research study on immigrants’ integration process in Palermo. Data show how assimilation’s immigrant (Empirically divided between Innovative or conservative) oscillates be-tween attitudes of rejection of the “new culture” and of defense of that of origin, through practices whose expression changes in the public and private sphere. The analysis, focused on super-conformism and ethnic persistence of the most numerous immigrant communities in the context of analysis (Islamic Ummah and the Indian Dharma) delineated the adapta¬tion declinations through syncretism and cultural contagions. Immigrants, schematically divided be¬tween conservative and innovatives, participate in the construction of a local model of integration in which immigrants, free to express their religious and cultural differences, tend to reduce their perception of minority.

During the last few years, the fitness culture is becoming gradually more globalized, and such a trend involves sport, physical activity, and wellness areas. The globalization of fitness culture also reflects the prosperity of the fitness industry, today a global business of multibillion dollars. This article discusses the reasons that have led to the transformation of fitness culture in a global movement. The relationship between the processes of globalization and the fitness culture is addressed under the sociological perspective. The metaphor of “McDonaldization” of society partly explains the homogenization and standardization of cultural ideals, bodies representation, and conceptions of wellness and health.

Since there has been a considerable increase in studies on attitudes toward immigrants in recent years, particular attention must be devoted to the survey instruments used to measure them. Since they first appeared, both the European Values Study and the World Values Study have included a battery of questions to measure social distance, asking which social groups respondents would not be willing to have as neighbors. One of these social groups is ‘immigrants/foreign workers.’ The wording of this item contains a certain degree of ambiguity, as the terms ‘immigrants’ and ‘foreign workers’ refer to two different social groups. Foreign workers are in fact a subcategory of immigrants. Our contribution sets out to assess the working of the item, using a survey experiment randomly assigning respondents three different formulations (‘immigrants/foreign workers’, ‘immigrants,’ and ‘foreign workers’). The data come from the Italian joint edition of the European Values Study-World Values Survey 2017. The results show that Italians perceive a much larger distance toward immigrants than toward foreign workers, which is nevertheless similar to the distance perceived toward ‘immigrants/foreign workers.’ Overall, the empirical evidence suggests the semantic prevalence of the item ‘immigrants’ over ‘foreign workers’ in respondents’ answers. In light of the results, we will discuss their implications for both data users and future values surveys., Survey Research Methods, Vol. 17 No. 1 (2023)

Questa ricerca si propone di mappare e analizzare il fenomeno dei lavoratori sessuali (in particolare degli uomini che vendono sesso ad altri uomini) in Italia e Svezia. Mentre il lavoro sessuale femminile è stato studiato da ricercatrici e ricercatori in tutto il mondo, il sex work maschile appare caratterizzato da persistenti disattenzioni. Questa lacuna nella letteratura scientifica rispecchia una più generale invisibilità e mancanza di chiarezza sulla questione anche in altri ambiti: nella politica, nella stampa, e nell’opinione pubblica. Inoltre, sebbene la maschilità sia un concetto importante e ampiamente studiato sia in sociologia che negli studi di genere, le precedenti ricerche hanno raramente analizzato il ruolo che essa svolge nell’offerta di servizi sessuali. Pertanto, l’obiettivo principale della ricerca è quello di analizzare il lavoro sessuale dal punto di vista della maschilità per capire quali tipi di relazioni si creano tra i lavoratori sessuali e i loro clienti, quale ruolo ricoprono le forme di strutturazione di genere e, pertanto, come la maschilità modella queste stesse relazioni. La prima parte di questo contributo è quindi dedicata al concetto di maschilità e quali declinazioni di maschilità i sex worker incarnano nei loro incontri con altri uomini, verrà considerato il comportamento dei sex worker che si identificano come “eterosessuali” e di coloro che si autodefiniscono “gay”. Le riflessioni sulla costruzione dei discorsi relative alle diverse identità implicate nel lavoro sessuale maschile sono particolarmente utili per capire come – in contesti tanto differenti dal punto di vista politico, culturale, e regolativo quali quelli di cui si tiene conto nella presente ricerca – le maschilità coinvolte possono riadattarsi all’ordine normativo di genere che richiede la femminilizzazione degli uomini che fanno sesso con altri uomini e la costante ostentazione di una maschilità che può contribuire alla pluralizzazione dei desideri e delle soggettività sessuali. Poiché la vendita di sesso e di servizi sessuali è percepita come un’attività stigmatizzata, soprattutto per quegli uomini che si autoidentificano come “eterosessuali”, coloro che si dedicano a questi comportamenti devono trovare il modo di “giustificare” la loro presenza nel mercato. Allo stesso tempo, è possibile osservare una sempre più crescente presenza nel sex work di maschi che si autodefiniscono omosessuali. Nell’analisi, il comportamento di queste due categorie di lavoratori sessuali viene quindi confrontata per comprenderne convergenze e divergenze riguardo ai tipi di maschilità impiegata. Infatti, il lavoro sessuale è anche un modo per fare le maschilità, un mezzo attraverso il quale i lavoratori sessuali possono elevarsi sotto diverse prospettive: sociali, economiche, e culturali. La ricerca affronta questi temi e si confronta con i diversi aspetti del fenomeno attraverso una metodologia qualitativa. Un totale di quarantacinque interviste semi-strutturate sono state somministrate a Milano e a Stoccolma con male sex workers (il cosiddetto “lato dell’offerta”) per esaminare le loro condizioni lavorative e i tipi di relazioni che essi instaurano con i loro clienti. Oggi, il lavoro sessuale maschile è fortemente legato all’uso di internet, dei nuovi media, e delle applicazioni mobili (o “app”). Diventa quindi importante analizzare come le nuove tecnologie hanno influenzato questa attività e che tipo di relazioni generano rispetto al posizionamento di classe sociale e alle credenziali educative dei lavoratori sessuali coinvolti. Un altro oggetto di indagine è l’incontro tra i sex workers e i clienti, con particolare attenzione alle strategie che i lavoratori sessuali utilizzano e al modo in cui le emozioni e il piacere diventano strumenti di queste relazioni. Infatti, nonostante le precedenti indagini condotte da femministe sottolineavano come questo rapporto fosse incentrato sul concetto di potere – quello esercitato dai clienti sulle lavoratrici sessuali – si mostrerà che il potere è sì presente nel sex work maschile, ma lo è in modo molto sfumato, e che gli stessi lavoratori sessuali impiegano modi diversi per gestire le loro relazioni con i clienti. L’ultimo punto di questa ricerca riguarda proprio i clienti e le loro caratteristiche. Se i lavoratori sessuali sono stati relegati ai margini, i clienti lo sono anche di più. Quindi, nella parte finale di questo studio vengono evidenziate alcune delle caratteristiche principali dei clienti e le motivazioni alla base della loro decisione di acquistare sesso, secondo le opinioni raccolte tra i sex workers intervistati. Nel complesso, l’analisi dimostra che il lavoro sessuale in generale, e quello maschile in particolare, possono essere analizzati alla stregua di un vero e proprio lavoro e coloro che vi operano possano essere considerati come un qualunque altro lavoratore. This research aims to map and analyse the phenomenon of male sex workers (specifically men who sell sex to other men) in Italy and Sweden. While female sex work has been studied by several scholars worldwide, there is a lack of attention on the male side of the phenomenon. This gap in the academic literature mirrors a more general “invisibility” and “misconception” of the issue in other domains: in politics, the press, and in public opinion. Moreover, although masculinity is a powerful concept in both sociology and gender studies, previous investigations have forgotten to analyse sex work from this viewpoint. Therefore, the main objective of the research is to analyse sex work from the perspective of masculinity in order to understand what types of relationships are created between sex workers and their clients and what role is played by masculinity; how the relation is shaped by it. Indeed, the first part of this contribution is devoted to the concept of masculinity and to which declinations of masculinities sex workers embody in their encounters with other men, considering the behaviour of both “straight” and “gay” male sex workers. Reflections on the construction of discourses about differing identities in male sex work are particularly useful to understand how – in the cultural contexts of northern and southern Europe – the masculinities involved can re-adapt to the normative gender order which requires the femininisation of men who have sex with other men, and the constant flaunting of a masculinity that can contribute to pluralisation of sexual desires and sexual subjectivities. Since selling sex and sexual services is perceived as a stigmatised activity, especially for those men who self-identified as “heterosexuals”, men who engage in these behaviours need to find ways to justify their presence in the market. At the same time, it is possible to observe the growing presence of self-identified homosexuals in sex work. In the analysis, the behaviour of these two categories of sex workers is then compared to understand differences and commonalities regarding the type of masculinity employed. Indeed, doing sex work is also a way to do masculinity, a means through which sex workers can elevate themselves under different perspectives: socially, economically, and culturally. The research deals with these issues and grapples with the different sides of the phenomenon through a qualitative methodology. In-depth interviews with forty-five sex workers (the so-called “supply-side”) were carried out in Milan and Stockholm to examine the working conditions of sex workers and the types of relationships they establish with their clients. Today, male sex work is strongly related to the use of the internet, new media, and mobile applications (or “apps”). Therefore, it becomes important to analyse how new technologies have shaped this activity and what type of relations they generate in terms of both social class and educational credentials. Another object of this investigation is the encounter between sex workers and clients, with the focus being on the strategies that sex workers employ and on how emotions and pleasure become instruments of these relations. Indeed, despite previous feminists’ opinions that this relationship is charged with power – that exercised by clients over sex workers – it will be showed that power has a more nuanced presence in male sex working and that the sex workers themselves employ different ways to handle their relationships with clients. The last point touched on deals with clients themselves and their characteristics. If male sex workers have been relegated to the margin, their clients are even more marginalised. In the final part of this research some of the primary traits of clients are highlighted along with the motivation behind their decision to buy sex, according to sex workers’ perceptions. All in all, this study shows that sex work in general, and male sex work in particular, can be analysed as an actual job and those who work in the field in the same way as other types of workers.

This chapter explores the child protection systems in Italy and Greece. Both countries have to deal with immigrant children due to the conflict between the rights of minors and immigration laws on control and defense. In Italy, the child protection system is the result of a patchwork of norms and regulations addressing different societal demands and pressures. Family and cash-transfers are fundamental factors in Italy’s child welfare system. Greece, on the other hand, has adopted fragmented measures and policies connected with financial benefits, income support, social security, social care for disabled people, and rehabilitation for children at risk. The chapter also notes how the 2010 financial crisis affected the Greek child protection system.

This article – drawing on data collected during 39 semi-structured interviews with young immigrant descendant activists and other institutional and non-institutional stakeholders between 2017 and 2019 – aims to explore the spaces in which young immigrant descendants in Italy voice their concerns, ideas, and claims. Youth activism is conceptualised in terms of ‘granted’ and ‘claimed’ spaces of participation which enables the multiple manifestations of their activism and their relationships with other stakeholders to be captured. The analysis shows that processes of mobilisation from below (‘claimed’ spaces) strongly integrate with processes of top-down activation (‘granted’ spaces). These spaces are experienced by young immigrant descendants’ activists not as alternative ways of participation but as a pragmatic strategy to reach their objectives, both independently and through cooperation with different institutional and civil society stakeholders. Moreover, young immigrant descendant activists do not engage as ‘children of immigrants’: they express their claims first as young people and their activism is not restricted by their migrant origins, especially in those places – ‘claimed' spaces – created and shaped by themselves.

This paper discusses how research related to migrant descendants’ citizenship could potentially benefit from recent critical literature towards migration and citizenship. On the one hand, we discuss how such research focusing on the so-called “second generation” and citizenship could draw from conceptualisations that approach citizenship as everyday practices and as lived experience. On the other hand, we reflect on how such research could benefit from calls to de-migrantize migration scholarship. In this paper, we also discuss how such critical approaches allow problematising the research categories, such as “second generation” or “migration background”, and what implications this has in terms of understanding the citizenship among migrant descendants. In the end, we suggest possible paths for future research and theorisation concerning citizenship and migrant descendants.

Questo articolo esplora il contenuto delle cento canzoni italiane più vendute, nel periodo che va dal 1960 al 2019, utilizzando un approccio computazionale inedito che combina analisi testuale e analisi musicale automatica. I brani italiani da classifica hanno intercettato alcuni dei principali trend storici, culturali e sociali degli ultimi sessant’anni. Dalla ricerca emergono sei temi ricorrenti (perdono, fuga, amore passione, fatica, fantasia e vitalità) e due dimensioni di senso latenti (patire vs. agire e divertirsi vs. riflettere), che caratterizzano i testi analizzati. Dal punto di vista metodologico, emerge l’importanza discriminate del sound per comprendere sia il clima emotivo dei brani sia alcune mediazioni e filtri operati dalle industrie culturali. This article explores the content of the one hundred best-selling Italian songs, spanning the period from 1960 to 2019, using a novel computational approach that combines textual analysis and automatic music analysis. Italian chart-topping songs have intercepted some of the major historical, cultural, and social trends of the last sixty years. The research highlights six recurring themes (forgiveness, escape, love passion, hardship, fantasy, and vitality) and two latent dimensions of meaning (suffering vs. acting and having fun vs. reflecting) that characterize the analyzed lyrics. From a methodological standpoint, the discriminating importance of sound in understanding both the mood of the songs and some mediations and filters operated by cultural industries emerges.

In this article, we deal with the so-called ‘risky sexual behaviours’ and the spread of HIV/AIDS among the community of MSM (men who have sex with other men). For a long time, both the sociological analysis and the medical and epidemiological approach studied the behaviour of the gay population as “inherently” more problematic in terms of spreading the human immunodeficiency virus. For these studies, even more dangerous are those men who sell sex and sexual services. Starting from a sample of twenty-one male sex workers in Italy and of the use or misuse of condoms during encounters with their male clients, this contribution will try to understand how ‘risky sexual practices’ (like barebacking or doing sex without a condom) are written and re-written. From the sexual script theory to the recent advancement in medicine in the fight against HIV/AIDS (like TasP and PrEP) that shape and reshape how sex is performed, moving from the “gay plague” to the “Truvada whore” and from traditional sexual scripts to the neoliberal sexual actor.

This paper aims to analyse the patient-doctor relationship as a form of citizen participation at a micro-level. The work presents the main findings of a study conducted in Italy in the field of type 1 diabetes in 2018, which recruited 47 patients and 20 doctors. Findings show that the patient-doctor relationship is properly explained with a relational perspective, as interdepend-ent figurations of transactors characterised by dynamic processes of power balances. This ap-proach helps to explain patients' participation by proposing the use of the relational concept of shared doctoring to buttress that of engagement. Indeed, the latter, despite its popularity, still seems to be erratic and blurred. In the end, the concept of engagement underpinned by shared doctoring could be useful for analysing patients' participation in the healthcare system at a mi-cro-level by inverting healthcare's underlying foundations towards a logic of care, in place of the current leading logic of choice.

This paper contributes to the literature on Relative Risk Aversion theory in two ways: first, by considering that the effect of time preferences may differ according to both children’s gender and social origin; second, by exploring this possibility for different educational outcomes: upper secondary school choices and university enrollment. We use data of the Survey of Household Income and Wealth, which contains questions specifically addressed to capture an individual’s time discounting preference, to further explore the association between time discounting preference and the effect of social origin on educational outcomes in Italy. In line with prior research, we find that time preferences only have a meaningful effect among children of lowly educated parents. But such an effect, in turn, differs by gender: parental time preferences matter more for sons than for daughters of lowly educated parents. This gender effect is found both for upper secondary choices and for entry into higher education.

To discuss the cultural roots of violence against women (VAW), this study focuses on individual gender norms, prescriptive gender role expectations, moral justification of VAW, and institutional gender norms that define gender cultures, that provide opportunities for VAW, and legitimize roles and behaviors. We used indicators of gender norms related to VAW from different sources to provide an overview of 12 countries (Armenia, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, and Ukraine). The indicators include individual gender role attitudes and justification of wife beating from the World Values Survey; information on national legislation and institutional discrimination from the Social Institution Gender Index from the OECD; and each country’s position on the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence—a transnational platform with relevant transformative power that has been opposed by anti-Europeanists. Although situations vary significantly in the different countries, this explorative study suggests that eradicating the cultural roots of VAW is more difficult in societies in which rigid traditional gender roles and a strongly patriarchal culture in legislation and institutions are supported by moral views legitimizing violence as a form of punishment for challenging prescribed gender roles.

The experience and the condition of the vulnerability of young immigrant women with NEET status are not acknowledged in both research and social policy. Within the extreme variety gathered under the term NEET, this present article aims at exploring the experience of a group of young non-EU migrant women aged between 18 and 31 living in Italy, who at the time of their participation in this study, were not engaged in education, employment, or training. Nineteen semi-structured interviews have been collected involving young women who migrated from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Morocco, Pakistan, and Tunisia, in most cases through family reunification. Thematic analysis carried out on interview transcripts highlights the complexity and richness of the stories and experiences narrated by participants, composing a heterogeneous group marked by different levels of vulnerability and resilience capabilities, language skills, and involvement in the goal of finding a job. The perception of vulnerability that emerges from the women interviewed refers mainly to the relational dimension of life, which appears to be characterized by loneliness, a sense of isolation, and feelings of extraneousness (not belonging) with respect to an external context. Implications for policies aimed at this specific group of foreign women are discussed.

While eco-social work as a strategy that combines responses to environmental and social risks is gaining ground in Europe, it has not evenly spread across countries. This paper looks at Italy, a country in which eco-social work has arrived only recently and has found difficulty establishing itself, in order to understand the factors that have hindered and fostered its development. To do so, it explores two cases of eco-social innovation and, using a neo-institutionalist framework, the mechanisms at work in encouraging or impeding the establishment of eco-social work. The research suggests three mutually reinforcing obstacles to the spread of eco-social work in an Italian context: the limited space for eco-social work in the Italian policy agenda; the inability to reframe practices used by existing work integration initiatives; and the reproduction of established relationships between public and non-profit organisations in a competition for scarce resources.

Background Italy was the first European country to be involved with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many healthcare professionals were deployed and suddenly faced end-of-life care management and its challenges. Aims To understand the experiences of palliative care professionals deployed in supporting emergency and critical care staff during the COVID-19 first and second pandemic waves. Research design A qualitative descriptive design was adopted, and in-depth interviews were used to investigate and analyse participants’ perceptions and points of view. Participants and research context Twenty-four healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists, and spiritual support) from the most affected areas of Italy were recruited via the Italian society of palliative care and researchers’ network. Ethical considerations The University Institutional Board granted ethical approval. Participants gave written informed consent and agreed to be video-recorded. Findings The overarching theme highlighted participants’ experience supporting health professionals to negotiate ethical complexity in end-of-life care. Crucial topics that emerged within themes were: training emergency department professionals on ethical dimensions of palliative and end-of-life care, preserving dying patients’ dignity and developing ethical competence in managing end-of-life care. Conclusions Our study showed palliative care teams’ challenges in supporting health professionals’ ethical awareness in emergencies. However, while they highlighted their concerns in dealing with the emergency staff’s lack of ethical perspectives, they also reported the positive impact of an ethically-informed palliative care approach. Lastly, this study illuminates how palliative care professionals’ clinical and ethical competence might have assisted a cultural change in caring for dying patients during COVID-19 and future emergencies.

L'Antropocene, termine con cui si designa oggi una nuova era geologica, sembra il topos più espressivo dell'immaginario, anche distopico, del XXI secolo. Per quanto l'Antropocene venga presentato come il momento di più alta auto-consapevolezza della specie umana, esso è concetto, e rappresentazione, talmente inflazionato da aver travalicato l’ambito geologico in cui esso era stato pensato, determinando definizioni non univoche e generando, forse suo malgrado, una nuova e grande narrazione della storia e della vicenda umana, pur con sfumature diverse. In questo contributo cercheremo di indagare i significati e i limiti della narrazione che l'Antropocene comporta. Inoltre, confrontandoci con il concetto di Capitalocene – che ad esso è stato contrapposto, a significare che l’impatto sulla Terra e sulla natura non appartiene all’agire di un generico Ánthrōpos ma a quello dei capitalisti e del capitale – cercheremo di offrire una diversa chiave di lettura delle questioni poste dalla prospettiva dell’Antropocene. The Anthropocene, the term by which a new geological era is now designated, seems to be the most expressive topos of the imaginary, even dystopian, of the 21st century. As much as the Anthropocene is presented as the moment of highest self-awareness of the human species, it is such an inflated concept, and representation, that it has transcended the geological realm in which it was conceived, leading to non-unambiguous definitions and generating, perhaps in spite of itself, a new and grand narrative of human history and vicissitude, albeit with different nuances. In this contribution we will try to investigate the meanings and limits of the narrative that the Anthropocene entails. Moreover, by confronting the concept of the Capitalocene-which has been contrasted with it, signifying that the impact on Earth and on nature does not belong to the actions of a generic Ánthrōpos but to those of capitalists and capital - we will try to offer a different key to the questions posed by the Anthropocene perspective.

Megaprojects are increasingly common across countries and attract substantial political attention from a variety of actors. Recent studies have highlighted the need to move from an understanding of megaprojects as linear and rational processes towards a more nuanced approach that accounts for non-linear and conflictual aspects. Participatory governance is often proposed as a valuable resource in this regard. In this paper, we investigate the setting and design of two participatory venues operating in the context of the implementation of the Lyon-Turin high-speed railway megaproject: the Italian Observatory for the Turin-Lyon Railway and the French Public Inquiry. Empirical evidence shows that the Italian case featured substantial structural barriers to effective democratic participation. As for the French case, while better designed and implanted in its context, it featured important agentic limitations that undermined its democratic potential. On the basis of our case study, we therefore argue that both the Observatory for the Turin-Lyon Railway and Public Inquiry failed to promote democratic participation. We thus propose a deliberative approach to (the study of) of megaprojects. Whereas deliberative democratic ideas command growing interest across disciplines, these have found only limited application in the study of megaprojects. We contend that a deliberative democratic approach holds promise to improve the democratic and epistemic qualities of decision making on megaprojects.

In the last years, serious games have become popular in media education as they are useful tools in engaging, motivating, and helping students learn. However, few studies investigate the long-term effects of game-based learning, and many scholars declare themself skeptical about the learning mediated by digital technology. This paper reflects on the importance of new media and serious games for young people belonging to the Net Generation as defined by Prensky. In particular, I support the idea that game-based learning reflects a broader change in our society, coinciding with the rise of the phenomenon of Gamification and the Homo Ludens paradigm. Apart from the limitations of technology-mediated learning, the paper outlines possible and new directions of serious games in educational and social work contexts. I serious games sono diventati negli ultimi anni degli strumenti diffusi nel campo dell’educazione poiché ritenuti utili a invogliare, motivare e supportare l’apprendimento degli studenti. Tuttavia, pochi studi indagano gli effetti a medio-lungo termine del game-based learning e molti studiosi si definiscono critici rispetto all’apprendimento mediato dalla tecnologia digitale. Il presente contributo riflette sull’importanza che i new media e i serious games hanno per i giovani appartenenti alla Net Generation come definita da Prensky. In particolare, si vuole supportare l’idea che il game-based learning è il riflesso di un cambiamento più ampio avvenuto nella nostra società che coincide con l’affermarsi del fenomeno della Gamification e il paradigma dell’homo ludens. Senza voler sottacere i limiti dell’istruzione mediata dalla tecnologia, il lavoro delinea possibili e nuovi direzioni del serious game in contesti educativi e di intervento sociale.

The chapter analyses the artistic actionThe Walk, performed across 9 borders by an international network of artists and citizens in support of asylum seekers. At the core of the performance is a giant puppet representing a little girl who walks 8,000 km from the Syria-Turkey border to the United Kingdom. Through this participatory march,The Walkattempts an act of spatial and urban decolonisation, designing an alternative public space. This paper analyses the case study by applying a practice-led approach combining Performance Studies and Migration Studies, and focusing on three main issues: the performative praxes of spatial politics, the relational process of creation, and the theatrical languages for a counter-narrative about migration.