Italian cultural geography,or the history of a prolific absence

This article focuses on a group of buildings that form the site for a Steiner school in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. It examines the ways in which an environmentally friendly, ‘ecological’ structure was (and is) constructed such that the building and its accompanying practices might be seen as ‘performed art’. By more critically examining the school's geographies through ethnographic material, the paper moves away from the buildings' symbolic meanings to demonstrate how art and nature intersect in various ways, in the school's life. Art and nature were crucial to the type of education there, the physical process of building the school, and daily uses of the buildings. The paper also explores how the art-nature intersection is involved in the construction of ethical discourses and practices constitutive of ‘childhood’ and ‘education’.     

Comparing expeditious procedures for the seismic vulnerability assessment on the European territorial context: reliability,feasibility, cost,and time consumption

ABSTRACT

The definition of strategies for the preservation and protection of cultural heritage is a topical issue, especially in view of the increasing relevance of the theme of seismic risk mitigation and reduction.

The prediction of the impact an earthquake could have on existing buildings requires the knowledge of their dynamic behaviour. The procedure to be adopted for this purpose is quite complex and onerous in terms of costs, time, and implementation, especially when the study concerns territorial areas rather than single buildings. The definition of methodologies aimed at respecting the principles of economic sustainability and preserving human life and architectural heritage is of paramount importance to assess seismic vulnerability using available resources. Rapid methods for the seismic vulnerability assessment, aimed at defining buildings vulnerability and intervention priority lists, must be implemented to guarantee the preservation of historical centers.

This article describes the application to some case studies of different methods aimed at creating fragility curves for the vulnerability assessment on the European territorial context. The comparison between a deterministic approach and a new probabilistic one is performed for all case studies, to define the most suitable methodology in terms of reliability and savings in cost and time.     

ROAD INVESTMENTS,SPATIAL SPILLOVERS,AND DEFORESTATION IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON*

ABSTRACT Understanding the impact of road investments on deforestation is part of a complete evaluation of the expansion of infrastructure for development. We find evidence of spatial spillovers from roads in the Brazilian Amazon: deforestation rises in the census tracts that lack roads but are in the same county as and within 100 km of a tract with a new paved or unpaved road. At greater distances from the new roads the evidence is mixed, including negative coefficients of inconsistent significance between 100 and 300 km, and if anything, higher neighbor deforestation at distances over 300 km.     

Giorgio Agamben and the new biopolitical nomos

In this paper I reflect on the progressive normalization of a series of geographies of exception within Western democracies and, in particular, the relation of these to the new biopolitical power that is progressively affirming itself in our everyday lives — and that appears to be imposing itself as the new, secret, ontology of the political. I do so by engaging with the work of Giorgio Agamben and, specifically, interrogating the spatial architecture that underpins his theory of sovereign power. Starting from Agamben's spatial conceptualizations, I explore his attempt to trace the contours and the secret coordinates of the contemporary biopolitical nomos, a nomos rooted firmly in the crisis and progressive demolition of that which Carl Schmitt described as the ius publicum Europaeum. I note, moreover, how the definitive dissolution of the geographical nomos that had dominated the two centuries preceding the First World War, and the lack of a new, alternative, geographical nomos in the century which followed, can also be grasped by critically rereading some key episodes in the history of European geography; in particular, the contested legacy of the work of Friedrich Ratzel's grand geographical project and the Geopolitik experiment. What I suggest is that to understand the deep nature of the geographies of exception that arm the global war on terror, it is vital that we think in terms of a theory of space in order to try to unveil the Arcanum, the secret enigma of the empty centre around which turn the wheels of a new, macabre, geo‐biopolitical machine.