Abstract:
"In this paper I would like to analyse the " imaginations of reconstruction " that have been created by subjects who were involved in the earthquake that hit the Po Valley in Emilia Romagna (Italy) on 20th and 29th May 2012. I will focus particularly on the way in which official reconstruction procedures, guided by neoliberal ideology, have influenced and determined the relationship between institutions and citizens involved in the disaster. My presentation begins with biennial research carried out in the earthquake zone during my PhD project in anthropology at the University of Bologna, which ended in May 2015. The districts of Modena, Ferrara, Mantova, Reggio-Emilia, Bologna and Rovigo were particularly affected, with 27 casualties, 15,000 displaced people and enormous damage to local historical and cultural heritage sites. The economic and productive system was negatively impacted: numerous businesses were affected, particularly in the area’s cutting-edge, bio-medical sector. The population was impacted across the board. There is a very varied social structure within these areas. The research project was carried out between October 2012 and November 2014, and focused on the micro-area extending across the municipalities of Mirandola, Cavezzo, San Possidonio and Concordia sul Secchia in the Modena districts. The main interlocutors of my research were the members of an earthquake-victims-committee named Sisma.12, a non-partisan committee founded by earthquake victims from a range of ideological perspectives, demanding rights to participate in the decision-making process of reconstruction. The Committee gave rise to specific political practices and imaginaries which went " from the bottom up ". These practices were realized through participatory and shared processes, understood as ways of reflecting on the world and on the participants’ roles as political subjects. By following the genesis and development of Sisma.12, I have witnessed the formation of a participatory political space whose members, influenced by criteria of active citizenship and direct democracy, have tried to elaborate strategies of disaster resolution which provide alternatives to dominant practices. In this sense these strategies could be defined as " alterpolitics "."
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