Mateusz Laszczkowski (Manchester). 'Territorio is Where You Meet Others': Politics of Place in an Alpine Rebellion
Dates: | 17 March 2025 |
Times: | 15:00 - 17:00 |
What is it: | Seminar |
Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
Speaker: | Mateusz Laszczkowski |
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This paper, drawing on a chapter from my upcoming book about the No TAV movement, fighting against the construction of high-speed railway through the Italian Alps, explores the concepts of 'territory' that emerge from that struggle. I describe various dimensions of 'territorialization from below': the daily functioning of presidi - sites that were initially created to occupy would-be construction grounds, but soon morphed into permanent hotspots of sociality and political activism; the practice of autonomy in a protest camp; and the reclaiming of territory through direct actions, from barricades to barbecues. Protests against infrastructural projects are often accused of 'Not-In-My-Back-Yard' particularism, while Northern Italy, more broadly, has often been portrayed as the crucible of xenophobic integralist political movements drawing on historically entrenched traditions of 'localism'. In sharp contrast, I argue that while No TAV activists call their movement a 'territorial struggle', territorio to them is an open, flexible, relational, and at the same time material matrix for generating new political subjectivities, solidarities, and affinities - in short, a space for meeting others.
Speaker
Mateusz Laszczkowski
Organisation: University of Manchester
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Room 5.205
University Place
Manchester