By Giacomo Loperfido Public library employees gave an astonishing account of the history of public libraries in the last 40 years, which seems a nice metaphor for larger and more general transformations also echoed in so many other spaces of the fieldwork. From the early 1970s on, public libraries were progressively established in every Vicenza(…)
By Antonio Maria Pusceddu The Caritas Soup Kitchen (Mensa Caritas) opened in 1995 with a relatively low number (less than 50) of regular recipients, mostly locals. Nowadays the soup kitchen serves around 300 daily meals, divided between some 170 “external” meals (take away meals) and 130 “internal” meals (people who consume the meal in(…)
By Giacomo Loperfido The PSIL is a service established by the Provincia institution in 2010. Its purpose was to create an hub or space that would put into communication private and public social institutions in the area, with the aim of providing assistance to the weaker strata of the population. These were (and are) considered(…)
By Antonio Maria Pusceddu The regional scheme CDC is designed for long-term unemployed people (at least 12 months), whose ISEE (Indicatore della Situazione Economica Equivalente), an index calculated on the basis of the previous year’s household income and patrimony, is under 3.000 Euros per year. Applicants are selected for “apprenticeship” in one of the(…)
By Giacomo Loperfido The relation between public and private sectors in this region is an overarching and all pervading matter that opens up and encompasses a series of subordinated questions, especially when it is put in relation with the epistemological space of the crisis, and its transformative energy. The best place to observe the functioning(…)
By Antonio Maria Pusceddu Lavori Socialmente Utili (socially useful works; LSU from now on) is a social welfare scheme that endowed public administrations with special funds to subsidize unemployed people for local community work. According to official sources (INPS – the national social security institute), by 2015 around 15.000 LSU workers were still in service,(…)
Loperfido, Giacomo (2014) “‘Neither left nor right’: Crisis, wane of politics, and the struggles for sovereignty,” FocaalBlog, November 7.
by Giacomo Loperfido There is, both in Reggio and Santa Croce, a general tendency towards social activism ‘from below’. Young people we met had organised into an association meant to facilitate the integration of foreigners in social life. Older people have created neighbourhood committees. It is interesting to see how in a flyer we saw(…)
by Giacomo Loperfdo In Reggio Emilia we visited the neighbourhood of Santa Croce, an old part of town that was initially destined to the workers of the metal-mechanic Reggiane industries. The area has of late been almost completely abandoned by its old inhabitants while a highly ethnified population of immigrants appears to have recently replaced(…)
