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During the 1990s, Naples' left-wing administration sought to tackle the city's infamous reputation of being poor, crime-ridden, chaotic and dirty by reclaiming the city's cultural and architectural heritage. This book examines the conflicts surrounding the reimaging and reordering of the city's historic centre through detailed case studies of two piazzas and a centro sociale, focusing on a series of issues that include heritage, decorum, security, pedestrianization, tourism, immigration and new forms of urban protest. This monograph is the first in-depth study of the complex transformations of one of Europe's most fascinating and misunderstood cities. It represents a new critical approach to the questions of public space, citizenship and urban regeneration as well as a broader methodological critique of how we write about contemporary cities

During the 1990s, Naples' left-wing administration sought to tackle the city's infamous reputation of being poor, crime-ridden, chaotic and dirty by reclaiming the city's cultural and architectural heritage. This book examines the conflicts surrounding the reimaging and reordering of the city's historic centre through detailed case studies of two piazzas and a centro sociale, focusing on a series of issues that include decorum, security, pedestrianization, tourism, immigration and new forms of urban protest. This monograph is the first in-depth study of the complex transformations of one of Eu

AbstractThrough an analysis of migrant incorporation in Rome and Rabat, this article investigates the theoretical, methodological and policy consequences of comparing across the fault lines around which urban migration research is conventionally structured. It critically brings into conversation the "local turn" in migration policy research with debates around comparative urbanism, and discusses how the Mediterranean region and a reconsideration of temporal frames in migration studies can offer a generative framework for comparing cities across the Global "North" and "South." The comparative analysis considers how, inter alia, legacies of internal mobility, non‐state service provision and divergent public discourses about "diversity" illuminate the different ways in which contemporary migration has been negotiated in the two cities. In doing so, the article challenges assumptions about policy path dependency or the smooth transfer of "best practices" and instead points to the possibility of learning from any city, be it Rome or Rabat.

AbstractOver the last two decades, cultural festivals have been established and consolidated in cities across Morocco. Their proliferation has coincided with the reign of Mohammed VI, well known as an enthusiastic and extremely wealthy patron of the arts, and the concomitant state-controlled democratization of Moroccan politics and society. Drawing on two examples—the Marrakech International Film Festival and the Mawazine music festival in Rabat—this article interrogates the ways in which festivals and the urban scale combine to function as vehicles for cultural diplomacy. Contra the common tendency in recent policy debates that perceive the city (with or without its administration) as an active agent in translocal cultural relations, I argue for a more nuanced perspective that understands the urban festival as a diplomatic platform through which the cultural politics of the state are rescaled and where a range of actors contest ideas about the local, national and global trajectories of society and cultural life.

Over the last two decades, cultural festivals have been established and consolidated in cities across Morocco. Their proliferation has coincided with the reign of Mohammed VI, well known as an enthusiastic and extremely wealthy patron of the arts, and the concomitant state-controlled democratization of Moroccan politics and society. Drawing on two examples—the Marrakech International Film Festival and the Mawazine music festival in Rabat—this article interrogates the ways in which festivals and the urban scale combine to function as vehicles for cultural diplomacy. Contra the common tendency in recent policy debates that perceive the city (with or without its administration) as an active agent in translocal cultural relations, I argue for a more nuanced perspective that understands the urban festival as a diplomatic platform through which the cultural politics of the state are rescaled and where a range of actors contest ideas about the local, national and global trajectories of society and cultural life.

Published online second semester 2018 ; This article critically examines how humanitarianism has reshaped both the representation and management of migrant agricultural labour in Southern Italy over the last ten years. Drawing on media analysis and ethnographic research of sub-Saharan tomato pickers in the regions of Puglia and Basilicata, the article traces the rise – starting from Fabrizio Gatti's famous undercover report 'I was a Slave in Puglia' in the national weekly L'Espressoin 2006 – of an increasingly dominant public discourse in the mainstream press that sees migrants as 'victims' of human rights abuses, unscrupulous gangmasters and perilous housing. The recourse to humanitarianism has worked to conceal the centrality of labour relations in agricultural work and the wider question of the agri-food value chain. At the same time, humanitarianism has provided the ideological rationale to a series of governmental responses to poor working and living conditions in the region, including most recently the work camps set up and run by the Red Cross in Basilicata during 2016. It is argued that 'humanitarian reason' – to draw on the term coined by Didier Fassin – is underpinned by a disciplinary logic that is both functional to the regulation of the migrant labour force and the perpetuation of unsustainable forms of intensive agriculture.

Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes policy decisions and governance structures. It explains the rationale for choosing Europe as a multidimensional setting for investigating the diverse links between migration and crisis. It ends with a summary of the contributions that are divided into four thematic strands: relationships between the economic crisis and migrant workers and their families; the Mediterranean in crisis; political and public discourses about the post-2015 'migration crisis'; and ethnographies of everyday experiences of the 'refugee crisis' on the part of migrants, activists and local people.

Abstract of the Foreword Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes policy decisions and governance structures. It explains the rationale for choosing Europe as a multidimensional setting for investigating the diverse links between migration and crisis. It ends with a summary of the contributions that are divided into four thematic strands: relationships between the economic crisis and migrant workers and their families; the Mediterranean in crisis; political and public discourses about the post-2015 'migration crisis'; and ethnographies of everyday experiences of the 'refugee crisis' on the part of migrants, activists and local people.

First published: 01 June 2018 ; Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes policy decisions and governance structures. It explains the rationale for choosing Europe as a multidimensional setting for investigating the diverse links between migration and crisis. It ends with a summary of the contributions that are divided into four thematic strands: relationships between the economic crisis and migrant workers and their families the Mediterranean in crisis political and public discourses about the post-2015 migration crisis' and ethnographies of everyday experiences of the refugee crisis' on the part of migrants, activists and local people.