1,721,012 research outputs found
The Messina Bridge: Political Conflict Running Roughshod Over Local Issues
No full textDrawing upon interviews and documentary information, this article investigates the means through which
changes related to the biggest Italian construction project are communicated. I argue that people are aware of
most political elements connected to the territorial debate, and that their receptivity is conditioned by the social
environment. This is particularly true when political élites deliver messages aimed at legitimizing issues that
carry symbolic meanings and identity concerns. Responses to the project of building a bridge across the Strait of
Messina point to powerful strategies aimed at undermining alternative views. Political metaphors contribute to a
situation in which political élites’ interests run roughshod over the expectations of people. Whatever path the
message may take, it manipulates the acquisition of knowledge and bogs people down
Urban Reality vs National Imagination: The Case of Lebanon and Northern Ireland
No full textThis paper aims to chart the physical and symbolic role of urban territory in highly sectarian and violently divided societies. The discussion is based on field work, including extended interviews conducted in the Northern Irish Protestant enclave of the Fountain (Londonderry) in 2003 and 2004 and in the Lebanese Christian quarter of Tyre in 2005 and 2006. Both Lebanon and Northern Ireland experience controversial, though somehow accepted, multi-cultural power-sharing systems at a national level. It seems, however, that these systems are not reflected at a local level, where societies have developed normative or informal defensive means of inclusion and exclusion against perceived threatening ethno-religious communities. Both urban realities constantly evoke, and strongly rely on, peculiar and exclusive historically and ethnically rooted trajectories that often sharply diverge from those of their proxy border communities. This has been one of the main reasons for past inter-religious and sectarian conflicts and hate, which continue to manifest themselves into various forms of mutually accepted segregation, ranging from education to job opportunities. On the other hand, urban territory control has virtually become an overt extension of a religious calling in each ethno-religious group. The reason for this is that control over urban territory is seen as a unifying factor. It also acts as a provider of coherence as well as integration for the individual at the expense of larger inclusive communal identity, which is prevented at a national level because of the mutually accepted multi-cultural arrangements. Thus any change imposed at the local level would create local instability. This paper suggests that local instability will in turn rekindle the broad national inter-religious conflict since it would challenge the various clusters that mark the multi-cultural power-sharing system agreements. Both Lebanon and Northern Ireland have in fact been unable to provide any integrative lasting shared culture. The deliverance of common values based on a shared civic understanding of the nation state should, on one hand, be sufficiently broad-minded to respect religious differences, but it should also, on the other hand, be strong enough to exclude such differences from being a vital component of most socio-communal behaviour
Gioiosa Marea. Dal Monte di Guardia a Ciappe di Tono
No full textLa storia del centro turistico tirrenico, partendo dall'antica Gioiosa Guardia, situata a 1.000 metri di altezza, fino alla discesa alla Marina dopo il terremoto del 1693. (vol. I
On Sectarian Dynamics of Law in South Lebanon: A Research Report
No full textBrief research report on a three-year project under the 'Rita Levi Montalcini Programme' conducted at the University of Pisa from 2011 to 2014
Türkmen Alkimiň Kemala Gelmeginde Nurmuhammet Andalybyň Roly
No full textThis presentation aims to chart the role of poetry in identity formation with a major emphasis on the dynamic links between the semantic of language and national cohesion, both in geo-political and socio-cultural terms. The discussion explores the often overlooked issues of defining historically stable components in changing societies facing dramatic transformations. With reference to the XXVII-XVIII century Turkmen classical poet Nurmuhammet Andalib, the analysis brings out important insights that help us to develop a broader understanding of the role of Language in indentity manintanance
The Management of Death and the Dynamics of an Ethnic Conflict: The Case of the 1980-81 Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Hunger Strikes in Northern Ireland
No full textThis work explains how the management of death can impact the dynamics of ethnic conflicts. It explores alternative ways of handling death, and demonstrates how the use of these strategies can shape and impact feelings and perceptions to a major extent. The objective is to investigate the beliefs and motivations of hunger strikers, especially with respect to their social environment, and to better understand why certain persons use their own bodies as lethal weapons. If we can identify the cause(s) of this phenomenon, we can suggest potential responses to it. It is also important to examine the ways that groups with diverse political interests make ceremonial use of the dead person’s corpse, and how they exploit the memory of the deceased to influence perceptions and feelings. These acts can have an impact on decision-making and conflict behaviour, and thus influence conflict dynamics and conflict resolution processes
Tindari. Dalla città greca al culto della Madonna Nera
No full textDi Tindari, città ricca di antichità e di fascino, da secoli metà di pellegrinaggi da tutta la provincia di Messina, nonché dalla vicina Calabria, vengono qui descritti splendore, storia e leggenda: i greci, i romani, gli arabi, i normanni, i francesi, gli spagnoli; un susseguirsi di conquistatori fino all'arrivo della Madonna Nera
Martyrological Tradition and Conflict Prevention: the case of Lebanon (2014)
No full textOften acts of self-inflicted violence or the 'voluntary' giving of one's life fall outside of the 'normal' rules of international law and armed conflict and political violence. Building upon previous research on martyrology traditions in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, this paper re-conceptualize the martyrology debate following the 2014 spillover effect of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon
Come pelle saldata alle ossa. La sacralità delle mummie della Chiesa Madre di Piraino
No full textQuesto scritto è l’insieme di piccole storie e di circa due dozzine di agiografie, le une alle altre legate nel costante monito della caducità umana, risultato di quanto raccolto nel corso degli anni, prima da appassionato cronista di storia locale e poi rivisitato con gli occhi stupefatti di antropologo. L’importanza delle sepolture ad sanctos nel microcosmo di Piraino, in uno spazio geografico di circa cinquanta metri quadri, è spiegato attraverso le relazioni che si sono succedute con le autorità e le élite religiose e politiche locali con riferimento alla morte e alle sue strategie. La stratificazione sociale che ha nei secoli interessato la vita ecclesiastica di Piraino è speculare a quella rintracciabile in altre sfere della vita civile. Quanto allo studioso, dopo venti anni, è chiamato a saldare un conto rimasto in sospeso con un fondamentale della sua disciplina: l’antropologo conduce ricerche a casa propria, contravvenendo, coscientemente, alle regole, perché troppo coinvolto, spudoratamente innamorato e geloso di quello che sente suo perché nella sua Isola. Sicché tutto resta terreno liminare anche per lui, ancorché materializzazione di china vergata su cartapecora da sacerdoti che non solo avevano scritto di quella sepoltura ma che in quella sepoltura, sia pur indistinguibili, ora erano tumulati. Come venti anni prima, sono secchi, ai suoi occhi, e nel contempo fieri nei loro scranni, indifferenti al disordine e soprattutto alla “soverchia imbarazzatura” che, come l’antropologo avrebbe solo anni dopo scoperto, erano sicuri di poter evitare versando una retta annua di sei grani
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