Cesare Di Feliciantonio

Building on critical readings of the rationalities behind ethical committees and their guidelines, this article analyzes how their positivist, biomedical conception of the research process can have a negative impact on research participants who might perceive their voices erased by these institutional practices. Using examples from my recent research with gay men living with HIV in England and Italy, I show how research participants have contested the General Data Protection Regulation guidelines I was following in relation to the use of pseudonyms and the depersonalization of data and the sharing of interview transcripts. Questioning the fixity of the position of the researcher and the research participants assumed in ethical guidelines, the article explores the impact of the encounter with research participants on the researcher’s life course well beyond data collection and analysis, emphasizing the need for a different care ethics.

This paper provides an introduction to the smart city and engages with its idea and ideals from a critical social science perspective. After setting out in brief the emergence of smart cities and current key debates, we note a number of practical, political and normative questions relating to citizenship, justice, and the public good that warrant examination. The remainder of the paper provides an initial framing for engaging with these questions. The first section details the dominant neoliberal conception and enactment of smart cities and how this works to promote the interests of capital and state power and reshape governmentality. We then detail some of the ethical issues associated with smart city technologies and initiatives. Having set out some of the more troubling aspects of how social relations are produced within smart cities, we then examine how citizens and citizenship have been conceived and operationalised in the smart city to date. We then follow this with a discussi...

Economic expansion indirectly promotes class diversification at the neighbourhood scale with a consequent reduction of social divides at the regional scale. To verify this working hypothesis, the present study investigates class diversification at both spatial scales in a Mediterranean city (Athens, Greece) using the European Socioeconomic Classification based on population census data referring to 1991–2001, a phase of economic expansion and intense urban sprawl preceding the 2004 Olympic games. Results of multivariate analysis and diversity indexes outline a local-scale social mix associated to suburban expansion, and regional-scale class segregation, reflecting an increasing polarization in affluent and economically deprived urban districts. The contrasting pattern at the two spatial scales results in a complex social geography with class diversification and moderate changes over time in the economic spatial divide between urban and neighbouring rural areas. These findings contribute to design scale-dependent policies reducing social inequalities and improving quality of life in urban areas. Future paths for socio-spatial processes were delineated for sprawling metropolitan regions under economic expansion and discussed in the light of future demographic trends in both developed and emerging countries.

This themed issue contributes to discussions of queer positionalities in the context of doing fieldwork on/with queer-identified subjects. The point of departure being that the term queer has emerged to qualify a specific scholarship that contests normative orders in gender and sexuality, and that queering is a form of critique of multiple power relations that informs knowledge production. Normative sex and gender orders are reflected in the power-knowledge relations that produce ‘queerness’ as outsider, abnormal and subaltern. In order to challenge these normativities, the production of knowledge must be contested in its conception. Here we present the theoretical framework that grounds our themed issue as well a short summary of the articles in this series.

This paper provides an introduction to the smart city and engages with its idea and ideals from a critical social science perspective. After setting out in brief the emergence of smart cities and current key debates, we note a number of practical, political and normative questions relating to citizenship, justice, and the public good that warrant examination. The remainder of the paper provides an initial framing for engaging with these questions. The first section details the dominant neoliberal conception and enactment of smart cities and how this works to promote the interests of capital and state power and reshape governmentality. We then detail some of the ethical issues associated with smart city technologies and initiatives. Having set out some of the more troubling aspects of how social relations are produced within smart cities, we then examine how citizens and citizenship have been conceived and operationalised in the smart city to date. We then follow this with a discussi...

Recent biomedical innovations in the field of HIV prevention and treatment-namely PrEP, TasP, and 'undetectability'-have completely reshaped the experience of living with the HIV virus, as well as the meanings of 'risk' and 'safety' in relation to sexual practices, leading to new forms of pleasure and sociality for gay and bisexual men in the Minority World. While human geographers have been slow to engage with the changing social dimensions brought by these innovations, scholars across the whole spectrum of the social sciences have been far more creative and responsive contributing to a critical understanding of what these processes entail in terms of subject formation as well as social and communal relations. This article proposes a distinctly geographical contribution to analysing and interpreting these biomedical technologies, exploring the ways that new spatialities and spatial relations emerge from their use and circulation. Our approach is based on provisional assemblage thinking as it offers the possibility to think the complex connections between biomedical innovations in the field of HIV, sexual practices, subjectivity, pleasure, spaces, and technologies, going beyond the subdisciplinary preoccupations and methodological reflexes of geographers focused primarily on either health or sexuality.

Centred around the life narratives of HIV-positive gay migrants in two Mediterranean cities, Barcelona (Catalonia/Spain) and Rome (Italy), this paper frames their decision to migrate towards the big city as an active strategy to escape the “second closet”, a concept introduced by Berg and Ross in 2014 to refer to the hiding of HIV-positivity by gay men in order to avoid negative social condemnation. In line with recent literature on gay migration that has emphasized its relational and situated character, the paper focuses on several factors leading to the decision to migrate: sexual desire and the imagery of the big city; the configuration of the welfare regime allowing free access to antiretroviral therapies (ARTs); access to employment in the services sector; and the absence of strong ties in the new city. Methodologically the paper draws from in-depth interviews conducted with 24 HIV-positive gay men between 2014 and 2016.

Asserting the need to take into account the role played by the current crisis and austerity politics in fostering the re-emergence of squatting initiatives in Rome, the paper bridges the literature on squatting as an urban social movement, notably Martinez’ holistic approach (2013), with a more political economy-oriented perspective analysing the current stage of ′late neoliberalism′. In doing so, I use the conceptualization of “expulsions” developed by Sassen (2014), showing how the emerging squatting initiatives in Rome represent the “spaces of the expelled”. Focusing on the case of Communia in the neighbourhood of San Lorenzo, the paper shows how Martinez approach is able to account the rapid success and support gained by Communia, because going beyond the “single-demand” perspective that has dominated much squatting literature. Indeed the main claims addressed by Communia activists concern a plurality of issues regrouped around the concept of urban commons, declined as both a practice and a goal. Methodologically, the paper is the result of eighteen months-fieldwork based on an activist/participatory action research (PAR) approach, made of participant observation/observant participation, in-depth interviews and questionnaires.

The politics of positionality in relation to sexuality and desire has remained unquestioned when investigating autonomous and alternative spaces, these studies mainly focused on political positionality through the adoption of militant and action-based methodologies. The article tries to fill this void by discussing issues of positionality related to sexuality and desire when doing research on squatting. The main aim is to discuss how entering the field in social movements research through an action-based approach can lead the researcher to involve every aspect of their life, including sexuality and desire. By discussing the case of my PhD research project focused on the re-emergence of squatting initiatives in Rome, the article is aimed at showing how my sexuality, notably my previous engagement in queer politics, has represented an important issue when negotiating with my research partners. When discussing the strategies and activities I adopted, the article plays with the tensions between being queered by the fieldwork and queering it, showing the possibilities of contamination as well as the limits of the politics of positionality.

The article compares the reactions to the eviction of squatters in two very different neighbourhoods of Rome: the centrally located, former working-class and traditionally leftist San Lorenzo; and the peripheral, recently built, speculation and mortgage-driven Nuova Ponte di Nona. While the reaction of the San Lorenzo neighbourhood to the eviction of Communia (August 2013) was highly supportive of the squatters, the residents’ committee in Nuova Ponte di Nona promoted a strong public campaign for the eviction of squatters in a building in Cerruti Street (December 2013). This raised the question of how such different responses, taking place within the same metropolitan area in the same year, can be framed. Based on interviews and the collection of secondary data, the paper addresses this question by showing how the residents of these two neighbourhoods embody the two poles of the process of subjectification created by the singular asset-based Italian welfare regime, the ‘financialization of home’ and the increasingly precarious nature of living conditions. However, a dualistic and rigid account of the neighbourhood reactions is avoided by considering the ‘commoning’ dimension as central to the actions and campaigns of both. Indeed, it shows how the residents’ committees in both cases were engaged in (re)creating new urban commons challenging the increasing privatization and individualization of everyday life prompted by neoliberal/austerity-based urbanism. The case of Nuova Ponte di Nona, however, shows that urban commons are not intrinsically emancipatory, and that the material conditions shaping the community life can lead to viewing the ‘other’ (i.e. the squatters) as a threat to their lifestyle aspirations.

The paper introduces Gibson-Graham's conceptualization of the " politics of possibilities " to housing studies in order to reveal how alternatives to the neoliberal housing model can be practiced here and now through the action of social movements. Centered on the main current Spanish social movement around housing, the Plataforma de los Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), the paper shows how Gibson-Graham's conceptualization, built around three moments (the " politics of language " ; the " politics of the subject " ; the " politics of collective action ") offers the possibility to understand the main political importance of subject and place as drivers of change and practice of alternative models. Indeed the paper shows how the core of PAH's political repertoire has consisted in disrupting the neoliberal model of personal responsibilization in order to set a variegated model of housing. The proliferation of the PAH all around the Spanish country and the politicization it favored raise important questions for Spanish contemporary politics.

How can we analyse the (re)emergence of squatting in relation to the current housing crisis in Italy? Centred on the case of Rome, the paper theorizes this return as resulting from processes of subjectification in the housing sector linked to the raising of indebtedness as a main dispositif of capitalism under neoliberal/austerity urbanism agendas. The political economy-oriented literature on neoliberal/austerity urbanism is bridged with the post-Marxist approach of Maurizio Lazzarato. Debt is seen as the archetype of social relations, shaping and controlling subjectivities, making the " work on yourself " essential to the reproduction of (indebted) society. However, given the circular nature of power, indebtedness can be generative of new processes of subjectification aimed at subverting the same power relation. In this sense, the paper operationalizes the conceptualization of Foucauldian subjectification recently proposed by Revel (2014), emphasizing how subjectification always results from i) an action/gesture and ii) a consequent deconstruction of the identity.

Homonormativity, meant as the " sexual politics of neoliberalism " , has become a widespread concept within social sciences and geography. Associated with the domestication of homosexual lives and the access of LGBT people to full citizenship rights, this notion creates a monolithic account of neoliberalism and its sexual politics all around the Global North. Focused on the case of Italy, the paper challenges this homogenizing concept through adopting the perspective of the " exception " developed by Aihwa Ong to analyse neoliberalism. Following her conceptualization of the interplay between " neoliberalism as exception " and " exceptions to neoliberalism " , the paper shows how the same interplay characterizes the sexual politics of neoliberalism and austerity in the Italian case. Indeed Italy represents an exception within the model of the " sexual politics of neoliberalism (and austerity) " concerning LGBT issues, while exception has been invoked in Italian politics to regulate sexuality, notably sex work. Moreover, exceptions have been assembled by public institutions in order to protect LGBT (consumer) subjects from " risk " and " danger " through a strategy defined as " soft entrepreneurialism " .

Building on recent criticisms within the literature on queer migration raised by Andrew Gorman-Murray
and Nathaniel Lewis, the article explores ‘unconventional’ trajectories of queer migration: a Global North
metropolitan area-Global North metropolitan area one and a Global North metropolitan area-Global
North ordinary city one. Two very different migration patterns are analyzed: the movement of young
queer ‘creative’ Italians from different metropolitan areas (Rome, Milan, Bologna, Catania, Naples,
Padua and Turin) towards Berlin (Germany) and the relocation of young queers from the major Italian
cities (Rome and Milan) towards ordinary/small size towns. Aimed at highlighting the complexity of
material and immaterial factors leading the decision to migrate in times of crisis, austerity politics and
increasing unemployment, the article introduces the role of welfare regimes in shaping migration’s
choices. This way, queer migrants and their socio-economic status and possibilities find materially situated
within national/local welfare regimes, thus challenging the teleological binarism of the ‘comingout’
journey always presuming a rural/urban movement for queer subjects. Within such a framework,
the ordinary/small size town can become a place for ‘outness’ and self-realization of queer migrants
who create bridges and connections with the metropolitan areas, thus queering the provincial contexts.