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Il Medio Oriente è una regione in cui le scarse risorse idriche giocano un ruolo fondamentale nei rapporti e nelle relazioni tra gli Stati. Soprattutto nell'area di Israele, Palestina e Giordania la natura transfrontaliera delle fonti idriche condivise è considerata da qualche ricercatore come un catalizzatore del più ampio conflitto arabo-israeliano. Altri studiosi, tuttavia, vedono nella cooperazione regionale sulle risorse idriche un potenziale cammino verso una pace duratura veicolata dalla natura interdipendente delle fonti idriche comuni a più territori. Dato che l'acqua è l'elemento che per molti aspetti contribuisce allo sviluppo sociale ed economico e dato che le fonti idriche sotterranee e di superficie non conoscono confini e si muovono liberamente nel territorio, la cooperazione tra gli Stati rivieraschi delle risorse idriche dovrebbe arrivare a prevalere sul conflitto. Unica nel suo genere, l'ong trilaterale israelo-palestinese giordana Friends of the Earth Middle East, FoEME, ha fatto proprio tale auspicio e dal 1994 punta a sviluppare progetti di cooperazione per la salvaguardia del patrimonio naturale dell'area del bacino del fiume Giordano e del Mar Morto. Attraverso l'esperienza del Progetto Good Water Neighbors, GWN, avviato nel 2002, sta lavorando ad una serie di iniziative nel campo dell'environmental awareness e del social empowerment a favore di comunità  israeliane, palestinesi e giordane transfrontaliere che condividono risorse idriche sotterranee o di superficie. Operando inizialmente a livello locale per identificare i problemi idrico-ambientali di ogni comunità  selezionata e lavorare con i cittadini (ragazzi, famiglie e amministratori municipali) per migliorare la conoscenza idrica locale attraverso attività  di educazione ambientale, di water awareness e piani di sviluppo urbano eco-compatibile, il Progetto GWN ha facilitato a livello transfrontaliero i rapporti tra le comunità  confinanti abbattendo la barriera di sfiducia e sospetto che normalmente impedisce relazioni pacifiche, ha coadiuvato l'analisi dei problemi idrici comuni cercando di risolverli attraverso uno sforzo programmatico condiviso e sostenibile, per giungere infine a livello regionale ad incoraggiare la gestione idrica comune attraverso lo scambio di informazioni, il dialogo e lo sforzo/impegno cooperativo congiunto tra gli attori parte del GWN al fine di incentivare la pace attraverso l'interesse comune della tutela delle fonti idriche condivise. Gli approcci di local development e participation, le azioni di confidence building e il peacebuilding attraverso la tutela ambientale applicati con il metodo di bottom up all'interno di un contesto non pacificato come quello del conflitto arabo-israeliano, fanno del Progetto GWN un esperimento innovativo e originale. Le comunità  israeliane, palestinesi e giordane selezionate hanno imparato a migliorare le proprie condizioni idrico-ambiennali cooperando assieme e sfruttando l'interdipendenza dalle fonti idriche condivise, avviando nel contempo rapporti pacifici con società  sempre considerate nemiche. La sfida è stata quella di far comprendere le potenzialità  di una cooperazione locale, in vista di un coordinamento regionale e di uno sforzo comune in grado di generare un beneficio collettivo. La lezione appresa finora durante questi primi sette anni di Progetto è stata quella di capire che non è necessario attendere la fine del conflitto per poter essere di aiuto alle proprie comunità  o per un benessere personale, ma si può agire subito, anche nel pieno dell'Intifada al-Aqsa e con i coprifuoco.

The irrigation scheme Eduardo Mondlane, situated in Chókwè District - in the Southern part of the Gaza province and within the Limpopo River Basin - is the largest in the country, covering approximately 30,000 hectares of land. Built by the Portuguese colonial administration in the 1950s to exploit the agricultural potential of the area through cash-cropping, after Independence it became one of Frelimo’s flagship projects aiming at the “socialization of the countryside” and at agricultural economic development through the creation of a state farm and of several cooperatives. The failure of Frelimo’s economic reforms, several infrastructural constraints and local farmers resistance to collective forms of production led to scheme to a state of severe degradation aggravated by the floods of the year 2000. A project of technical rehabilitation initiated after the floods is currently accompanied by a strong “efficiency” discourse from the managing institution that strongly opposes the use of irrigated land for subsistence agriculture, historically a major livelihood strategy for smallfarmers, particularly for women. In fact, the area has been characterized, since the end of the XIX century, by a stable pattern of male migration towards South African mines, that has resulted in an a steady increase of women-headed households (both de jure and de facto). The relationship between land reform, agricultural development, poverty alleviation and gender equality in Southern Africa is long debated in academic literature. Within this debate, the role of agricultural activities in irrigation schemes is particularly interesting considering that, in a drought-prone area, having access to water for irrigation means increased possibilities of improving food and livelihood security, and income levels. In the case of Chókwè, local governments institutions are endorsing the development of commercial agriculture through initiatives such as partnerships with international cooperation agencies or joint-ventures with private investors. While these business models can sometimes lead to positive outcomes in terms of poverty alleviation, it is important to recognize that decentralization and neoliberal reforms occur in the context of financial and political crisis of the State that lacks the resources to efficiently manage infrastructures such as irrigation systems. This kind of institutional and economic reforms risk accelerating processes of social and economic marginalisation, including landlessness, in particular for poor rural women that mainly use irrigated land for subsistence production. The study combines an analysis of the historical and geographical context with the study of relevant literature and original fieldwork. Fieldwork was conducted between February and June 2007 (where I mainly collected secondary data, maps and statistics and conducted preliminary visit to Chókwè) and from October 2007 to March 2008. Fieldwork methodology was qualitative and used semi-structured interviews with central and local Government officials, technical experts of the irrigation scheme, civil society organisations, international NGOs, rural extensionists, and water users from the irrigation scheme, in particular those women smallfarmers members of local farmers’ associations. Thanks to the collaboration with the Union of Farmers’ Associations of Chókwè, she has been able to participate to members’ meeting, to education and training activities addressed to women farmers members of the Union and to organize a group discussion. In Chókwè irrigation scheme, women account for the 32% of water users of the familiar sector (comprising plot-holders with less than 5 hectares of land) and for just 5% of the private sector. If one considers farmers’ associations of the familiar sector (a legacy of Frelimo’s cooperatives), women are 84% of total members. However, the security given to them by the land title that they have acquired through occupation is severely endangered by the use that they make of land, that is considered as “non efficient” by the irrigation scheme authority. Due to a reduced access to marketing possibilities and to inputs, training, information and credit women, in actual fact, risk to see their right to access land and water revoked because they are not able to sustain the increasing cost of the water fee. The myth of the “efficient producer” does not take into consideration the characteristics of inequality and gender discrimination of the neo-liberal market. Expecting small-farmers, and in particular women, to be able to compete in the globalized agricultural market seems unrealistic, and can perpetuate unequal gendered access to resources such as land and water.

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My research tells about the origins of Rome. I think that Rome became a civil community under king Tullus Hostilius who transformed a federation of villages in a city. Perhaps he retook a project of his grandfather, Hostus Hostilius. I think also that the tradition on the early Rome was elaborated by Servius Tullius’ court and his motivations must be researched in the relations between this king and Tarquin’s dynasty. Finally I formulated some particular theories on the comitia centuriata and their evolution and on the international politic of Servius Tullius.

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La tesi analizza il rapporto tra pratiche sociali, modelli di insediamento e morfologia urbana in due casi di costruzione di un tessuto urbano operaio che si prestano ad una stimolante comparazione. Da un lato abbiamo degli immigrati verso un polo industriale dell’area metropolitana milanese (Sesto San Giovanni), dall’altro un bacino minerario vallone (La Louvière). Si tratta di contesti di inserimento in aree industriali profondamente differenti dal punto di vista della morfologia sociale e dell’organizzazione territoriale, che profilano spazi ibridi tra rurale e urbano in profonda e rapida trasformazione, a causa del massiccio afflusso di manodopera immigrata. Le profonde differenze tra le due aree consentono di mettere alla prova dell’analisi comparata concetti e percorsi storici dell’integrazione, del tessuto sociale che la presuppone, della cittadinanza, della costruzione delle identità collettive in modo da superare stereotipe dicotomie tra rurale/urbano, tradizione/moderno, integrazione/conflitto. La tesi sviluppa un’analisi parallela dei due casi lungo un crinale argomentativo unitario che si apre con una ricerca sui flussi migratori e i contesti di approdo delle migrazioni. Nei primi due capitoli viene delineato il contesto economico, sociale e territoriale nel quale si inseriscono i due processi migratori. Per il caso belga, si analizzano il ciclo economico dell’industria carbonifera, il processo di spopolamento della Vallonia, l’avvio dei flussi migratori al termine della seconda guerra mondiale e i meccanismi che li hanno presieduti, vale a dire una migrazione contrattata tra i due governi che spostavano migranti provenienti da poche e selezionate località, rendono conto del primo dei due flussi. Per quanto riguarda il caso interno, viene delineato il contesto della rapida urbanizzazione che porta una serie di comuni contermini al capoluogo lombardo ad entrare nell’orbita metropolitana, qualificandosi come poli periferici di un’area vasta e perdendo la riconoscibilità come nuclei urbani indipendenti. Delineato questo quadro generale, la tesi affronta la questione delle abitazioni e delle forme urbane che assumono queste due mete di migrazione. Per quanto riguarda La Louvière, è ricostruito il duro impatto con il mondo del lavoro nelle miniere e le miserevoli condizioni abitative dei primi immigrati, l’assenza di una iniziativa pubblica nel settore abitativo fino al 1954, solo debolmente compensata dalle iniziative patronali, e la fase invece della seconda metà degli anni ‘50 che porta alla stabilizzazione degli immigrati italiani nell’area. Di Sesto San Giovanni viene ricostruita la complessa transizione a moderna periferia urbana, a partire da insediamenti di tipo rurale, passando attraverso le «Coree» e l’iniziativa pubblica, locale e nazionale, nonché l’intervento edilizio delle grandi imprese industriali che operavano nel suo territorio. L’intervento urbanistico nella cintura metropolitana milanese era al centro di un vivace dibattito sulla pianificazione urbanistica a livello intercomunale che dà luogo a ricerche e studi sulla condizione abitativa. Nell’ultima parte della ricerca, si approfondiscono gli aspetti sociali e culturali del percorso di insediamento e di integrazione nel tessuto urbano. E’ in questa parte che vengono maggiormente utilizzate le fonti orali – sempre opportunamente affiancate e confrontate con altri documenti – al fine di individuare la percezione di sé, della propria identità, le relazioni con altri gruppi sociali, i cambiamenti che la migrazione e l’incontro con la città e l’industria portano nei ruoli di genere, nelle prospettive di vita, nei desideri e nei progetti di questi migranti. Rilevando le peculiarità di due esperienze sociali di migrazione che a partire da contesti di partenza molto simili e portando perlopiù dei contadini ad incontrare città di un mondo lontano, la comparazione profila dinamiche sociali, identitarie e politiche profondamente diverse nei bacini minerari valloni e nella metropoli del miracolo.

The dissertation regards The memory on the Italian Risorgimento in “Justice and Freedom”(1929-1940) a theoretical core point in the history of the Movement, which so far has not been granted due attention. The work herewith presented is therefore aimed at filling a storiographical gap, analysing the historical events which continue to operate as traditions, raising feelings and passions and hence operating in politics, although as secondary factors. The point made is that the Justice and Freedom Movement, an antifascist political movement born in Paris in October 1929, bases its strength on the heroic choice of the antifascism movement to fight a Second Risorgimento, connecting the fight against the regime to the battles previously fought for the justice and the freedom, an entirely isolated event in the political opposition’s panorama. The dissertation, thus, attempts to explain how and why Justice and Freedom is so tightly interconnected in its political action to the Risorgimento tradition. The first chapter sets the cultural background of the foundation of the Justice and Freedom Movement. The centre of such foundation was Florence, where Gaetano Salvemini, along with a group of young people, would later on carry out some cultural experiences that ideally prepare the ground for the movement’s birth. In the second chapter are found the sites of the memory where the passage of the Risorgimento tradition between the generations takes place. The work therefore shifts from a public to a private level, concentrating on biographical paths. The choice made was for Nello Rosselli, a man very close to the Justice and Freedom Movement but who, as opposed to his comrades-in-arms, did not chose the political way to express his ethical choice, but rather the theoretical one, becoming a Risorgimento historian. The third chapter concentrates on the birth of the Justice and Freedom Movement in France, trying to reconstruct the cultural ties and the confrontation places and sites where the members of the Movement could interact with the French intellectual milieu, bringing back to light the propagandistic usage of the Risorgimento myth carried out by the Movement. Lastly, the fourth chapter focuses on the cultural debate on the Risorgimento, which took place on the press organs of the Movement, pointing out and periodizing the theoretical passages and the propagandistic uses of the myth as related to the stages of the Movement and the political needs.

No description available.

With their accession to the European Union, twelve new countries - Romania among them - (re)entered the international community of international donors. In the history of development aid this can be seen as a unique event: it is for the first time in history that such a large number of countries become international donors, with such short notice and in such a particular context that sees some scholars announcing the ‘death’ of development. But in spite of what might be claimed regarding the ‘end’ of the development era, development discourse seems to be rather vigorous and in good health: it is able to extert an undeniable force of attraction over the twelve countries that, in a matter of years, have already convinced themselves of its validity and adhered to its main tenets. This thesis collects evidence for improving our understanding of this process that sees the co-optation of twelve new countries to the dominant theory and practice of development cooperation. The evidence collected seems to show that one of the tools employed by the promoters of this co-optation process is that of constructing the ‘new’ Member States as ‘new’, inexpert donors that need to learn from the ‘old’ ones. By taking a case-study approach, this thesis gathers data that suggests that conceiving of the ‘twelve’ as ‘new’ donors is both historically inaccurate and value-ladden. On one hand, Romania’s case-study illustrates how in the (socialist) past at least one in the group of the twelve was particularly conversant in the discourse of international development. On the other hand, the process of co-optation, while being presented as a knowledgeproducing process, can also be seen as an ignorance-producing procedure: Romania, along with its fellow new Member States, takes the opportunity of ‘building its capacity’ and ‘raising its awareness’ of development cooperation along the line drawn by the European Union, but at the same time it seems to un-learn and ‘lower’ its awareness of development experience in the (socialist) past. This is one possible reading of this thesis. At a different level, this thesis can also be seen as an attempt to account of almost five decades of international development discourse in one specific country – Romania – in three different socio-political contexts: the socialist years (up to the year 1989), the ‘transition years’ (from 1989 to the pre-accession years) and the membership to the European Union. In this second reading, the thesis seeks to illustrate how – contrary to widespread beliefs – before 1989 Romania’s international development discourse was particularly vivid: in the most varied national and international settings President Ceausescu unfolded an extensive discursive activity on issues pertaining to international development; generous media coverage of affairs concerning the developing countries and their fight for development was the rule rather than the exception; the political leadership wanted the Romanians not only to be familiarized with (or ‘aware of’ to use current terminology) matters of underdevelopment, but also to prove a sense of solidarity with these countries, as well as a sense of pride for the relations of ‘mutual help’ that were being built with them; finally, international development was object of academic attention and the Romanian scholars were able not only to reflect on major developments, but could also formulate critical positions towards the practices of development aid. Very little remains of all this during the transition years, while in the present those who are engaged in matters pertaining to international development do so with a view of building Romania as an EU-compliant donor.