Blaming the southern victim: Cancer and the Italian ‘Southern Question’ in Terra dei fuochi and Taranto

Abstract

In this article, the author addresses two critical environmental situations in southern Italy: the Terra dei fuochi (Land of fires) near Naples, characterized by a history of illegal disposal of toxic waste, and Taranto, where the Ilva steel plants have a record of exceeding the legal emission limits for several pollutants. Despite a recognition of these situations, public political discourse in Italy still tends to link the higher than average incidence of cancer in the two areas to lifestyles rather than to environmental factors. The author locates this phenomenon within the larger context of the ‘Southern Question’ – the historical stigmatization of southern Italy as backwards and uncivilized. She argues that this same stereotype not only stigmatizes a geographical region, but also facilitates the stigmatization of the people who become ill in Taranto and Terra dei fuochi as the result of lifestyle rather than environmental factors. Furthermore, this same stereotype also stigmatizes social movements against the pollution as irrational and uncivilized. Previous studies have linked situations of environmental injustice to the Global South or to specific areas with racialized stereotypes; here it is argued that the whole southern half of Italy can be considered a new geographic scale in which phenomena of environmental injustice, denial of environmental causes of disease, and geographic stigmas, intersect.

Sewage Sludge Gasification in a Fluidized Bed: Experimental Investigation and Modeling

“…25 In this framework, the present manuscript reports an experimental study where gasification is used as a potential mean for the safe and environmentally friendly disposal of sewage sludge from WWTP located in Regione Campania (southern Italy). This is a geographical area with defined zones particularly damaged by pollution (see, e.g., in the literature the expression "land of fires"−"terra dei fuochi", often used to indicate the phenomenon and its social−environmental− economical−political implications leading to a new "Southern Question" after that emerged in the year 1861 following the Italian unification); 26,27 therefore, a first aim of this work is to give a contribution in finding possible ways to mitigate an aspect of relevant concern in this area, namely, the environmental and health issues related to the presence of several contaminants in sludge. Gasification experiments were performed at 850 °C in a bench-scale FB reactor using, as a gasification agent, a nitrogen/air mixture at different values of the oxygen/fuel equivalence ratio (ER = 0.1−0.2), with the aim of investigating the properties of the produced streams (syngas, tar, ash).…”

Breathing new futures in polluted environments (Taranto, Italy)

“…Southern Italy lends itself to an observation of polluted environments because it has historically been part of heavy industrial development projects (Barca & Leonardi, 2018;Greco, 2016;Pusceddu, 2020) and environmental (in)equalities are enforced by political and economic power regimes as illegal waste management in Southern Italy is controlled by the "ecomafia" (D'Amato et al, 2015;Iovino et al, 2018). In the context of Taranto, scholars have criticised how politicians and the media often blame residents' health problems on their 'unhealthy lifestyles', such as smoking and bad eating habits, despite strong scientific evidence that residents' health problems are connected to industrial pollution (Greco, 2016). These scholars have argued that such stigmatisation is based on old stereotypes and historical representations of "the South" as "backward" and "inferior" to "the North."…”

“…Southern Italy lends itself to an observation of polluted environments because it has historically been part of heavy industrial development projects (Barca & Leonardi, 2018; Greco, 2016; Pusceddu, 2020) and environmental (in)equalities are enforced by political and economic power regimes as illegal waste management in Southern Italy is controlled by the “ecomafia” (D'Amato et al, 2015; Iovino et al, 2018). In the context of Taranto, scholars have criticised how politicians and the media often blame residents' health problems on their ‘unhealthy lifestyles’, such as smoking and bad eating habits, despite strong scientific evidence that residents' health problems are connected to industrial pollution (Greco, 2016). These scholars have argued that such stigmatisation is based on old stereotypes and historical representations of “the South” as “backward” and “inferior” to “the North.” For example, as scholars in Italy have argued, old prejudices – “the South” as a homogenous and static entity and southerners as indigent, violent, and uncivilised – have been historically reproduced and reshaped for decades (Capussotti, 2010).…”

Grassroots Ecologies of Value: Environmental Conflict and Social Reproduction in Southern Italy

“…Environmental issues in Brindisi are a telling example of “ecological distribution conflicts” (Martinez‐Alier ) in contemporary Italy and, at the same time, the legacy of the spatial history of capitalist development in the peninsula, with the main network of oil‐based industries having been located in the peripheral southern regions. Indeed, southern Italy provides a relevant case to address the nexus between uneven development and environmental inequality, and for mapping a paradigm shift of environmental struggles in areas historically targeted by heavy industrial development projects (Barca and Leonardi ; Greco ).…”