ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Participatory Epistemologies and Conflicts over Territorial Protection Systems in Italy (1970-1990)

• In Event: Citizen Science in a Global Perspective

English Abstract

The paper examines the emergence of ‘participatory epistemologies’ in conflicts over territorial protection systems in Italy between the 1970s and 1990s. Drawing on archival materials, it investigates how citizen mobilisations redefined the production and circulation of scientific knowledge. By placing the history of science in dialogue with the history of social and environmental movements, the contribution shows how alternative epistemic practices emerged from struggles over territory and public health. Focusing on certain aspects of mobilisations in response to the Seveso and Manfredonia disasters (1976) and the Chernobyl accident (1986), the paper highlights the engagement of the Democratic Federative Movement (today Cittadinanzattiva), founded in Rome in 1978 and active at the national level. In 1982, the Department of Civil Protection was established; inspired by the theory of the “sixth power,” the Movement promoted a new culture of civil protection, understood as an exercise of popular power and based on collaboration between expert and local knowledge. Events such as the Irpinia earthquake (1980), the bradyseismic crisis in Pozzuoli (1982–1984) and the Valtellina flood (1987) fostered grassroots inquiry and knowledge co-production, generating forms of “disobedient knowledge” capable of challenging hierarchies and the presumed neutrality of technical expertise. Initiatives such as the Popular Survey on Civil Protection and research on mountain toponymy, including the analysis of “Monte Toc” linked to the Vajont disaster (1963), illustrate these dynamics. These experiences fostered situated and critically aware scientific worlds, reshaping the relationships between knowledge, institutions, and citizenship.

Author

• Norma Felli, Sapienza University of Rome