Abitare sospeso. Un'etnografia nel cratere dell'Italia centrale colpito dai terremoti del 2016-2017.

The earthquake that affected the Central Italian Apennines between 2016 and 2017 is one of the most significant socioeconomic disasters Italy has experienced in the last few years. This doctoral project, which is the result of ongoing fieldwork regarding temporary housing and emergency policies in Alto Nera (an epicentral area that includes the villages of Visso, Ussita and Castelsantangelo Sul Nera), examines how local communities experience the post-earthquake public and physical spaces of the temporary shelters provided by the Italian government for residential (i.e. Soluzioni Abitative di Emergenza, henceforth as SAE) and commercial activities. The focus, which makes use of interdisciplinary theoretical-methodological tools between sociology and semiotics, is on how local communities narrate the current state of the reconstruction and the changes wrought on their daily habits. These local communities are experiencing issues related to public spaces and associated social practices that have changed profoundly since the earthquake. The uncertainty concerning the reconstruction has weakened their agency and ability to think about the future, while the post-earthquake temporality of the 'permanent emergency' exacerbates vulnerabilities, in the context of the political and economic marginality of Italy's inland areas. In addition to the ethnography of living in SAE, the thesis develops two distinct and complementary research paths that emerged as relevant in each of the two contexts analyzed, the Municipality of Visso and that of Ussita. In Visso, the inaccessibility of the historic center, which is still in the Red Zone after more than 5 years, raises strong questions about reconstruction and forces, in the present, an urban reconfiguration that is not without critical issues for the inhabitants. Instead, in Ussita, the issue of tourism proves central to public discourse, with different visions of the territory and its development intertwining and conflicting.