1st Edition

Inhabiting Liminal Spaces Informalities in Governance, Housing, and Economic Activity in Contemporary Italy

By Isabella Clough Marinaro Copyright 2022
232 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

232 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

232 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book draws together debates from two burgeoning fields, liminality and informality studies, to analyze how dynamics of rule-bending take shape in Rome today. Adopting a multiscalar and transdisciplinary approach, it unpacks how gaps and contradictions in institutional rulemaking and application force many residents into protracted liminal states marked by intense vulnerability. By merging a... Read more

Introduction. Rome: The Informal City

Chapter 1. Tracing Informalities Across Scales and Fields

Chapter 2. Residing in Liminality: Housing Informalities and the Public Sector

Chapter 3. Liminality on the Street: The Shifting Rules of (In)formal Vending

Chapter 4. Informal Lending: The Challenges of Financial Liminality

Chapter 5. Garbage: Managing Liminal Matter through Multi-layered Informalities

Chapter 6. When in Rome: Mapping Romans’ Attitudes and Understandings of Informal Practices

Paola Castelli and Isabella Clough Marinaro

Conclusion

Biography

Isabella Clough Marinaro is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at John Cabot University, Italy, where she teaches courses in sociology, urban studies, criminology, and social science research methods. She worked for many years on the political and social conditions of Roma communities in Italy and the policy processes affecting them. Her current research focuses on urban development and governance in Rome, particularly in their interconnections with changing forms of illegal and informal practices. She is the co-editor of Italian Mafias Today: Territory, Business and Politics and Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City.

"This book is a rare and successful blend of ethnographic thickness and conceptual depth. The fascinating case study of economy and governance in the city of Rome is elevated to a more general discussion of informality and liminality in the economic, political and cultural fields that will be of interest to scholars across a wide range of fields, including sociology, urban studies, economic and political anthropology and Italian studies."

Bjørn Thomassen, Roskilde University, Denmark