Speaker
Description
Prisons are a space of contemporary periphery neglected and stigmatised in many parts of the world and, in particular, in southern Europe and Italy (Vessella, 2017). Prison architectures are 'introverted' structures (Milhaud, 2017; Moran et Al., 2017); they are often situated in the middle of nowhere and isolated from infrastructural networks and urban and social metabolisms (Infussi, 2020). In this way, they contribute to the production of disconnected, inaccessible peripheries that appear as a patchwork of modern city rejects located in in-between areas - the Zwischenstadt (Sieverts, 2003). Clouded by the rhetoric of glossy urban regeneration, urban policies deliberately ignore the problems generated by these awkward structures in space and the enormous social and infrastructural impact that the activities in and around prisons generate in the urban fabric.
This paper addresses this issue and presents an ongoing project/process of peripheral regeneration that underlines the urgent need to rethink the centre-periphery divide/narrative and the relationship between prison and the city (which also implies restoring citizenship rights to prisoners, families, the prison police, and the population that rotates around the prison). The main goal is then to convert the area where the prisons of Florence exist into a peripheral centrality that triggers a process of social, economic, spatial and human regeneration.
Above all, the project offers an opportunity to rethink the periphery as a place of social, economic, and political rebirth. While doing so, it shows how powerful a different narrative of old problems (generated by destructive narratives and planning practices) is, such as periphery, peripheral prison areas, abandoned and vacant lands, etc.
The project/process is described under three lenses: (1) social inclusion in contexts of suffering, (2) spatial justice, and (3) territorial well-being which include urban health, care, and ecological conversion.
The methodology is based on participatory design and the social inclusion of institutional and non-institutional actors. The paper also decribes paper the institutional decision-making process for addressing and implementing the project.
References
Infussi, F. (2020), Per restituire il carcere alla città. In Di Franco A., Bozzuto P. (eds), Lo spazio di relazione nel carcere. Siracusa: Lettera Ventidue, pp. 79-115, Milhaud, O. (2017) Séparere et punir. Une géographie des prisons francaises. Paris: CNRS Editions. Moran, D. & Schliehe, A. (eds) (2017) Carceral Spatiality: Dialogues between Geography and Criminology. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sieverts, T. (2003) Cities without Cities: An Interpretation of the Zwischenstadt. London: Routledge. Vessella, L. (2017) Prison, architecture and social growth: prison as an active component of the contemporary city Plan Journal: research in architecture & urbanism, 2(1).
| Keywords | Inclusion, Prison, Pheripery, Participatory design, Narratives, Urban future |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
