Ethics at work: Diverse economies and place-making in the historical centre of Taranto,Italy

Abstract

Chinese

The paper examines five economic activities in the historical centre of Taranto, Italy and discusses how they impact upon the urban pattern. It is argued that meanings people ascribe to their work go beyond economic rationality, carrying identity, pleasure and ethical values. In fact, in the observed context, work becomes a tool for bottom-up urban regeneration, thus building urban identity and contributing to an imagining of the future city. Based on empirical case study analyses of economic activities in the sphere of culture and creativity, this paper investigates the different meanings of work and explores how the observed working practices represent actions of place-making and resistance to hegemonic forces that jeopardise the local community in the neighbourhood.

Keywords

community culture/arts/creativity diverse economies employment/labour neighbourhood place-making public space

Introduction

In recent years, increasing interest has been directed towards diverse economies, community entrepreneurship and social innovation: a large body of academic literature as well as policy papers and newspaper articles have brought to our attention the rise in practices moving across the economic and social realm, aimed at empowering people, solving social problems and seeking a better society. Examples include microfinance, the provision of social services, popular education, neighbourhood cultural initiatives, local communities’ businesses and so on. This paper addresses this topic through an empirical analysis of several economic activities carried out in the historical centre of Taranto, southern Italy. These pursuits include a cultural association giving new life to a deconsecrated church, a design studio, a co-working space, a team of craftswomen and an association restoring wooden sailboats. The paper’s hypothesis is that work has a rationality well beyond the economic, and that it represents an important element of an individual’s identity, a source of pleasure and ethical stance. Moreover, in the observed practices, work is also a tool for building an open and relational urban space.

This paper explores in depth the meanings these practices have for the actors who carry them out and highlights their impact on the urban space, with reference to the wider context of Southern European cities. Accordingly, I mobilise two theoretical frameworks. The first allows me to observe these practices as work activities, exploring their instrumental as well as ethical meanings (Chandler, 2016; Couldry and Littler, 2011; Ekinsmyth, 2011; Gill and Pratt, 2008; McRobbie, 2016; Nixon and Crewe, 2004; Taylor, 2015) in connection with the concept of diverse economies (Gibson-Graham, 2008). The second brings me to understand the impact of the practices on the urban space – both its actual use and its idea and imagining – deploying the concept of place-making developed within critical urban studies (Brenner, 2009; Degen, 2017; McFarlane, 2018; Massey, 2005; Mbaye and Dinardi, 2019; Zilberstein, 2019).

Imagining and building an urban future is a crucial issue in Taranto. The city is home to one of the largest steel plants in Europe, which was established in 1960 as a national development strategy for southern Italy. Nevertheless, Taranto is facing a difficult economic crisis, which is accompanied by grave environmental conditions generated by very high levels of pollution from steelworks and other heavy industrial structures (Leogrande, 2013). Furthermore, as a result of both the transformation of the global economy and the closure of a series of blast furnaces declared unusable, employment – directly and indirectly linked to the large factory – suffered a sharp decline, with an alarming youth unemployment rate: in 2014, more than one in two young people were unemployed (OECD, 2016). This trajectory of structural decline is both the result and the cause of a strong path dependency (Greco and Di Fabbio, 2014), which makes the city less resilient and therefore incapable of withstanding external shocks. Subsequently, there has been an amplification of problems related to employment crises and environmental degradation. Moreover, the population of the city has been declining. The number of residents in 1981 was 228,841, which decreased to just 201,100 in 2016.¹ Taranto has followed a trajectory common to many Southern European cities, such as several in Spain, Portugal and Italy where the North–South divide has been tackled. This was attempted between the 1950s and the 1970s with investments in heavy industry, which, in the long term, have been unable to trigger local development and today leave these places facing the difficult path of reconversion. The main and most common issues faced in these contexts are high unemployment rates, especially in young cohorts; income poverty; lack of a specialised labour pool; and uneven local geographical development (Alves et al., 2016; Bonavero et al., 2018; Casavola and Trigilia, 2012; Chiarello and Greco, 2010; García, 2010; Martí-Costa and Tomàs, 2017; Simonazzi and Ginzburg, 2015).

The activities explored in this paper are located in the historical centre of Taranto, simply called ‘Old Town’ by its inhabitants, which shows even more dramatic features of decline than the city itself. Notwithstanding its supposedly historical value, being founded on an isthmus (later made into an island by an artificial canal) by Greeks in the 7th century bc and then rebuilt throughout history, it is only a couple of kilometres away from the steel plant. Additionally, it has undergone extensive physical degradation of its ancient buildings and urban structures, thus leading to a serious socio-urban emergency. This physical decay is accompanied on a social level by rampant petty crime and widespread social unease. The neighbourhood’s condition can be described as paradoxical: its disrepair can be perceived in its many crumbling palaces, inaccessible blocs and shored-up buildings; in contrast, there is a great deal of focus on the city in public discourse, with many public resources allocated by the State without any spending programme. Moreover, some international private groups have shown interest in some areas of the city, although there have been no real interventions of urban regeneration (OECD, 2016; Sonda, 2016).

This paper is structured as follows. The main theoretical frameworks are introduced, followed by a presentation of the research design and methodology. Case studies descriptions, their interpretation and analysis represent the core of the paper. The penultimate section discusses their consequences for the urban environment, and the conclusions propose new avenues for research.

Theoretical coordinates

Work ethics and meanings

To shed light on the observed case studies, I discuss several conceptualisations of work, changing workscapes and their meanings. In particular, I am interested in defining theoretical tools to explore the values of work that go beyond the economic. Accordingly, I look at three main directions within the debate on transformations of work. These are the relation between work and identity; the hedonistic sphere of work; and the ethics connected to work, particularly those referring to local communities and their wellbeing.

First, work has always been important in a person’s life, not only for obvious material reasons but also because it aids in forging identity, in spite of flexibilisation, digitalisation, new forms of employment contracts or temporal arrangements (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1994; McDowell, 2004). Work represents an even more important source of one’s identity (Couldry and Littler, 2011; Gandini, 2016; Kalleberg and Vallas, 2017; Vallas and Christin, 2018) when workers find themselves with changing professional roles (Sennett, 2008). Within the cultural and creative industries, where the individualisation process of work is particularly visible, professional life and identity blur with personal ones, as work encompasses a person’s individual talent (Blair, 2001; Florida, 2005) and even the sphere of entertainment and ‘club culture’ (McRobbie, 2002) or domestic work (Ekinsmyth, 2011; Taylor, 2015).

Second, in a socioeconomic system where work is predominantly precarious, the prominence of the moral and hedonistic sphere of personal satisfaction over instrumental and economic value is rewarded and encouraged. A stream of the debate concentrates on the pleasure derived from that work, particularly within the sphere of crafts, where one can (re)discover the gratification of making things with one’s hands (Grodach et al., 2017; Jakob, 2013; Luckman, 2015; Sennett, 2008).

The hedonistic sphere of work is also connected with an ethics and rhetoric of passion. Passion is one of the most common elements of the narrative around work, one which workers have or are expected to have and that is, in many cases, the motivation behind the labour and the dedication of workers and entrepreneurs (Gill and Pratt, 2008; McRobbie, 1998; Taylor, 2015).

Finally, there is an ethical dimension of work, where the economic action is oriented towards the satisfaction of values (sustainability, revaluation of cultures and know-how, community-building, etc.) rather than the satisfaction of needs (Arvidsson and Peitersen, 2013). Particularly crucial for my understanding of the observed case studies are those economic practices holding a social scope beyond the purely instrumental, labelled community enterprises (Bailey, 2012; McArthur, 1993; Peredo and Chrisman, 2006; Reuschke et al., 2017), social economy (Amin et al., 2003) and socially innovative practices (Moulaert et al., 2005, 2013), which can be grouped under the broad category of diverse economies (Gibson-Graham, 2006, 2008; Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2009). In this paper, I focus on the extra-economic logic of work and economic action, following Gibson-Graham’s concept of diverse economies. In this regard, they state the following:

We are arguing that the diverse economy framing opens up opportunities for elaborating a radically heterogeneous economy and theorizing economic dynamics that foster and strengthen different economies. It also provides a representation of an existing economic world waiting to be selectively (re)performed. (Gibson-Graham, 2008: 618)

In their theoretical and political proposal, Gibson-Graham argued that it is necessary to build anti-capitalist imagery by researching, valuing and practising different economies – a diverse set of economic practices sharing a number of features. These are characterised by the common management of resources, based on the construction of reciprocal bonds and nourished through non-economic exchanges. In general, they aim to build spaces of autonomy in relation to the (hegemonic) logic of global capitalism. Diverse economies do not necessarily have to ‘make economy’; they can have a different rationality.

Our interest in building new worlds involves making credible those diverse practices that satisfy needs, regulate consumption, generate surplus, and maintain and expand the commons, so that community economies in which interdependence between people and environments is ethically negotiated can be recognised now and constructed in the future. (Gibson-Graham, 2008: 623)

In summary, work and economic action are observed here as an important constituency of workers’ identity, a source of pleasure and passion, and a way to satisfy community-based values.

Other economies and place-making

Within the debate on diverse economies, special consideration is given to space, particularly urban space (McFarlane, 2018; Mbaye and Dinardi, 2019), where community-based projects and community businesses are observed as initiatives directed to meet local needs, such as creating jobs, providing basic banking services (McArthur et al., 1993), rehabilitating and providing socially rented houses, and many more (Fontan et al., 2009; Garcia and Haddock, 2016; Weinzierl et al., 2016).

With this contribution, I focus on those kinds of community-based economic and socially innovative practices in urban neighbourhoods that, from the perspective of diverse economies, do not make economies but make places. The process of place-making is framed through bottom-up actions intervening on the urban space regardless of – and often against – traditional local institutions (Brenner et al., 2012; Chatterton et al., 2018; Degen, 2017).

Here, I intend to present place-making as the use, conception and representation of the urban space based on actors’ values, goals, interests and identities (Degen, 2017; Zilberstein, 2019). Space is conceived as intrinsically relational, heterogeneous and not static (Massey, 2005). First, ‘space concerns our relations with each other and in fact social space […] is a product of our relations with each other, our connections with each other’.² Second, space represents ‘the sphere of possibility of the existence of multiplicity’ (Massey, 2005: 10–11) where the other’s subjectivity recognition and the relation with the other is an essential element and relations have to be understood as embedded practices. Third, space is always in process, meaning that it takes various and plural trajectories and not linear or granted pathways.

Thinking of space that way allows for the development of a critical understanding of place-making as it makes revealing power relations possible (Brenner, 2009). Place-making, as an embedded practice of producing space, is always a political action (Dell’Agnese, 2012) as it produces relations, therefore intervening in the geometries of power.

Power is visible, for instance, in the extent to which one hegemonic subjectivity impedes the expression of others, or when a specific trajectory of transformation is imposed on others. Furthermore, place-making can also be an attempt to rebalance power. In the extent to which space is understood as the place of ‘throwntogetherness’ (Massey, 2005: 152), there is a need for regulation and negotiations; or, in the presence of a hegemonic force that prevails, forms of resistance might emerge. For example, this is the case of el Raval in Barcelona, where the global forces of urban regeneration have been (partly) destabilised by multiple social groups and their varying everyday practices (Degen, 2017).

Within such theoretical frameworks, this paper aims to explore how work and economic activities are mobilised in order to resist the hegemonic forces transforming the urban space of Old Town in Taranto.

Following a discussion on the methodology and research design implemented in the fieldwork, the five activities will be described and then observed through the lenses of the above-mentioned theoretical frameworks. First, their meanings will be sought in the work realm. Second, to explore their impact on the urban context, these practices will be discussed as place-making diverse economies.

Research methods and design

The research is based on qualitative and ethnographic fieldwork conducted by observing life in the historical centre (Old Town) of Taranto. This also includes participant observations of relevant events and in-depth, long interviews using a case-studies perspective. Between the summer of 2017 and the end of 2018, I visited Old Town in different periods; moreover, I lived there and observed people working, participating and engaging in events.

The research design was constructed with a case studies approach, as the field required in-depth knowledge of the context of the local people and their activities. In fact, such an approach retains a holistic and real-world perspective, allowing examination of a case within its ‘real-life’ context (Yin, 1981). While I was well-aware of the risks and problems related to this approach (Tight, 2010; Yin, 1981), the case studies method was chosen in order to examine critical cases – not, obviously, to generalise results; and it allows me to shed light on a particular situation, thus corroborating a hypothesis and understanding the issue further (Ridder, 2017).

The choice of the five case studies has been processual and a research result in itself. The observed practices are carried out by a community of practitioners who maintain contacts with each other and often collaborate. When I first visited Old Town, I was introduced to some of these practitioners who, in turn, introduced me to others and so on. Moreover, I conducted interviews with experts (see Table 1) who either suggested one of these case studies or approved chosen ones. Case studies were selected based on their locations in Old Town or nearby, and because they were always active.

Table 1.

List of interviewees.

Initials	Gender	Organisation	Role
Experts
FM	Male	OECD	Expert on the local context
GL	Male	Taranto municipal council	Local politician
RC	Male	(formerly) Apulia Region	Policymaker implementing regional policies^a for youth
Practitioners
CS	Female	Ammostro	Goldsmith
CA	Female	Ammostro	Leather and textile worker
SC	Female	Ammostro	Graphic designer
MM	Female	Ammostro	Costume designer
GF	Male	Bordo	Owner/designer
GM	Female	Bordo	Owner/designer
ML	Male	Coworking Ulmo	Owner
TU	Female	Coworking Ulmo	Owner/manager
IC	Female	Coworking Ulmo	Co-worker
GB	Male	Domus Armenorum	President of the association
AC	Male	Domus Armenorum	Active member of the association
FS	Male	Officina Maremosso	President of the association

Note: ^aRegional youth policies had an especially important role in practical (as main sources of finance) and symbolic terms for many of these economic activities (Coppola and d’Ovidio, 2018).

In addition to the observations, I conducted interviews with 12 practitioners (see Table 1) who hold important roles in relation to these activities (e.g. owners, active members, presidents of associations, etc.). This group comprised five males and seven females, between 30 and 40 years old. Notably, most of them (nine) had a university degree and professional experiences developed outside Taranto, which allowed them to develop an articulated social network that spans Europe and Latin America.

Consistent with the case studies analysis, the interviews were unstructured, based on in-depth narratives and stories of interviewees’ professional life (Bertaux and Kohli, 1984). Hence, the first question was: ‘I would like you to talk about your professional life, starting when you prefer’, to be sure that the interviewees would talk about what constitutes professional life for them (Murgia, 2014; Riessman, 2008). I then led the interviewees in the various focused dimensions. All the interviews were directly conducted by me, recorded electronically and transcribed.³ Finally, I collected written documents such as press articles and academic papers written by members of associations, presentations of projects for public calls, reports, etc. that were related to the observed practices.

Case studies description

The five case studies are as follows: Domus Armenorum, a cultural association; Bordo, a design studio; Coworking Ulmo, a co-working space; Ammostro, a craft workshop; and Officina Mare Mosso, an association restoring old wooden sailboats.

Domus Armenorum

One of the first nights I was in Old Town, I was invited to a reading of Romanian poems which were simultaneously translated into Italian. This took place in a small, deconsecrated church, a mediaeval building that was renovated thanks to a combination of public (regional) and church funding, along with voluntary work. The event was organised by Domus Armenorum, an association that manages the church (e.g. putting on events, making it available to others, etc.) and transformed it into a tourist attraction through a community-engagement project. Using a Quick Response (QR) code, tourists are directed to a website where they can find phone numbers of locals who hold the church’s keys and are available to open it. Although formally it is an association, it represents one of the main sources of income for its president and some associates, as well as one of the most time-consuming activities in their daily lives.

Bordo

Close to the above-mentioned church, there is a small courtyard, the door of which is always open. Here there is a small design studio, Bordo, whose core business focuses on self-building projects, social design and communication projects that address not-for-profit organisations and mainly cultural endeavours. The owners are two designers (a man and a woman) who had both studied and worked in northern Italy. Together with two architects based in Milan, they also organise cultural events and public conferences focusing on an ongoing discussion about Taranto – particularly about the regeneration of Old Town.

Coworking Ulmo

Walking on the main street in the historical centre of Taranto, one does not see many shops, cafés or boutiques. These activities are located in the main streets of the modern (late 19th century) part of the city, far from the Old Town island. Instead, there are many historical palaces from the 18th century, together with crumbling houses, some informal shops (namely people selling goods from their homes), associations, churches and public offices (Coppola and d’Ovidio, 2018). One of these historical palaces is the location of a co-working space that was hosting – at the time of my first visit – a fashion designer making theatre costumes, a jeweller using recycled material and a musician. The building was bought by four friends at a very low price because the former owners were unable to keep it; moreover, it was at risk of structural collapse. The renovation of the building was accomplished by a larger group of people living in Old Town. They worked for free as they were interested in giving back the building to the city; consequently, they were offered use of the underground space (which is very large) as a site for events. When I was there, it hosted a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) party and the screenings of a number of independent films and documentaries.

Ammostro

One needs to cross a bridge and leave the Old Town island to reach the fourth and fifth cases. Leaving the island, the urban landscape changes and, moving towards the north (where the industrial area is located), there are warehouses, small, abandoned workshops and some empty buildings. One of these former warehouses, which is now renovated, is the location of Ammostro, a workshop managed by a group of six young women specialising in different crafts – jewellery, tailoring, leather, graphics – and managing together a silkscreen printing lab. Except for two of them, they are not originally from Taranto and come from other Italian regions. They met in 2014, being involved in a project carried out within regional youth policies, and in 2015 they won a regional grant to start their joint project. In 2017, they won a second grant, giving them the opportunity to enlarge their workshop. Their key idea is to engage with the local context by integrating their work with elements of local communities such as nature, traditions, culture, etc.

Officina Mare Mosso

Occupying the adjacent twin warehouse to the previous case study, Officina Mare Mosso is a workshop managed by an association of four men aiming to restore ancient wooden sailboats through the recovery of traditional skills and labour. The association, similar to the previous one, won a grant from regional funds that allows them to buy an old sailboat and rent the warehouse. As in other cases, although their legal form is of an association, the activity represents the main occupation – in terms of income and time – of its president. Besides restoring sailboats, the project aims to contribute to the possible cultural, economic and environmental transformation of Taranto through models of sustainable and inclusive touristic development, such as ecologically minded sea tours and a floating library for children.

It is clear that in the context of the Old Town, the actors involved in these activities represent a kind of social and cultural elite, as the majority of the inhabitants are scarcely educated, living at the edge of the formal economy and in precarious situations. The five practices represent an unusual presence, basically the unique sign of a contemporary creativity-driven, symbolic urban economy. These actors are also characterised by the fact that they were involved, in different periods, in regional-founded initiatives for supporting young entrepreneurialism and received direct or indirect regional funds for their current activities, which are also crucial in terms of their shared values and missions (Coppola and d’Ovidio, 2018).

‘Our work is an excuse to build social relations’: The meanings and ethics of work in Old Town

To interpret the meanings and impacts of the observed activities, I will refer to the theoretical frameworks presented above and build the analysis across several dimensions. The building of workers’ (professional) identity and their self-narrative as professionals; the content and the pleasure tied with their work; its social scope; and the ethics related to work.

Instrumental value of work and identity

When asked to talk about their professional activities, the interviewees gave little importance to the instrumental value of work. As a matter of fact, they did not earn a lot through their job, as professional opportunities are scarce and the structural economic conditions hinder the development of a successful creative and cultural economy – a fact that was very obvious to the interviewees.

This is particularly clear in the history of those who decided to move to the city of Taranto after gaining work experience elsewhere. Interestingly, they emphasised the peculiarity of their decision, as many young people tend to leave the city, not come back, with the exact reason being the lack of opportunities.

I had a good professional network in Rome, but I decided anyhow to come back to Taranto; I was conscious of the scarce professional opportunities in town. (FS)

In the region, the cost of living is low and daily life does not always require monetary exchanges. For instance, food is usually cheap, and vegetables and fruits are grown in parents’ or relatives’ gardens; going out with friends means visiting their homes as the entertainment offerings are not rich. Moreover, the interviewees often rely on family welfare even in adulthood, even after leaving their parents’ house, or for a long time after finishing their studies.

Remarkably, even when talking about their professional life, the interviewees often made reference to unpaid and voluntary work, the content of which reflects their profession and which is carried out (even full-time) regardless of its economic value. Notably, voluntary work is even referenced in official documents:

The association also intends, voluntarily and at its own expense, to set up a self-construction workshop. (Proposal for a grant for restauration and management of the aforementioned church)

The reference to unpaid work is very much related to self-narration as professionals. Notwithstanding the low income generated, work seems very important for the building of the interviewees’ identities. In fact, they present themselves as professionals, such as craftspeople, architects, designers, touristic operators, art historians, etc. Their professional identity is the foundational element of their career as much as the instrumental element, while their generated income appears scarce and minimal. Although they live in a situation of extreme economic and working precariousness, their professional identity is noticeably clear. In their self-reflection on their biography, work – independently of its instrumental function – plays a significant role and is still very important for identity.

In an interview with GF, he starts by saying, ‘I am a designer’. Navigating through the history of his professional career, he underlines the many projects he is part of where he utilises his professional skills not only as a designer but also as a consultant, teacher or craftsperson while never using these terms. At the end he claims:

You see, I said I am a designer as a provocation, as I studied as such, but then I did many other things. But yes, … [laughing] I am a designer. (GF)

The owners of the workshop Ammostro define themselves as ‘craftswomen’, a word that is conjugated in the feminine, which in Italian is very uncommon. This was also done, as they explained to me without any hesitation at the very beginning of their projects, when they were still unsure which field they could operate in (e.g. educational activities, social promotion, etc.). Since they have always been interested in communicating the value of crafts, their identity as craftswomen is extremely clear.

Working with hands and passion

Another important element that leads to an understanding of the meaning of work for the interviewees is the content and the practice of labour, which is described as always involving using their hands. This reflects the ethics of manual work, which is the opposite of both a desk job and the ‘creative-class job’ typically found in global (northern) cities. While talking about their work and their professional history, the interviewees emphasised the circumstances when they would build actual things or when they were involved in projects leading to physical regeneration and urban renovation. For instance, the owners of the co-working space stressed the importance of the recovery and restoration of the building; the designers of Bordo are involved mainly in (self)-building practices and projects; the craftswomen of Ammostro when they organise educational projects or meetings with the local community also emphasise the act of making physical objects.

The making is also connected to the pleasure of creating and, not surprisingly, the general pleasure gained by such work is presented as a fundamental reason for the work itself. During the many talks I had with people involved in these projects, the passion and the happiness they felt while they worked was clearly visible.

Additionally, the passion for work is not only derived from the pleasure of making but also mostly from the consciousness of the ‘diversity’ of their economies. This occurs when they reflect on the goals and results of their work, since it is understood not as an end in itself but as a tool for higher goals. The instances of this acknowledgement are particularly visible in its absence when the interviewees talk about work with no other end but income. Mentioning paid professional projects, an interviewee claims ‘it is only work’ (GF); another one recalled the work he did as an architect in Rome as a difficult life, dominated by ‘work and nothing more’ (FS). Similarly, a craftswoman talked about her previous work in Florence as something bringing stress, as it was too much labour for its own sake and, mostly, ‘it wasn’t centred on people and relation’ (CS).

Work ethics

This brings into question which kinds of ethics rule the work, if instrumental or economic logic is not dominant. The ethics of work are to be found in several different but connected thematic features.

A crucial and central topic is represented by the creation and fostering of social relations amongst people, as work is a tool or ‘an excuse to build social relations’ (CS).

The enhancement of one cultural asset [of Old Town], the church, understood in its broader and inclusive dimension of social good, must go in the direction of an integrated system of values and relationships. […] Real competitive advantage to increase the island’s tourist appeal and strengthen social cohesion. (GB)

Furthermore, the positive attitude towards manual work and the making of physical things is strongly connected to the goal of revaluation and (re)appropriation of the ‘know-how’ of ancient and traditional crafts.

Craftsmanship becomes an excuse to tell a story […], which has to do with the relationships with people […] so when you show the product, you explain it, one understands that there is something behind it. (CA)

I was inspired by existing projects to think about a reconciliation between the people of Taranto and the sea. I thought of a rapprochement between young people and the crafts related to sailing, especially carpentry craft work. (FS)

This is also visible in the relationship that the interviewees have with the market economy. Voluntary work must not necessarily be interpreted as part of a larger solidarity economy but it is more related to its ethical scope. The vast majority of these projects are financed through public calls and public grants, which, in fact, appear crucial for them (Coppola and d’Ovidio, 2018) and a key dimension not only for structural reasons but because it shows how work is so deeply intertwined with ethics that, in the mind of the interviewees, it does not require payment. For instance, an interviewee claims, ‘we want to make culture, and culture has a higher value; therefore, you do not ask money for culture’ (CS).

Finally, work has an important value in the urban regeneration process of the neighbourhood, as will be shown in the next section.

Urban regeneration, resistance and place-making

The aim of urban regeneration is very explicit in many of the projects, not only when a building has been recovered and given back to the community, as in the case of the church or the ancient palace hosting the co-working space. One of the designers from Bordo, for instance, recognises this by stating the following:

… need of urban regeneration in order to repair the social fabric and to create a recognisable space, as a public and aggregating space. (GM)

The presence itself of these workers in the neighbourhood is an act of urban regeneration. Accordingly, GF tends to have long and frequent walks in the neighbourhood when he lingers over talking with people on the street, thus creating strong links with the local community. In so doing, he marks his presence in the neighbourhood and he shows that the design studio is indeed connected to the neighbourhood and part of the community – nevertheless, it represents a peculiarity in the local context. The design studio Bordo also organises events, together with members of other associations, to refurbish public spaces with street furniture, urban public elements, etc.

When asked about their activities, the co-working owners told me about the whole process of redeveloping not only the building itself but also the entire urban area where the building is located.

We started a set of reflections on the opportunity to share projects with the beneficiaries [the inhabitants of Old Town], and therefore we brought to light a series of needs, first of all to redevelop the degraded space in front of the construction site [the restructuring of the ancient palace where the co-working space is located], to slowly mend the urban fabric and to create a space of aggregation and socialisation recognisable to everybody. (ML)

In addition to the co-working space, the building is available for people living in the neighbourhood as the underground space is often used for cultural and entertainment activities. It is also devoted to cultural minorities (LGBT communities, migrants, etc.) who could not easily find other places in the town.

In their own words, interviewees present their work as engaging with the regeneration of the neighbourhood in defence of the local community against decline. The preservation of the palace where the co-working space is located was made in order to ‘defend the neighbourhood from decline’ (ML). Simply having the studio located in the neighbourhood – possibly with the open door onto the street – represents ‘a public declaration that we are here, at disposal of Old Town’ (GF). Similarly, all the activities of the association managing the church revolve around the community and the neighbourhood.

… [in Old Town] surprisingly, there is a very strong vitality. We want to keep it, support it, and valorise the church as an asset for this community. (GB)

These activities might also be regarded as seeds of gentrification or as an appropriation of some kind of decadent urban atmosphere by the cultural elite (Harris, 2012). However, they are explicitly and purposely implemented as acts against gentrification, hegemonic culture or the removal of local, multiple subjectivities. These activities in fact aim to build open and relational spaces as an alternative to the hegemonic forces that presently or in the future will very likely impact the city. Notably, GF, talking about possible future scenario for the city, said:

Taranto is like Berlin, gentrification arrives and buys everything, then we will be displaced, leaving room for cool cafés and restaurants and tourists on Airbnb. (GF)

As a matter of fact, these work practices not only contrapose urban degradation and the physical collapse of buildings but also act against social disruption – and, to a certain extent, the inability of the state to propose urban regeneration policies. They also oppose a kind of top-down urban regeneration that could possibly lead to gentrification or touristification of the neighbourhood, similar to what has already happened in many historical centres of the region. Finally, their presence is also a way to prevent criminality (which already ‘occupies’ some blocks) operating in the whole neighbourhood. Possible dynamics of touristification, gentrification, real-estate speculation or, at the other end of the spectrum, degradation and criminality, put the neighbourhood at risk, transforming it into a hegemonic space (Mouffe, 2012). This area would be one where only a specific kind of people (e.g. middle class, tourists, criminals) are welcome and from where, as a result, both local communities and interviewees will be expelled. If this might seem to be a selfish reason for the interviewees to intervene in the urban space, their strong engagement with local society and the ethics driving their work lead us to interpret this behaviour as intrinsically directed as place-making (Massey, 2005), thus building an urban space that is not only relational but also heterogeneous and not static; and they would contribute to imagining the future of the city, which is yet undefined. In fact, despite the promises of a deep renovation of the steel plant and an increase in production, the steel plant is still environmentally unsustainable and would undergo a strong reduction in employment. On the other hand, the rhetoric and public discourses about the city narrate a future based upon culture, urban renewal and tourism. Accordingly, this is a discourse that is in partial contradiction with heavy manufacturing and that risks triggering a top-down transformation and displacement of the population. The action ofre-imagining an urban future is powerful as it builds a discourse upon an unexpected trajectory for the city, an action coherent with what Coppola expressed as ‘gateways of a truly counter-hegemonic, articulated perspective of socio-spatial change both at the local scale and across different scales’ (Coppola, 2018: 250). The observed activities therefore contribute to the building of an urban future and aim at an urban space able to accommodate many different subjectivities: a regenerated neighbourhood not built exclusively for tourism or for real estate speculation. In this way, these practices resisted the hegemonic logic of space and they re-imagined the urban future, building their action on a different trajectory for the neighbourhood and the city itself.

Conclusions

This paper examines five economic activities in the historic centre (Old Town) of Taranto, Italy and shows how they represent a powerful tool for bottom-up resistance, place-making and discourse on the future for the urban context. This result has been achieved by questioning the meanings and ethics of these work practices, whose economic rationality appears minimal. Notwithstanding the scarcity of generated income, workers implement these practices because they are an important source of professional identity, allowing them to (re)discover and preserve local cultural traditions and craft know-how. Work is also, and more importantly, imbued with ethics and is considered a tool for strengthening social relations, for urban regeneration and for resisting top-down transformative forces in the urban context. The observed practices are therefore interpreted as diverse economies that do not make (only) economies but make places. Moreover, they aim to build an urban space that is the site of relations, that accommodates different subjectivities and, finally, that is imagined as open towards multiple possibilities in the future.

A final point can be made, opening avenues for future research and reflections on bottom-up, socially innovative practices and new forms of work. It would also take into consideration Southern European cities as contexts that shape the practices themselves, their specific contents and aims, and their outcomes. Despite variations amongst them, Southern European cities, notably, are characterised by a particular kind of welfare regime, traditional family-based culture, patronage politics, informality, marginality to the global economy, multidimensional crisis and, lately, a sort of reliance on tourism as the only possible trigger for development (Chiodelli et al., 2018; Degen and García, 2012; Ferrera, 1996; Leontidou, 2010; Mingione, 2000). Recently, the debate depicts the strengthening of civil society movements, carrying out instances of democratisation, re-appropriation of commons, new solidarity forms, socially innovative practices, social and solidarity economies as well as communities-based entrepreneurship (André et al., 2013; Blanco and León, 2017; d’Ovidio and Morató, 2017; d’Ovidio and Pradel, 2013; Eizaguirre et al., 2012; Giubilaro, 2018; Leontidou, 2010; Mayer and Rankin, 2002; Pradel-Miquel et al., 2020; Romeiro, 2017). The case of Taranto brings to light a number of issues that need to be considered for the building of a serious research agenda on ordinary Southern European cities (Robinson, 2006). It is imperative, for instance, to understand whether the rise of such practices, often crossing the border between the economic and social spheres, can be read as an answer to the multidimensional and structural crisis of contemporary neoliberalism; to examine if and to what extent formal institutional patterns overlap with informality; and to investigate the role of the welfare regime and the political context. This research agenda is urgent if we want to challenge the dominant trajectory of urban development and shed light on new urban imageries.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those in Taranto who shared with me their time, experiences, thoughts, dreams and houses. I also want to thank the editors of the special issue, Carol Ekinsmyth in particular, my colleagues and friends Anna Casaglia and Valentina Pacetti as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on previous versions of this manuscript. The paper is based on a research project funded by the Apulia Regional Programme, ‘Future in Research’ that I had the opportunity to carry out as staff member of the University of Bari: special thanks to the Department of Political Science and to the great colleagues I met there. All errors are my responsibility.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Cofinanced by the Development and Cohesion Fund 2007–2013 – APQ Ricerca Regione Puglia ‘Programma regionale a sostegno della specializzazione intelligente e della sostenibilità sociale ed ambientale – Future In Research’.

ORCID iD

Marianna d’Ovidio

Notes

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