A Small Slow and Street Approach to Research. Seeking justice in the risk landscapes of Gela, a Sicilian petrochemical town.

This thesis challenges the mainstream approach to research and planning in risk landscapes by proposing “a small, slow, street-approach” (SSS). Stemming from the definition of the landscape by the European Landscape Convention as “an area as perceived by people whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (Council of Europe 2000, 2), risk landscapes (or riskscapes) can be considered a privileged conceptual tool through which one can read the uncertain and unjust socio-ecological relationships due to the current risk society. Specifically, this thesis provides a re-signification of industrial risk as an emblematic example of slower-burning issues (Mah 2017) and slow disasters (Knowles 2014). Industrial risk and potential damage, such as toxicity and contamination, are never locationally limited and discrete – in terms of both time and space – but always invisibly and violently diffused into human and nonhuman communities living in and shaping landscapes. After a comparative analysis on the construction of risk knowledge, cross cutting political ecology, environmental humanities, and environmental justice studies, the failings of the current mainstream planning approach and legal frameworks on risk landscapes are found to occur because they are mainly based on techno-driven solutions, and quantitative, big, and objective data. As an alternative, the thesis proposes to build planning of riskscapes upon “a small slow street approach” (SSS). Small data have been defined (Privitera, Armiero, Gravagno 2021) as the ensemble of information – perhaps they might be called “stories”– embodied into the texture of life of human and non-human communities. Some of these stories are told by humans, e.g., the toxic autobiographies, some inscribed into the environment. Toxic autobiographies are stories produced by people who have encountered contamination during their lives (Armiero et al. 2019). These autobiographies regard the everyday relationship between human and non-human bodies with contamination (stench, pollution, waste, diffuse illnesses, and devastated landscapes) and seek to co-produce a counter-hegemonic narrative The differences between small and big data are epistemological, “ethical,” and methodological. While big data are recurring, generalised, impersonal, and fast, small data are discrete, specific, personal, and need time. While big data can be collected through technological devices, small data arise through “street science”, emotional and sensorial experience. Small data and toxic autobiographies enable the understanding of the unjust relationships of places transformation. SSS approach aims at “slowing down” science both epistemologically and methodologically. The first means that researchers should engage openly and honestly with the public, to develop a collective awareness and learning process on “matters of concern”. This leads to the second feature regarding the importance of conducting research by "paying attention" and taking time, in qualitative and relationship terms, more than in quantitative terms. Only by doing so can it be possible to catch street science and small data This work aims to argue that SSS is appropriate for a contaminated area with high and slow environmental risk at least for three reasons: (1) SSS intercepts the socio-economical-environmental connections underlying risk landscapes and their slow and diffuse transformations over time and space; (2) SSS leads to uncovering the power imbalance and the injustice shaping the landscapes, including humans and more-than-humans; (3) SSS is consistent with the epistemological current seeking to create an extended peer community that uses “extended facts”. To discuss the potentialities of a SSS approach in the planning field, the thesis presents the results of an empirical case study in Gela, a Sicilian town converted into one of the main Italian petrochemical poles in the 1960s by a multinational oil company. The author analyses Gela’s risk landscapes through the perceptions of citizens and their initiatives to tackle environmental injustices. The thesis analyses small data as entry points in four different fields: memories of injustice, memories of smell, trans-corporeal stories, and relational stories. The intense (slow and street) fieldwork has allowed the author to map the cartography of the diverse forms of environmentalism in Gela and to see the socio-ecological connections linking contamination, power, bodies, and memories in Gela's riskscape, revealing the inadequacy of the current Italian law, the used planning tools, and the quantitative approach that takes into consideration only discrete and punctual damages. Finally, the dissertation shows how SSS has potential for the coproduction to produce knowledge and for planning to enhance the collective reversion of unjust trajectories of development.