Workshop: The Politics of Dirt: Garbage, Decorum, and Urban Exclusion from Modernity to Today
British School at Rome
Via Antonio Gramsci 61
Roma
Data evento
20 March 2026
Workshop: The Politics of Dirt: Garbage, Decorum, and Urban Exclusion from Modernity to Today a cura di Francesca Piazzoni e Dario Pasquini
“The Politics of Dirt” seminar investigates how these logics became naturalised across Italian cities, predominantly after 1870. Presentations by scholars at different stages of their career will trace the history and present-day dynamics of the urban management of “dirt,” widely understood as the socially constructed boundary-marker through which societies sort bodies, behaviours, and materials into “pure” and “impure.” Interdisciplinary conversations will explore how these classificatory regimes shaped labour, citizenship, and belonging, and how their legacies continue to structure contemporary Italy.