The paper studies the embodied daily habits of the entrepreneurial class in the widespread suburban city (città diffusa) of the northeast Italian region, as such habits have been built up after the economic boom of the region, in the last decades. It’s the particular social behaviors and everyday spatial practices of this class, which define a particular place-based identity, through which one desires to be identified in the minds of the local community. The radical economical changes in the territory introduced a self-constructed middle class, which follows certain patterns of everyday gestures, behaviors and lifestyle, also manifested trough consumption preferences. It is interesting to understand how body language and certain spatial practices represent a testimony of social status and well-being achieved, and how the body and lifestyles convey emotional messages (eg, shame/pride/fear) to the public (local society/social media), which receives and decodes them. Our goal is to describe this class’s identity characteristics through the study of the body in relation to the space and to the local community, in order to interpret the social “product” of the economic boom in this territory. The research methodology proposed is a discussion between different narrative voices: literary and cinematographic narration (the so-called “non-conventional tools” of research) produced by local writers and cinematic directors and their interviews. Such tools, very rich and accurate in descriptions, can unveil information not obtainable by conventional tools of research, for the study of relationships between the individual, the space (private and public) and the everyday. This work has a threefold goal: to investigate the everyday practices of identity construction of the entrepreneurial-middle class in the territory under investigation, to highlight the importance of not-conventional tools in urban research and to understand the transformation of local identities as a “social product” of radical and sudden economical and spatial transformations.
From hard work to spritz rituals, in Hogan shoes: designing the socio-spatial profile of the entrepreneurial class of the Northeast Italian region’s widespread city (città diffusa) through non-conventional narrations
olga tzatzadaki
2021-01-01
Abstract
The paper studies the embodied daily habits of the entrepreneurial class in the widespread suburban city (città diffusa) of the northeast Italian region, as such habits have been built up after the economic boom of the region, in the last decades. It’s the particular social behaviors and everyday spatial practices of this class, which define a particular place-based identity, through which one desires to be identified in the minds of the local community. The radical economical changes in the territory introduced a self-constructed middle class, which follows certain patterns of everyday gestures, behaviors and lifestyle, also manifested trough consumption preferences. It is interesting to understand how body language and certain spatial practices represent a testimony of social status and well-being achieved, and how the body and lifestyles convey emotional messages (eg, shame/pride/fear) to the public (local society/social media), which receives and decodes them. Our goal is to describe this class’s identity characteristics through the study of the body in relation to the space and to the local community, in order to interpret the social “product” of the economic boom in this territory. The research methodology proposed is a discussion between different narrative voices: literary and cinematographic narration (the so-called “non-conventional tools” of research) produced by local writers and cinematic directors and their interviews. Such tools, very rich and accurate in descriptions, can unveil information not obtainable by conventional tools of research, for the study of relationships between the individual, the space (private and public) and the everyday. This work has a threefold goal: to investigate the everyday practices of identity construction of the entrepreneurial-middle class in the territory under investigation, to highlight the importance of not-conventional tools in urban research and to understand the transformation of local identities as a “social product” of radical and sudden economical and spatial transformations.
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