Political ecology of health in the Land of Fires: a hotspot of environmental crimes in the south of Italy

Arif Gündoğan,Giacomo D'Alisa

doi:10.2458/v24i1.20782

Arif Gündoğan, Giacomo D'Alisa

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.2458/v24i1.20782

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Abstract

Abstract Environmental crimes, if they are perceived as victimless, have not received the appropriate governmental response and have been frequently ranked low on the law enforcement priority list, punished with lenient or no administrative sanctions. This has contributed to an underestimation of the immediate consequences of environmental crimes, which can go undetected for lengthy periods. On the contrary, the mismanagement and illegal trafficking of waste in the Land of Fires, an area in the Campania region in the South of Italy, has been experienced as a 'victimful' crime. Using a political ecology of health approach, and integrating qualitative and quantitative methods, we investigate how the perception of being a victim of waste-related environmental crimes has been magnified by evidence of serious disease outcomes. Health concerns have become a central issue in the resurgence of grassroots movements against waste mismanagement in Campania. Keywords: Environmental crime, political ecology of health, waste conflict, Campania

Highlights

The questionnaire ended but the conversation did not
The interviewee's words were an indirect validation of the usefulness of pursuing this research: why have health issues become a central argument in the resurgence of grassroots movements against waste mismanagement in Campania? In 2012, the social coalition called Stop Biocide was formed by three main groupings of associations: Fires Coordination Committees, Campania Citizens for an Alternative Waste Management Plan, and Commons Net
4 The surface area of the Metropolitan City of Naples is smaller than the Municipality of Rome (1,285 km2). 5 http://www.statistica.regione.campania.it/ 6 http://dati-censimentopopolazione.istat.it/?lang=it that investigate waste trafficking, and some of the extensive grey literature on LoF

Summary

Introduction

I was telling an interviewee that since 2007, I (D'Alisa) have been studying and researching in Barcelona, Spain, I grew up in the same town in Italy where she lives The interviewee's words were an indirect validation of the usefulness of pursuing this research: why have health issues become a central argument in the resurgence of grassroots movements against waste mismanagement in Campania? In 2012, the social coalition called Stop Biocide was formed by three main groupings of associations: Fires Coordination Committees, Campania Citizens for an Alternative Waste Management Plan, and Commons Net. The interviewee's words were an indirect validation of the usefulness of pursuing this research: why have health issues become a central argument in the resurgence of grassroots movements against waste mismanagement in Campania? They fight for: 1) a better management of urban waste; 2) the remediation of the thousands of contaminated sites in the region; 3) the halting of illegal waste trafficking, and, last but not least, 4) the implementation of a systematic health screening of the Campania population affected by illegal dumping of toxic waste

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