When all seemed lost. A social network analysis of the waste-related environmental movement in Campania, Italy

Abstract

The Italian region of Campania and its capital Naples have epitomized waste management failure in Europe since 2008 when international media covered extensively the waste crisis occurring there. In response to the crisis, the Italian national government took an authoritarian turn in waste policies and criminalized citizens' grievances and mobilizations against waste-facility siting in Campania. The state authorities' intervention gained popular consent and obscured the multifaceted and unjust geographies of waste management in the region. It was a serious blow for the waste-related justice movement in Campania. However, just when waste management seemed under control the movement re-emerged stronger and more effective than it had been prior to the 2008 crisis. Activists created a new counter narrative and liberated themselves from the constraints imposed by the repressive measures of the national government. They built a new frame around the unhealthy space, whose expansion, they maintained, was caused by the waste-related contamination. Yet the strength of the movement and its transformation following 2008 can only be fully understood when the structural property and the components of the EJ activists’ networks are also considered. We apply a Social Network Analysis to show how an effective environmental justice movement requires a cohesive and robust network as well as a comprehensive narrative. The waste-related movement in Campania went from being an archipelago of isolated clusters of organizations with a plural but fragmented claims (before 2008), to a tightly interconnected network supporting a unified political platform (after 2008). We link together the reframing of the movement around health issues with the reconfiguration of activist networks. We use the Campania case to show how environmental justice movements might overcome repression and criminalization and progress toward social justice and ecologically sound transformations.