Exclusion in the City Space: the Italian Experience

Abstract

This article draws attention to the problems of exclusion and building frontiers in urban space. At the same time, the focus of the study is concentrated on the systematic nature of the formation of cultural exclusion zones at different time intervals in the history and culture of the Apennine Peninsula, that is, on the territory of the modern Italy. The reflection of exclusion in the city, which occurs throughout the urban history of Italy, is reflected and fixed in the history of Italian culture and art and in the phenomena of building physical and symbolic boundaries, marginalization and appropriation of space associated with this phenomenon. This work is intended to prove the need to transform the erroneous position that exclusion is characteristic only of a modern city, a megapolis as a product of globalization, while the exclusion of an individual in an urban environment and the development of urban civilization are two interrelated and simultaneous processes that are developing over the centuries. Taking into account the affects and experience of fixing exclusion in the urban cultural spaces of the Apennine Peninsula, the author comes to the conclusion that the history of urban culture fixes the presence of exclusion, which is characteristic of the individual living in the urban space from the very moment the city appeared and the corresponding subject-centric urban culture, the existence in which unfolds in the space of subordination, overcoming borders or resistance to the social order it gives rise to. All of these factors also affect the identity of the subject of urban everyday life. Italy, traditionally understood as the cradle of civilization and world culture, provides one of the most representative experiences of building, fixing, reflecting and experiencing exclusion in the urban environment due to the evolutionary process of changing and crossing different cultures.