Symbolic and Material Transformations of a Roman Street: Aestheticization and Alternative Imaginaries of a Synecdochic Space

Abstract

Via Fanfulla da Lodi is a little street located in the neighbourhood of Pigneto (Rome), considered an emblem of roman gentrification. Sometimes “looking at changes of a street […], if in possession of the right glasses, allows you to have a window on the world” (Semi 2015: 47): the analysis of some recent transformations and daily dynamics related precisely to via Fanfulla da Lodi can reveal synecdochally the general mechanisms at play in the changing of the neighbourhood. The paper focuses on the layering of imaginaries related to via Fanfulla da Lodi, linked to a complex ensemble of images and values, and to often-conflictive representations. Starting from this specific case, the contribution brings into light the actors, the processes, and the effects of the resignification of the neighbourhood; on the other hand, it focuses on the counter-imaginaries that question the ordering logics of the dominant normativity.