Document Type
Article
DOI
10.5070/C311247586
Publication Date
Spring 5-31-2022
Keywords
walking, margins, ecocriticism, Italian Studies, postcolonial studies
Abstract
The article argues that Wu Ming 2’s Il sentiero luminoso (2016) and Giuliano Santoro’s Su due piedi. Camminando per un mese attraverso la Calabria (2012) describe walking as an activity which allows one to recognize the social modifications of space, and to rethink the geographies of suburban areas in Italy. This analysis resounds with Robert P. Marzec’s invitation to study how literature has represented the privatization and the capitalist and neoliberal organization of space, revealing forms of internal colonization which epitomize a pillar of colonial ideology. Il sentiero luminoso and Su due piedi reconfigure walking as an epistemological, ecocritical and postcolonial practice which allows one to cross paths with people who are marginalized in Italy, especially migrants. Drawing on Michel de Certeau’s and David Pinder’s reflections about space and representation, the article suggests that Il sentiero luminoso and Su due piedi show how the direct experience of a place through walking is germane to understanding the effects of economic exploitation present in human-land relations.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Brioni, S. (2022). Rethinking Italy’s Margins Through Walking: Mobility, Activism and Positionality in Wu Ming 2’s Il sentiero luminoso (2016) and Giuliano Santoro’s Su due piedi (2012). California Italian Studies, 11(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/C311247586 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/34s0q954