Descrizione del progetto
Esplorare la storia industriale e ambientale di Porto Marghera
Negli anni venti del secolo scorso, il regime fascista realizzò gli impianti di superfosfati a Porto Marghera, collegati all’Arcipelago dei fosfati a monte. Questo arcipelago era costituito da una rete di spazi estrattivi e industriali che si estendevano su entrambe le sponde del Mediterraneo. La presenza dei fosfati ha anche creato connessioni tra i movimenti operai di Porto Marghera e le lotte anticoloniali del Nord Africa. Negli anni novanta del secolo scorso, le campagne ambientaliste hanno portato alla chiusura degli impianti di fertilizzanti di Porto Marghera. Il progetto LabEcoInt, finanziato dalle azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, esplora la storia delle regioni industriali europee ed esamina l’interazione tra lavoro e cambiamenti ambientali da una prospettiva globale, compresa la produzione di fertilizzanti derivati dal fosfato.
Obiettivo
This research, hosted by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in partnership with the Geneva Graduate Institute, investigates the making and unmaking of Europe’s historical industrial areas uncovering the intersections between labour and ecological transformations from an international perspective. It does so by deploying theories of extractivism to the case study of the major industrial cluster of Porto Marghera (Venice, Italy), using the production of phosphate-based fertilisers as an entry point.
Porto Marghera’s “super-phosphate” plants were established in the 1920s, in the context of rising fascism. They integrated Porto Marghera with the “green factories” of expanding modern agriculture – downstream –, and with the “Phosphate Archipelago”, a network of extractive and industrial spaces on the two shores of the Mediterranean – upstream. Phosphates thus invisibly and contradictorily connected Porto Marghera’s labour mobilisations with North Africa’s anticolonial struggles. This link was also ecological, as shown by the noxious health and environmental effects of phosphates. The closure of Porto Marghera’s fertiliser plants in the 1990s was in fact accelerated by environmental campaigns against the dumping of phosphate waste into the Adriatic Sea. Meanwhile, restructuring in the extractive areas of Morocco and Tunisia (Khouribga and Gafsa respectively) turned them into important points of departure for working-class migration to Italy.
While deindustrial studies focus on the history of industrial areas from a local or national perspective, less attention has been paid to the insertion of such industries in global hierarchies of labour and environmental degradation. By analysing Porto Marghera’s place in the Phosphate Archipelago, this research generates insights for today’s ecological transitions in mining, industry, and agriculture, at a time when fertilisers are once again in the spotlight due to concerns over sustainability and instability in food supply chains.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global FellowshipsCoordinatore
30123 Venezia
Italia