ABSTRACT
We open the third and last section of this volume with a chapter on the spatial dimension of inclusion and solidarity. In the first part of the book the notion of solidarity has been predominantly discussed from the standpoint of the moral background of a given society in its relationships with the ‘deserving’ ones, while Part II was devoted to the analysis of the social representations of deservedness and undeservedness and their how these ideas are understood among the general public. This chapter looks at the spatial dimension of both solidarity and inclusion based on the idea that social separations are not centred on moral and social boundaries alone: geographical divisions can also have a powerful role in creating or re-enforcing isolation and exclusion, a process which sociologist Loïc Wacquant (1993; 1996) has termed ‘territorial stigmatisation’. This is not only a topical issue in the scientific and political arena but also a significant element in our overall discussion of the social and moral backgrounds of solidarity and in our analysis of the possible differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Mediterranean models. Few would say that solidarity is not strictly linked to the spatial dimension, a relationship that becomes immediately evident as soon as we accept Ruth Lupton’s notion of neighbourhoods as not ‘just physical spaces but as complex and overlapping webs of social relationships’ (2003: 16). Having said this, our intention in the present chapter is to complement the analysis made so far in the book with a discussion of the different geographies of solidarities in an Italian and a British city, Naples and London respectively. This comparison will be made from a specific point of view, that of young immigrants and their relationship with the urban context.
