Mamma Dalmine: care and toxicity in an Italian company town

Description

The symposium foregrounded the role of ordinary workers in the transformation of the industrial sites in Italy, and more broadly those of Europe, after the Second World War. Spaces of industrial production played a crucial role in sustaining the emergence of European welfare states and the wealth generated by the post-war economic boom. Situated between welfare provision and forms of biopolitical control, industrial sites and workers’ neighbourhoods were radically reshaped through the interconnected initiatives of states, industrial patrons, engineers, trade unions, and religious organisations. While historians have extensively examined the roles of these powerful actors, however, the voices of those who migrated, lived, and worked in these spaces have often remained at the margins. Meanwhile, since the de-industrialisation that unfolded from the 1970s, these spaces and their inhabitants remain associated in public debates with negative notions of economic decline, social segregation, and environmental risk.

During the symposium, contributions from architects, historians, and economists brought into dialogue to explore how workers in post-war Italy actively shaped the ‘hidden landscapes’ behind industrial sites in Italy and beyond. The contribution focused on a specific type of industrial site: a company town in northern Italy, and the way in which a network of care and control maintained the worker's community alive and operative.

Period	3 Feb 2026
Held at	Istitutto Svizzero di Roma, Italy
Degree of Recognition	International