“Working on MOSE” article out now!

-
Huge thanks to the journal SHIMA for picking up and publishing my first article, adapted from my masters’ thesis work on labor issues and climate adaptation in Venice, Italy. 

I went into this research expecting to work on a small conflict between workers and citizen-activists. What ended up in the article was instead something much bigger: workers telling me, in recorded interviews but also in off-the-record hints and implications, that the Italian state is robbing them of their future.

The one thing that I wish everyone in Venice takes away from this article is how strongly the lagoon features in the future imaginary of those who work with or on the water. MOSE workers mix their own fates with the fate of the lagoon, often telling me that a non-responsive government will make the lagoon, and their jobs too, disappear.

Sea-level rise is not just a technical issue for these technicians. They are among the first, in Venice, to feel the enclosure effects that a rigid project like MOSE is making on their everyday lives. Without a wider, transformative set of climate adaptation actions, they suggest, Venice and its lagoon will be stuck on a one-way trip to disaster, sooner or later.

Venice’s experience with MOSE should be a lesson in how to not get stuck in mega-projects. Even after the extremely rocky planning and construction process, MOSE is experienced by workers as a politically restrictive project oriented toward short-term responses. I hope to follow this case closely and attempt to understand what possibilities for creating truly livable futures might emerge in this watery space.

You can access “Working on MOSE” here or through the SHIMA website (open-access).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sea-level rise trust: the Assemblea per la Laguna

-
This short story is the second in a collection of three inspired by my master's thesis research on sea level rise narrative futures in the Venice Lagoon: talk, trust, time. Nadia: 2028 The Assemblea started last year, in 2027, as a body that runs parallel to the Autorità per la Laguna. The Autorità was meant to be the public governing body that was taking over from the monopoly that the state had given to a consortium of private firms. When the transition happened a few years back, MOSE was active. At the top of the agenda were other diffuse projects of caring for, managing, healing (whatever word works for you) the lagoon. The trouble is that the collective trauma of the MOSE project on the Venice community had left a fragmented and uncoordinated response from the public. There was absolutely no clarity, and so not even a shred of trust, around what would happen next. The national government chose a public entity to consolidate the responsibilities of maintenance and management, b...
Read more

Earth sleep

-
If I were the Earth asleep Laying down my mountain ridge Wanting hard to bury deep In the folds of ground-old age What do I do when stirring At the people who poke me Climb all over conferring Dig their pincers in slowly I turn over and grumble Grouse and groan I get angry Slapping out in my slumber At specks on these seabed sheets Only then do I really shout Oh my god have you no shame My rage clouds my blood gets hot Stop it — I am trying to dream Durham, New Hampshire — October 12 2024
Read more

Announcement: Flooded Pine Press!

-
I’m very excited. My friend Brianna Cunliffe and I are beginning to lay the groundwork for a soft open on a micro publishing house based in Durham, New Hampshire. We will be publishing essays and anthologies on transformative futures, starting from the local and regional levels. Taking inspiration from Elizabeth Rush’s Rising , we are calling our venture Flooded Pine Press . This idea was born the day after the 2024 election. I was reeling in my apartment in Venice, having cast my absentee ballot weeks before. That day I had plans to meet my dear friend Matilda, who was in town from Helsinki, and she invited me to walk the Ponte della Libertà (Freedom Bridge, an apt name for the day of mourning) that connects the mainland to Venice. The sunny distance, with cars and trains swooping past us for all three miles of our walk over open lagoon, was ritualistic for me. Helped to focus on what’s important, what was to come, in great company. We were later lounging in the sun on Campo San Lore...
Read more