The Landfill in the Countryside: Waste Management and Government of the Population in Campania

This article is based on one assumption: if territory and population are the primary elements of modern power, the profound transformation of this territory coincides with the government of its population. In relation to this theory, this essay analyses the processes of socio-economic transformation in a cross-section of the suburbs of Naples and in two rural setting in the backcountry of Campania after dumping grounds were built there. The background is the waste crisis that has devastated Campania for the past eighteen years. Especially the essay examines the last large-scale waste crisis that began in summer 2007 because during this crisis the rebellion of the population in attempting to protect the local environment and public health has been pejoratively described by official sources as NIMBY. Therefore, "Notes from the Underground" traces the borders of an area that has always been ecologically abused or scraped and re-defines a population continually threatened with marginalization. "A Waste Highway" runs through Savignano Irpino and Sant’Arcangelo Trimonte, far from the urban chaos, where people lived well before dumping grounds transformed these places into marginalized areas, erased old memories, and transformed the identity of the people.