Sorvegliare e pulire. Una glossa sul governo dell’elemento irriducibile

Starting with a summary reconnaissance of the discursive repertoires on dust – both of a material and metaphorical order – that have accumulated in Italy in recent centuries, the article dwells on the theme of dust as an irreducible element and, at the same time, an allegory of the Other too much. From this emerges the hypothesis that on physical dust as much as on symbolic dust there is the same governing rationality constantly in tension between discipline and punishment (o “between guarding and punishing”). Precisely for this reason, dust interrogates the forms of life in common.