Social topographies: a reportage from Caivano

The research presented in the article Beyond Emergency: Caivano and the Geometries of Power amid a Crisis-Ridden Welfare State and the Rise of Penal Governance (infra) draws on a heterogeneous corpus of materials, including territorial maps, photographs , institutional documents, and qualitative interviews, in order to reconstruct the social topographies of the area under investigation. The integration of these sources reflects a multi-method approach aimed at capturing the complexity of Caivano’s socio-spatial dynamics through multiple levels of observation and interpretation. The territorial maps, including both technical and thematic cartographies, support the spatial representation of the observed phenomena and make it possible to relate physical and social elements, identifying patterns of segregation, service distribution, and mobility trajectories. Photographs function as a tool for the visual analysis of urban spaces and the material conditions of the territory, enabling the identification of morphological indicators, signs of marginality, and forms of everyday use of the built environment. Institutional documents – urban planning instruments, extraordinary intervention plans, resolutions, service reports, administrative acts, and materials produced by local authorities and Commissioners – provide the foundation for reconstructing the normative, programmatic, and discursive framework within which territorial transformations are embedded. These texts allow for an analysis of policy decisions, political priorities, and institutional narratives that shape and guide interventions in the territory. The interviews, conducted with institutional actors, professionals, and residents, provide narrative data that enable the exploration of perceptions, practices, meanings attributed to places, and locally grounded forms of agency. Their contribution is central to understanding lived experiences and the underlying social representations that structure them. We present a selection of these materials in order to facilitate the integration of the material and symbolic dimensions of space, mapping the relationships between territorial configurations and social practices. This approach makes it possible to identify areas of centrality and marginality, spaces of passage and exclusion, as well as the ways in which specific groups inhabit and reinterpret the territory.