The 'cavone' in Naples: Friction of Overlapping and Intersecting Mobilities

The proposal aims to present a critical interpretation of a street in the historic centre of Naples. The investigation conducted on this street has enabled the detection and examination of various mobilities trends.

The ‘Cavone’ is like an oblique urban transect, along a path on various heights, which offers insight into the complexities of socio-spatial stratification that represents a conundrum (1), on which mobilities that have different temporalities, rhythms and ratios act and take place in the material and immaterial dimension of the place. These mobilities can be attributed to intergenerational socio-economic trajectories, to differently rooted migrants’ presences, to different social groups pushing into the housing stock and to advancement of tourist incursions. Like in a Tsing's friction, the 'Cavone' let us understand arising issues for the contemporary urban question, as they emerge in Naples.

The presentation will provide an overview of mobilities as they have emerged through the material city and the stories embedded within it, based on a series of fieldwork in the area (2). This will lead to a discussion of more substantial and broader questions that have been prompted.

What does a street tell us about processes, political and socio-economic changes in the city?

What are the boundaries, conflicts, intersections and coexistence points between the observed mobilities?

What challenges does the case pose for urban governance in addressing imbalances and inequalities that may arise from the diverse power dynamics associated with these mobilities?

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(1) Dines, Nick, and Cristina Mattiucci. Constantly evoked but under-researched: the conundrum of vertical stratification in Naples. In Vertical Cities Vertical Cities: Micro-segregation, Social Mix and Urban Housing Markets, T. Maloutas and N. Karadimitriou (eds). Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022. 23-38.

(2) one of them during the Atelier-Ville Vilmouv in Naples