The Collaborative Management of Sustained Unsustainability: On the Performance of Participatory Forms of Environmental Governance

n modern democratic consumer societies, decentralized, participative, and consensus-oriented forms of multi-stakeholder governance are supplementing, and often replacing, conventional forms of state-centered environmental government. The engagement in all phases of the policy process of diverse social actors has become a hallmark of environmental good governance. This does not mean to say, however, that these modes of policy-making have proved particularly successful in resolving the widely debated multiple sustainability crisis. In fact, they have been found wanting in terms of their ability to respond to democratic needs and their capacity to resolve environmental problems. So why have these participatory forms of environmental governance become so prominent? What exactly is their appeal? What do they deliver? Exploring these questions from the perspective of eco-political and sociological theory, this article suggests that these forms of environmental governance represent a performative kind of eco-politics that helps liberal consumer societies to manage their inability and unwillingness to achieve the socio-ecological transformation that scientists and environmental activists say is urgently required. This reading of the prevailing policy approaches as the collaborative management of sustained unsustainability adds an important dimension to the understanding of environmental governance and contemporary eco-politics more generally

Refigurative Politics: Understanding the Volatile Participation of Critical Creatives in Community Gardens, Repair Cafés and Clothing Swaps

Collective alternative everyday practices (CAEPs), such as commu-nity gardens, clothing swaps or repair cafés, have become a prominent sight in the critical-creative milieus. So far, CAEPs have been mostly conceptualized in terms of prefigurative politics, i.e. as the strategy to change society through an everyday conduct that fully reflects idealized notions of the Self and society. However, there is increasing evidence of practitioners who engage in rather irregular, spontaneous ways and remain bound to an unsustainable consumer lifestyle. Scholars have identified such volatile participation as a problem for mobilization, but have not answered a) how the lack of continuous embodiment can be understood from a social movement perspective, and b) what the political quality of this behaviour might be. In this article, I address these research questions by drawing on theories of the late-modern subject and existing qualitative studies. Late-Modern Subject Theory assumes that individuals increasingly construct themselves through the market and in a multi-faceted way, due to processes such as commercialization, flexibilization and acceleration. From that perspective, volatile participants attempt to mobilize an idealized Self but are unable to do so persistently, due to the structural constraints (such as lack of time resources) and personal liberties (such as excess of consumer options) that define everyday life in late-modern society. The result are figurations of utopia that are bound to fail, but repeated ever again. These ‘refigurations’ maintain a political ele-ment through conveying a critique of and an alternative to the status quo, if only for a moment

Chromate-free smart release corrosion inhibitive pigments containing cations

A smart release chrome-free inhibiting system is utilised in an organic coating system to inhibit cathodic disbondment of hot dip galvanised steel. The non-toxic smart release cation system is relatively cheap, easy to process and highly effective. An in-situ scanning Kelvin probe is used to assess the protection offered by the cation containing pigments in a poly-vinyl-butyral model coating. The inhibition of cathodic delamination under the SKP testing conditions exceeds that of hexavalent chromate by the inhibitor system containing magnesium(II) ions

Endocytic reawakening of motility in jammed epithelia.

Dynamics of epithelial monolayers has recently been interpreted in terms of a jamming or rigidity transition. How cells control such phase transitions is, however, unknown. Here we show that RAB5A, a key endocytic protein, is sufficient to induce large-scale, coordinated motility over tens of cells, and ballistic motion in otherwise kinetically arrested monolayers. This is linked to increased traction forces and to the extension of cell protrusions, which align with local velocity. Molecularly, impairing endocytosis, macropinocytosis or increasing fluid efflux abrogates RAB5A-induced collective motility. A simple model based on mechanical junctional tension and an active cell reorientation mechanism for the velocity of self-propelled cells identifies regimes of monolayer dynamics that explain endocytic reawakening of locomotion in terms of a combination of large-scale directed migration and local unjamming. These changes in multicellular dynamics enable collectives to migrate under physical constraints and may be exploited by tumours for interstitial dissemination

Il miglioramento genetico dell'Actinidia negli ultimi 20 anni: prolematiche affrontate e soluzioni proposte.

Il principale obiettivo della presente tesi consiste nell’ esporre, con particolare attenzione alla realtà italiana, quali tematiche sono state affrontate durante l’attività di miglioramento genetico in Actinidia svolta durante gli ultimi 20 anni, Per tale scopo sono stati messi in evidenza i principali traguardi raggiunti nell’ottenimento di nuove cultivar e le tecniche a cui i miglioratori hanno fatto ricorso. Sono, inoltre, riportati alcuni richiami agli aspetti economici e “sociologici” della coltura, quali ad esempio le richieste dei consumatori. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------The main goal of this thesis is a critical reading of genetic breeding activity in Actinidia during he las 20 years, whit a particular regard to the Italian situation. For this goal it has been reported and discussed efforts performed by the breeders for obtaining new cultivars, as far as the techniques they used. Some aspects regarding nomical and “social” aspec t, such as the changes of consumers' requirements , are also included.openAGR-39

Politicisation beyond post-politics: new social activism and the reconfiguration of political discourse

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008/9 social movements reminis-cent of ecoemancipatory movements of the 1980s powerfully repoliticised the post-political order of neoliberalism. Additionally, and more recently, right-wing populist movements, Fridays for Future or political mobilisations related to the COVID-19 pandemic have substantially refashioned both the understanding of post-politics and the patterns of its repoliticisation. This article introduces a special issue on Movements and Activism beyond Post-politics. In light of these recent shifts we revisit the notion of post-politics, identify key characteristics of contemporary forms of repoliticisation, zoom in on academic debates about prefigurative and transformative politics and – following a preview of the contributions collated in the special issue – explore what the ongoing reconfiguration of public discourse may imply for further research into social movement activism beyond post-politics

Confronto fra invecchiamento accelerato e naturale di rivestimenti organici protettivi: uso di dati meteorologici

Confronto fra invecchiamento acceleratoe naturale di rivestimenti organiciprotettivi: uso di dati meteorologiciF. Deflorian, S. Rossi, L. Fedrizzi, C. ZanellaLe proprietà protettive dei rivestimenti organici per applicazioni per esterni sono tradizionalmentevalutate attraverso test accelerati di laboratorio. Una questione aperta rimane la reale correlazionefra questi test accelerati e l’esposizione naturale in ambienti diversi. In questo lavoro è descrittoun nuovo approccio basato sulla semplice idea di quantificare il grado di invecchiamento naturaleutilizzando un numero limitato di parametri ambientali che possono influenzare le proprietà protettive:l’energia totale nell’intervallo UV, il tempo di esposizione ad umidità relative superiori ad una certasoglia (tale da causare condensa superficiale), il tempo di esposizione ad una temperature superiorealla Tg del polimero, ecc. In questo lavoro si è cercato di applicare questo approccio a un rivestimentopoliestere ottenuto per coil-coating per applicazioni per esterni. I primi risultai sono molto interessantie incoraggiano ulteriori sviluppi che considerino un maggior numero di materiali e siti naturalidi esposizione

Valutazione della vita utile di acciaio zincato verniciato: esposizioni su campo e prove di laboratorio

Al fine di studiare a fondo le relazioni che intercorrono tra l’invecchiamento artificiale e quello naturale,sei diversi campioni zincati e rivestiti con primer e top coat sono stati esposti per 12 mesi in 3 diversi ambientinaturali: Trento (Italia), rappresentativo del clima continentale, Marsiglia (Francia) di clima mediterraneoe Daytona (USA) di ambiente tropicale umido. In tali siti sono stati raccolti, durante l’esposizione, i principalidati meteorologici. I rivestimenti sono stati testati in laboratorio mediante prove accelerate tradizionali(camera a nebbia salina, esposizione UV, etc). L’analisi delle proprietà protettive dei rivestimentie il monitoraggio dello stato di degrado è stato effettuato mediante misure elettrochimiche.I risultati dimostrano che il tempo trascorso in presenza di condensa e cloruri sembra il fattore determinanteil degrado del sistema di protezione. L'esposizione naturale induce un degrado misurabile, in gradodi classificare l'aggressività dei diversi siti di esposizione. Questo fatto è dovuto alla presenza di cloruri,alla maggiore energia di radiazione solare e al maggior tempo di condensa. L'ambiente urbano,con la presenza di inquinanti, può influenzare maggiormente il degrado del substrato metallico,più che influire sul deterioramento delle proprietà di barriera del rivestimento organico