Titolo della tesi: Geographies of Environmental Injustice in Campania’s Sacrifice Zones: A mixed-method approach
The interplay between environmental and social factors has emerged as a critical research area within geography, particularly in the context of spatial inequalities and uneven development. This thesis investigates the multidimensional and spatially constituted nature of environmental injustice in Campania’s “sacrifice zones” (Bullard, 2011), approaching justice not as a static condition of uneven distribution, but as a historically and politically produced process continually made and remade through relations of power. Engaging with and extending Walker’s (2009, 2012) framework of the multiple spatialities of environmental justice, it investigates how injustices spatially manifest, how they have been historically and politically produced, and how community-based aspirations can contribute to re-imagining those places and co-producing more just and transformative futures. To address these aims, the thesis adopts a mixed and multi-scalar methodological design. First, the research maps where and who is affected by waste-related environmental hazards across Campania region. A composite Index of Environmental Contamination Burden (IECB) was developed to measure the intensity and clustering of contaminated sites and waste facilities, analysed in relation to demographic and socio-economic indicators through a range of spatial techniques. The results reveal significant clustering of environmental burdens along the Naples–Caserta corridor, identifying distinct sacrifice zones—notably East Naples, Acerra, Caivano, and the Domitian Coast—where contamination intersects with socio-economic deprivation and institutional weakness. Second, the research examines why and how environmental injustices are produced and sustained through multiple spatialities—distribution, production, participation, recognition, responsibility. Drawing on oral histories, it unpacks the layered processes through which injustice takes form: how exposure is embodied and relational rather than merely proximal; how political and economic trajectories inscribe risk into specific landscapes; how misrecognition, silence, and exclusion reproduce injustice; and how responsibility is diffused across complex networks of public, private, and criminal actors. This analysis reframes environmental injustice as a multi-scalar, processual, and relational, revealing the intertwined material, structural, and discursive mechanisms through which sacrifice zones are both produced and normalized. Third, the thesis shifts its focus to the what now/what next, exploring the future-oriented and imaginative spatialities of environmental justice through participatory and speculative workshops. These Archives of the Future invited inhabitants of sacrifice zones to identify local assets and co-produce counter-spatial imaginaries. Emerging visions—ecological remediation, community governance, place-based economies, and narrative repair—contest the dominant portrayal of these territories as disposable and open spaces for socio-ecological transformation. By integrating these analyses, the thesis offers an integrated and relational understanding of environmental injustice as a multi-scalar and multi-temporal formation. Conceptually, the thesis advances environmental justice theory by extending Walker’s (2009, 2012) framework of multiple spatialities to encompass the historical–structural, embodied–affective, and imaginative dimensions of injustice. It demonstrates that environmental injustice is not only unevenly distributed but also historically produced, symbolically legitimised, and continually contested through interlinked spatialities of distribution, production, recognition, participation, responsibility, and imagination. By introducing imagination as a spatial and political practice, the thesis reframes space as both the medium and outcome of justice struggles, and as a site where alternatives can be collectively envisioned and enacted. Methodologically, it contributes a reflexive and integrative mixed-method design that bridges quantitative, qualitative, and participatory approaches as complementary modes of inquiry. While grounded in the lived realities of Campania’s sacrifice zones, the thesis speaks to broader geographies of injustice, offering insights that inform both local initiatives and broader debates on environmental justice and socio-ecological transformation.