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FrancoAngeli Journals

Opinion section

No. 1 (2025)

A forum on "La città autistica" by Alberto Vanolo (2024)

  • Maurizio Memoli
  • Valentina Giuffrida
  • Giada Peterle
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa1-2025oa19492
Submitted
febbraio 25, 2025
Published
2025-04-14

Abstract

Published by Einaudi, La città autistic (The Autistic City) immediately presents itself as a path-breaking work. The book addresses an almost completely unexplored topic in geography - the urban practices of neurodivergent people - filling a significant gap, broadening the debate on the diversity of the ways in which urban spaces are perceived and experienced, and highlighting the extent to which our subjectivities are differentially and often unequally exposed to the implicit norms and dispositifs that govern everyday life. The book shows also how geography can offer powerful analytical tools to investigate phenomena of great social relevance that are seldom approached from a socio-spatial perspective. The geography proposed in The Autistic City dialogues with a plurality of disciplinary and specialist knowledge, proposing a vision that is both interpretative and transformative. Indeed, the book invites us to rethink urban  spaces as capable of welcoming and valuing differences, with the aim of promoting more inclusive cities. Given the importance of the book, the Editorial Board has deemed it appropriate to dedicate a forum to The Autistic City, inviting Maurizio Memoli, Valentina Giuffrida and Giada Peterle to reflect upon it from different perspectives: from the relation between neurodivergence, space and identity, to the potential of the autoethnographic method in the study of (autistic) cities. The aim is to enrich the discussion on the book, while inviting to continue its endeavour of imagining and creating more open, just and plural cities.

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