Based on the one-and-a-half-century-long histories of Milan’s working-class men and women, the district of Bicocca (one of Italy’s first industrial areas, northeast of Milan), and one of Italy’s oldest industries (Pirelli), Kaika and her co-author challenge our understanding of land financialization as a recent phenomenon propelled by high finance. Narrating the close-knit histories of industrial land, industrial elites, and the working class, the authors offer a novel understanding of land financialization as a “lived” process: the outcome of a relentless, socially embodied historical unfolding, in which shifts in land’s material, economic, and symbolic roles impact both local everyday lives and global capital flows. 

UvA anthropologist Jorge Nuñez Vega will act as discussant. Lunch will be provided for all participants who register via the link.

About the speakers

Maria Kaika is professor in Urban, Regional and Environmental Planning at the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. Her research focuses on three interrelated themes: urban political ecology, cities and crisis, and urban radical imaginaries.

Jorge Nuñez Vega is assistant professor in the anthropology department at UvA. His current work focuses on rights of nature and the role of Earth observation technologies in defending these rights. His previous research in Catalonia focused on the interplay between democracy and financialization, highlighting how speculative imagination seeps into everyday life.