Paolo Giardullo, Non è aria. Cittadini e politiche contro l'inquinamento atmosferico, Il Mulino, 2018
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17483
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2038-3460
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Dario Minervini
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Paolo Giardullo, It is not air. Citizens and policies against atmospheric pollution, Il Mulino, 2018
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Book Reviews
2021-03-09
2023-06-27
2021-03-09
2023-10-16
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TS
Dario Minervini
2020
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17483
140
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
2038-3460
2
en
142
Paolo Giardullo, It is not air. Citizens and policies against atmospheric pollution, Il Mulino, 2018
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140                                                            Tecnoscienza – 11 (2)

    Paolo Giardullo
Non è aria. Cittadini e politiche contro l'inquinamento atmosferico [It is not
air. Citizens and policies against atmospheric pollution], Bologna, Il
Mulino, 2018, pp. 184

Dario Minervini Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

    “Non è aria” is an Italian saying that, more or less, means that it is not
the right time or that you do not need something in that specific moment.
In the case of the book, this title is a pun on the literally “is not air” refer-
ring to atmospheric pollution.
    Paolo Giardullo adopts a hybrid perspective. He mixes theoretical sen-
sitivities from the Environmental Sociology with STS, in order to deal with
this thin (as air) and heavy (as the polluted rain) object of inquiry. The
book is organized in three chapters in which the author take stock of 1) the
theoretical and analytical proposal, that is the hybrid conceptualization
above mentioned, 2) the governance and the policies facing atmospheric
pollution, 3) the multiple socio-material interconnections that perform
(and are performed by) the assemblage including cars, places, containers
and coal.
Because of the theoretical hybridity of the framework, it can be said both
that the book is not original in itself, neither that it can be considered some-
thing yet established in the current sociological literature. A general issue
framed according to the Environmental Sociology debate, a sort of long-
standing novelty in the Italian academia, is here endorsed by the references
to the classics of STS studies. In particular, the main theoretical arguments
summoned from STS are those developed by the Actor-Network Theory
(ANT) scholars. The first theoretical section (Chapter 1) unfolds from
Bruno Latour’s pivotal contribution in challenging the sociological effort
to retrace the interplay of the human agency whit that one emerging from
materiality to by John Urry’s social “on the move” approach. The latter
was one of the scholars that directly addressed, from a pragmatic point of
view, the issue of the climate change (Urry 2011). This reference is very
closely connected with the main argument of the book we are discussing
here. Indeed, the point the book addresses is how the “high carbon lives”
perform, and are performed by, practices that are not merely the conse-
quence of individual preferences but “ingrained” in everyday life of con-
temporary times. Air pollution is “ingrained” as well, as a complex config-
uration participating to (and tied to) a wider socio-material assemblage that
Giardullo depicts through his analytical effort.
    The analysis of governance arrangements and policies (Chapter 2) en-
visioned to face atmospheric pollution is the way to shed light on Ecologi-
cal Modernization “from inside”. Here Environmental Sociology provides
both a descriptive tool to sketch the multilevel governance of sustainability
Book Review                                                                141
policies and a prescriptive reformist model to foster the eco-transition.
Giardullo tries to balance this ambivalence managing the intrinsic norma-
tivity of the Ecological Modernization, looking at how norms, institutions,
technologies and markets are intertwined in structuring the solutions to
the ecological crisis.
    Such an extended unit of analysis consists of an “assembled” scenario
that includes, of course, those “guilty” people polluting the air by using
their cars for the mobility of everyday life. What the environmental policies
try to frame and address as bad behaviors or a lack of awareness, is repre-
sented in the book as something more complex and distributed within a
bundle of practices consistent with auto-mobility system. Cars and auto-
mobility are one of three analytical focuses scrutinized in the book; the
other two are the logistics (mainly road transport) and heating systems
(Chapter 3). These different fields are investigated through their specifici-
ties, trying to consider the situatedness of the socio-material practices in-
vestigated. In this regard, this book seems to be too slender. Indeed, the
empirical strategy does not include those thick descriptions featuring ac-
counts stemming from the ANT, consistently with its ethnographic sensi-
tivity. The reconstruction of the social practices, cultures, skills and mate-
rialities, in the manner the Lancaster school use to investigate these issues,
could have been useful, as well (Shove, Pantzar, Watson 2012). On con-
trary, connections between automobility, logistics, heating and air pollu-
tion seems to be presented at (too?) high degree of abstraction.
    Despite this, the book provides interesting insights in the three fields
above mentioned, and the line of reasoning leads to clarify the general
frame in which the ontological politics (Mol 1999) of the air pollution is
performed. For example, how the moralities intertwined with the connec-
tions enacting the mundane ways we use to move, transport, and heat are
diversified and often contradictory is displayed. Security, practicably, via-
bility, (economic) saving, cleaning: all these values are negotiated ad com-
posed through a steady work of maintenance.
    The actors that we look at as “guilty” because polluters, experience the
conflicting moralities of the ordinary social practices in everyday life, shar-
ing a responsibility that cannot be retraced as punctual but that emerges as
dispersed and distributed. Of course, this point could be questioned by
those social scientists endorsing a “critical critique” posture of research.
From this standing point, the lack of an analytical attribution of responsi-
bilities would be considered the main weakness of this study. STS teach us
that, unfortunately, this sort of dilution/distribution of responsibilities is
the result of an effective articulation of the air pollution socio-material as-
semblage, more than the critical weakness of Paolo Giardullo. In other
terms, air pollution emerges – and is performed – as a “strong” phenome-
non because of the solidity of the complex web of synergies and interac-
tions between heterogeneous elements and because of the effectiveness in
the enrollment of humans and non-humans.
142                                                              Tecnoscienza – 11 (2)

    From a pragmatic point of view, power is not (only) a matter of good
or bad intentions or behaviors, neither it is directly sloping from unfair/un-
sustainable norms and policies. It is something that works making solid in
time and space a hybrid configuration of actors and practices. So how to
foster a critic to such an issue (the atmospheric pollution), even if from a
non-normative standing? On this point, studies adopting pragmatic per-
spectives will lead to open new questions, more than stating answers and
responses. Giardullo invites us to insist on the work of deconstructing the
self-prophecy and the automatism of prescriptive framing facing pollution
through technological determinism.
    Maybe we can be a little more ambitious in retracing how the episte-
mological distance from the dramatic consequences of the environmental
crisis plays a fundamental role in undermining the enactment of alternative
assemblages. People, organizations, institutions, socio-material arrange-
ments are differently tied to the very destructive dynamics of climate
change, very often learning and experiencing the “bright side” of the envi-
ronmental crisis. So, there are actors who are more or less close to environ-
mental problems, as well as there are different rates of complexities featur-
ing these problems (Carolan 2004).
    Air pollution is a matter of practice indeed, but not so immediately
close in epistemological terms (meaning also in practical perception) to
those that enact the air pollution itself. So how people claim to fight it and,
at the same time, why they cannot detach themselves from this socio-mate-
rial configuration seems to be another worthy research path to follow, after
this Giardullo insightful book.

References
Carolan, M. (2004) Ontological Politics: Mapping a Complex Environmental Prob-
       lem, in “Environmental Values”, 13(4), pp. 497-522.
Mol, A. (1999) Ontological Politics. A Word and Some Questions, in “The Socio-
       logical Review”, 47(1), pp. 74-89.
Shove, E., Pantzar, M. and Watson, M. (2012) The Dynamics of Social Practice:
       Everyday Life and How It Changes, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Urry, J. (2011) Climate Change and Society, Cambridge, Polity.


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