‘Terrestrial’. La sfida del gioco a tre

Over the past few months, the scientific debate has put in evidence how a pandemic is one of the various possible implications of the progressive destruction and erosion of ecosystems that is both threatening the planet and challenging territories. In general, epidemics are the expression of environmental stress and of a shift in the balance between man and his habitat, to which the planet, in other words the Earth, reacts and rebels against. The challenge thus becomes, in the words of the philosopher Bruno Latour, that of seeking and finding a new geo-political horizon. Latour identifies this new horizon in the notion of the Terrestrial (the title of this number of the journal), which takes part in human action (and is therefore no longer only the backdrop) and establishes itself as a sort of third element situated between the two poles of attraction that generated the crisis: the local and the global. The Terrestrial calls into question the current Anthropocene and compels us to design a new system of alliances for survival on the planet, involving the overcoming of dualisms, the explosion of the reciprocal interactions between geosphere, biosphere and sociosphere, and the dialectics between the material nature of the soil and the planetary dimension of movement. The Terrestrial alludes to the visionary capacity of understanding the interdependence between human and non-human agents and demands new ecological policies that are both localized and territorial. In particular, the Terrestrial makes us “land” our attention on the political concept of the territory as only possible future horizon, both for the old inhabitants of wealthy nations who are now aware that there is no planet that is adaptable to globalisation, and for the new inhabitants (migrants) who, compelled to leave their “old land”, must radically modify their ways of living. The earth and nature as backdrop of human actions are thus replaced by the Territory that takes part in human action, and is not only the backdrop to it: a contested domain without which human survival is not imaginable; a domain that has been challenged and dented by the various crises (climatic, epidemic, environmental, migratory), yet remains as a synthesis between earth and humanity, home of peoples and cultures, long-term social product and construct, humanity’s only living environment. The Territory thus acquires a new central role and establishes itself as necessary response to the crises that affect it. “Terrestrial” sets these theoretical and political reflections as the background with the purpose of collecting contributions that highlight the possible responses provided by territories (in terms of design, policies, approaches) to pandemic, climatic, environmental and migratory crises. In particular, it intends promoting reflections and contributions regarding the degrees of uncertainty that increasingly challenge the rationale of both the project and planning for the future of territories, and which require “preparedness”, on the one hand, and on the other a framework oriented to the actions necessary for pro-actively fostering territorial cohesion and resilience.