Maria Paradiso

Google and the Internet: A Mega-Project Nesting Within Another Mega-Project

The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the “meganess” of the Internet. We will then introduce the “Google” case as a major Internet rider, impressively nesting within it, followed by a reflexive understanding of its “meganess” namely in terms of its roles as a major gatekeeper for digital information; as the principal mediator for communication; its being a most powerful repository of computing power; its constituting the largest storage of localized data; its being a virtual earth information indexing and mapping tool, and, in the human experience of living in the world, a new way of having cognition of it, as well as of its cultural reproduction. What we need is to give visibility to the “invisible” of this megaproject and what it can imply in terms of the convergence of corporations, individuals, and places on a global scale, but managed privately.

The Mediterranean: Bridging, Bordering and Cross-bordering in a Global Mobile Reality

If we look at the Mediterranean only as a space, a dissonant geography is obvious. Its diversity is mistakenly reduced in a process of ‘diorthosis’, a cognitive and operational approach that starts from assuming the nature of things and functionality modes rather than arriving at a proper image via actual analysis. 1 The study of flows, of networks – i.e. the circulation of ideas, people, finances, and so on – challenges the continuous representation of the Mediterranean between homogeneity and otherness, and re - posits it as both a post-colonial imbricate site of encounters and currents and as a site of new hegemonic and counter-power discourse(s) and alliances. This paper explores the ‘mobility’ paradigm as an initial approach to contemporary geographies of the Mediterranean. The latter are being created not only by the media, powers and ideologies, but also by everyday people’s inter-ethnic, inter-cultural, and emotional interactions in places and digital communication channels. Such interactions are often characterized by blockages of inter-ethnic or inter-cultural exchanges, as well as by inequalities. They present and discuss initial paths of new encounters structuring North–South relationships, and vice versa, but also circular and East–West ones since they are typified by a variety of personal and virtual mobilities in terms of gender, motivations, emotional geographies, impacts, and circulation rather than origin/destination, and so on. It seems to me that the internet and people’s spatial mobility underline a deep process of change for the Mediterranean. A dialectic of diaspora politics, circuits of funds, weapons, empowerments, and emotions, challenge the boundaries of political communities in transformation. The Mediterranean thus appears as a global space of confrontation, emulation, opposition, dialectics, and change. Places, flows, wires and digital TV are the loci for all this. There is no assumption of ‘Mediterranean as a bridge of cultures’; instead, we all are actors in networking communities

Ethnic Minorities’ Embeddedness in Host Versus Origin Places

The study is an exploratory test of ethnic minorities and ethnic migrants success in embedding themselves in host societies either in destination country or their majority space. It is based on a cross-cultural comparison of three cultural groups in three Mediterranean countries (Morocco, Italy, Israel). Methodology consists of a multidimensional model that investigates the sources of social, cultural, and emotional forms of capital either from intra-ethnic or inter-ethnic sources as it has been developed by Schnell et al (2015). We have developed a questionnaire distributed among 40 subjects in each of the three communities around the Mediterranean (120 in total): Italians in Morocco; Moroccans in South Italy, and Christian Arabs in Israel. Six indicators were tested. The results were used in order to characterize patterns of embeddedness either in places of origin or in host/majority places. The results show that minorities either tend to isolate themselves from host/majority milieus or to integrate by embedding themselves in both host/majority and origin places. The assimilationist strategy is rejected in almost all cases. The main level for embedding in host/majority milieus is the emotional aspect that is followed by learning host/majority language and socializing in host milieus.

The EU and the Symbolic, Territorial, and Institutional Organization of the Mediterranean as a Global Mobile Space: Moroccan Students’ Perspectives

The projection of Europeanization beyond the EU’s borders provides arenas through which the union strives to gain meaning, actorness and presence internationally. Actually it is a contested, fraught process with important discursive and instrumental dimensions. In this paper, we consider this process from “outside” the EU and specifically draw upon fieldwork conducted in Algeria, Italy, Morocco with civil society, specifically university students. In doing so, we provide alternative non-elite understandings of EU and Mediterranean spaces and offer critical insights into the changing “Europe”–North Africa relationship, as driven by mobile and immobile citizens across shores with a special emphasis on education, the experience of traveling across borders, and exposure to media.

Climate Refugees, Housing in Risk Areas, and Vulnerability of the Built Environment in the Fez Urban Area of Morocco (Case of the Medina and Outlying Districts)

The environmental crises linked to the recurrent droughts that have characterized the Moroccan countryside from the 1980s onward have been disastrous for the stability of rural populations in Morocco. Recurring droughts have resulted in an absolute scarcity of water resources in rural areas. This has had dramatic consequences, not only on the herding/farming system, but also on the whole physical and human environment. The scarcity of water is thus a fundamental factor in the crisis that has characterized the rural world at all levels during this period, leaving as a direct consequence the massive migration of people toward cities. This article attempts to delve into the nature of the exceptionally recurrent droughts that have affected the hinterland of the city of Fez since the beginning of the 1980s, and to assess the consequences on the stability of rural populations or its mobility, and, as a result, on the major expansion of the of the urban area of Fez, especially in the outlying areas that are periodically exposed to natural disasters.

The Mediterranean as ‘Mobile Global Reality’. Lessons and Implications for Changing European Relationships

Following a mobility approach, this chapter elucidates MEDCHANGe research’s findings in terms of concepts and narratives of Mediterranean mobilities. First, it aims at providing challenges to concepts which shape regional views and migration studies and secondly at highlighting feedback to European relationships and mobilities’ policies.

Mediterranean Mobilities and Europe’s Changing Relationships

Following a mobility approach, this chapter considers the complexity and variety of mobilities in the Basin to frame our group’s research. The research is about the geographical complexities but also opportunities of multiple evolutions of the Mediterranean Basin flows, between Europe and non-European countries and beyond the North–South divide. Research adopted the non-elites perspectives provided by narratives of people in mobilities. This chapter has two main objectives. First, it provides an introductory reading of the characteristics of Mediterranean mobilities. Second, it introduces the frame of research which drove fieldwork and discussions of findings. In particular, we examine the concept of Mediterranean mobilities which provides insights on the topic of internal and external Europe relationships and challenges to usual concepts shaping regional views on the area and migration studies. Our findings identify important factors that have structured and will structure relationships with consequent needs of specific focus of policy arenas in Europe.