Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
implied in the multiple modernities paradigm has several aspects to it, but one of
them is certainly spatial and should invite us to think differently about position,
territory, and power. Quite evidently, each major city in today's world is global,
but from an anthropological point of view, this globality needs to be established
from within, not by applying parameters of measurement that simply mimic
those hierarchies of economic power that nobody should deny. The notion of
multiple globalizations (Vereni 2012) does imply various layers of connectedness
across the globe, but it also presupposes that various cities will find their own
role and identity within wider, shifting national and global configurations. The
diversity which unfolds, it must be noted, is also internal, as cities are composed
of heterogeneous spaces and a multitude of actors, single and collective, who live
the local and the global differently.
The ways in which a city like Rome becomes global is furthermore rooted
in the particular historical trajectory of the city and is tied to the ways in which
modernization has unfolded in contradictory and ambivalent ways. without be-
ing rooted in the complexities of local reality, “global theory” comes to mean
very little (mcNeill 1999). Rome is shaped by economic, political, and cultural
modernization, but in ways that defy any classificatory logic. Concretely, these
historical complexities can be very briefly sketched as follows.
Rome in Recent history: frictions of modernity
Rome was not chosen as capital of italy in 1871 because it was perceived as mod-
ern or avant-garde, quite the contrary. already in the fourth century ad, Rome
had seen street lighting; by 1870, there was none of the kind. by european but also
North italian standards, Rome was both an economically and politically “back-
ward” area ruled by the papacy. The choice of Rome was based on symbolic more
than political and economic reasons. within italy, Rome was the only potential
capital that could boast a truly national reach. italian nationalists from across the
political spectrum agreed that without the twofold legacy of classical and papal
Rome, the unification of italy would remain incomplete. however, Rome was
also useful for more mundane reasons: in order to win the souls of the emergent
and still weak bourgeoisie in italy, the political expansion of the Kingdom of
piedmont needed to permanently defeat localisms and parochialisms that had
hindered the development of a united italian political entity. a “neutral” point
of balance had to be detected between the then most powerful and populated
cities in italy (turin, Genoa, milan, florence, Venice, Naples); a steady pivot
around which the whole unitarian project could be developed, minimizing the
risks of jealousy and rivalry among the pre-existing local and regional powers.
Rome perfectly suited this role, being neutral geographically, politically (devoid
of a modern ruling class), and even economically (Caracciolo 1956, 17). similar to
brussels and strasbourg, which became the administrative and political centers
of the european union due to their marginality and lack of power in european
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