Heritage politics and the governance of the abject in the centro storico of Naples

Over the last two decades the harnessing of architectural heritage in the centro storico of Naples has been pivotal to urban regeneration as centre-left administrations have sought both to redefine Naples as an international cultural capital and to mould a socially cohesive, ‘good’ city in contrast to enduring images of urban neglect. The core of Naples continues to be characterized by its predominantly lower-class residential population. Traditionally, the Communist Left had a complicated relationship with these ‘popular’ residents; often viewing their values and practices as an obstacle to the construction of working-class hegemony. Since the early 1990s, this relationship has been reconfigured by a paradigmatic shift on the Left towards a discourse about citizenship. Where they once lacked class consciousness, many local residents were now deemed to suffer from a ‘civic deficit’, particularly in relation to their understandings and uses of what was now defined as ‘cultural heritage’. This paper traces a critical genealogy of the Italian ‘centro storico’ during the post-war period to indicate the tensions that surfaced in heritage politics during the 1990s. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted in Naples, it also highlights how the disciplinary logic underpinning heritage governmentality has been encountered and ultimately stymied by the centro storico’s residents and users.