Contested Infrastructures. The Politicization of Care Spaces in the Antico Corso Neighborhood of Catania

Abstract

In recent years, the concept of social infrastructure has gained increasing prominence in geographical scholarship and public policy debates. Contributing to this discussion, the article focuses on a specific type of social infrastructure: care-related social infrastructures or infrastructure of social reproduction (ISdC). Spaces historically associated with the reproduction of life, health, and care have been among the most affected by austerity policies and budget cuts. Yet their dismantling is often framed as a neutral process, while their conversion to new uses is portrayed as an opportunity to trigger urban valorization. Drawing on ethnographic research in the Antico Corso neighbourhood of Catania—home to three historic hospitals that were simultaneously dismantled—the article investigates ISdC as sites where conflicting scales and discourses intersect. It challenges the narrative of valorization as a neutral process and reveals the deeply political nature of care spaces in contemporary urban contexts.