Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how in the aftermath of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, images have been used to re-appropriate the space that was first destroyed by the earthquake and further wounded by the political management of the event.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how images have been used by the local community to re-appropriate the space destroyed by the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake and further wounded by the political management that made the event a 'long lasting emergency'. The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, its aftermath and the reconstruction process have been topics of discussions about the relations between the governmental institutions and the citizenship, the politics of 'emergency' and its management, as well as the forms of aid and their reception by the local population. In L'Aquila, the conflicting moral economies that confronted each other in the actions over a collective space achieved dramatic tones. Several actors and groups, at different levels and with divergent agendas, have contested the territory and its space. The government interventions after the catastrophe have generated a process of re-configuration of the territory that severely affected the citizens and the city's social and cultural life. The consequences of this process, set up during the 'emergency' and then pursued long after this period, highlight how interventions in the forms of neoliberal policies created a 'disaster after the disaster', effectively degrading the quality of life of the local population. Building on a corpus of images about the earthquake and the post-catastrophe context, this paper discusses how these visual representations, both at the community and national levels, gained political functions in the process of re-elaboration of the disaster and its consequences.