Paper short abstract:

Starting from Massey's assumption that "space is always in a process of being made", I propose some of the results of my fieldwork in slot halls. In particular, I investigated the interactions between political power and religious power in defining the positioning of gambling halls in cities.

Paper long abstract:

My paper will focus on the active controversy between some forces attributable to the catholic world and public institutions that issue gambling laws. The ethnographic research on slot halls, in two provinces of northern Piedmont in Italy, has allowed me to enter into a debate that highlights the capacity of action of religious power in terms of defining public space. In particular, my analysis focuses on the legal measure called 'distanziometro' which provides for prohibiting the positioning of slot rooms within certain limits from places identified as "sensitive", such as schools, sports facilities, religious institutions, hospitals, credit institutions, railway stations etc. A 2016 law, which became binding after three years, is now being discussed again by the new regional government. This proposed modification is causing the organized protest of the Catholic world which reiterates the need to remove these places from the life of the city community. I investigate my fieldwork results as an example of "the rearticulation of religion in a manner that is commensurate with modern sensibilities and modes of governance" (Mahmood 2009). Furthermore I will put a specific attention on another meaning linked with the gambling space, the one associated to the space of chance, because it calls into question some elements of magic and ritual that make it a terrain of ancient controversy for religious institutions.