ABSTRACT

This chapter briefly reviews global urban research as seeing from Southern European cities. It subsequently discusses the possibility of reconsidering “worlding practices”, starting from a so-called urban margin in Turin, an Italian “ordinary city”. The chapter reassesses some research paths that may help us to pursue a “different” urban view – neither global nor local, general nor specific – in order to apply Nancy’s notion of “being singularly plural and plurally singular” to global urbanism. Starting from the late nineteenth century, Barriera di Milano was the emblem of Turin’s industrialization, working-class culture and later resistance to the fascist dictatorship. Inserted in the Global North/Global South divide, Italian cities can be considered an “in-between space”, just like other Southern European and Mediterranean cities.