The past in the present: Community variation and earthquake recovery in the Sele Valley, southern Italy, 1980-1989

This study examines recovery, reconstruction and development patterns over a nine-year period in the Sele Valley, Campania, after the earthquake of November 23, 1980. It analyzes the differential impact of historically derived social groups and configurations on these processes in six neighboring communities within an overall homogenous socio-geographical context, under a unified national recovery plan. It concludes that reconstruction as social process and local movements for economic and political change were most successful where specific combinations of traditional social forces were present, and that constraining interaction between state and commune was shaped by development policies pursued by the Italian state in southern Italy since 1950, within the framework of Cold War politics.