I territori liquidi. Forme e confini di un immaginario adriatico.

In this introductory chapter to the edited collection”Immaginare l'adriatico” Emilio Cocco sketches out the main theoretical assumptions that inspired the book and led to the collection of a consistent set of interdisciplinary contributions. Forn this standpoint, the key-concept to the understanding of the social dimension of the Adriatic region is represented by the coexisting representations of organicity and conflict across national and administrative divides. According to Emilio Cocco, Such a cross-cutting ambivalency, which lays behind the diverse and contested representations of the region, stems from a lack of sound sociological investigations of the sea as a space of social relations. Actually, the maritime dimension does find easily a place within sociological tradition, whose methodological nationalism is quite often coupled with a sort of “terrestrial nationalism”. Particularly, the sea usually plays a marginal role in the case of studies focused on the Central and South-Eastern Europe, which tend to concentrate on terrestrial phenomena. Here, investigations on subjects such as borders, nationalism and ethnic relations, although working with regional frames, are more eager to privilege the continental dimensions of Central Europe or the Balkans. Hence, the Adriatic sea is rarely at the center of analysis that deal with identity making or institution building in spite of the economic and cultural importance that such maritime space holds for the littoral countries. In a way, the Adriatic sea takes a subordinate role, namely the one of an object of desire or suspicion, with respect to the mainland, where the “real” action takes place. Accordingly, the nation-building processes that developed in the Adriatic region since the 19th century, frequently embraced a “rush” to the sea as part of their programs of national awakening. Moreover, they often romanticized the political, cultural and economic features of the Adriatic region, which was strategically pictured as a place of cosmopolitism, economic progress and social dynamism. In this perspective, the cultural and social fluidity of the coastal and maritime areas has been progressively opposed to the ethnic cores of the inland along a powerful cultural representation, which both celebrated the sea-based societies and turned them into potentially unloyal areas to be better redeemed and nationally regenerated. In fact, Emilio Cocco claims that such a representation is somewhat naïve and potentially misleading. On the contrary, the sociological investigation of the Adriatic region shall be able to critically revise it by reflecting more carefully on the sea-land relations. Thus, on one hand, the alleged solidity of the land borders is in fact still “fluid” and changeling in the mainland, like if the medium of territoriality as exclusivity (Simmel) wouldn’t be properly working. On the other one, the social life on the sea and on the coastal areas reveal structures, antagonism and even barriers that do not fit with the stereotyped images of a whishful Mediterranean. Therefore, it is only by reflecting on the relations between the sea and the land the the Adriatic region can be approached as a social context where multi-dimensionality and diversity endure. [...]