Knowledge, power and ethics in extraordinary times: learning from the Naples waste crisis

The chapter focuses on the relations of planning research, ethics and power assuming that, in the absence of universal principles of truth, equity and reliability of scientific knowledge, planning research is constantly challenged by opposing political claims and power injunctions, and thus compelled to take charge of its ethical responsibility in the face of (sometimes) harsh conflicts rising from concrete situations. To develop this argument, the chapter grasps some critical issues from a specific case, the waste crisis which exploded in Naples at the end of 2007, which is regarded not so much in terms of its local implications (even if the particularity of the case means it would not be neglected in methodological terms), but rather as an ‘extreme case’ which is worth seeing as emblematic of much more diffuse problems common to many big European cities: the role public policies play when dealing with ‘wicked planning problems’, the ambiguity of scientific knowledge as a support of hard political decisions, the critical ineffectiveness of scientific and intellectual claims in public debates, are just some examples of such a problematic frame.