BIOGRAPHY
Roberta Varriale Institute of Studies on Mediterranean Societies National Research Council Via Pietro Castellino, 111 Napoli, Italy varriale@issm.cnr.it |
Background
Roberta Varriale graduated in Economy at the "Federico II" University in Naples in 1988. After graduating she won a six-month trainingship as auditor at the accounting firm Touche & Ross, Sydney (Australia). Returning to Italy, she was awarded a prize for the best graduation dissertation of 1988. After becoming a certified auditor, however, she surprisingly chose to enter research.
From 1988 to 1993, she was a researcher at the Economic History department at the Naval University (IUN) in Naples. She was first involved in studies on the impact of higher education on economy in Southern Italy, as part of the National Research Council Strategic Project "Scientific Research and Economic Development in Southern Italy". Within this project, she published two books: I laureati dell'Università di Napoli e le loro tesi (1968-1988), (ESI, 1998), La Facoltà di Giurisprudenza della Università di Napoli. Un archivio ritrovato (1881-1923), (Jovene, 2000). As well, she published several articles in both national and international reviews on the same topics.
From 1993 to 1999, she was a researcher at the Institute of Studies on Economies in Southern Italy in the Modern Ages (ISEMEM), National Research Council. In this period, she studied the role played by engineering education on the building of contemporary cities within the group of study: "Environment and resources". Publications of this period of study include: "L'ingegnere delle acque al servizio del Mezzogiorno fra Otto e Novecento: una risorsa per lo sviluppo", in S. Zaninelli and M. Zaccolini (editors), Il lavoro come fattore produttivo e come risorsa nella storia economica italiana, V&P, city, 2002; and "Dal metodo empirico all'indirizzo scientifico. L'acqua nella formazione tecnico-professionale fra Otto e Novecento", in G.Gili, M.Lupo and I.Zilli (editors), Scuola e Società. Le istituzioni scolastiche in Italia, ESI, city, 2002.
From 1999 to 2001, she was a researcher at the Institute of Economic History (ISEM), National Research Council. During this period, her field of research changed to environmental history; she experimented with several scientific applications within this new perspective. She promoted a new section called "Cronache di disastri evitati [Chronicles of avoided disasters]" in the environmental review I frutti di demetra in which she published several articles: "Il progetto Dary-Laforest per un nuovo rione a Posillipo" (2004, n. 1), "Un ponte sui fori" (2004, n. 2), "Edificare in villa" (2004, n. 4), "La funicolare aerea di Napoli" (2005, n. 5) and "Eliminare l'isola tiberina?" (2005, n. 7). In the same review, she published articles on the ecological use of textile fibres such as hemp ("Vestirsi di canapa per una moda eco-compatibile", 2004, n. 4), on the exploitation of nature in the jewellery sector, such as in the case of coral ("Gioielli di natura", 2005, n. 7) and on the impact of tourist development in the mountains ("Neve senza natura. Il turismo sciistico montano tra economia e ambiente", 2006 n. 10). On the same topic, she also published "Turismo e natura in montagna" in Il turismo tra teoria e prassi, edited by I. Zilli, ESI, 2007. At the end of this experimental phase, she began to study the relationship between towns and environment with a special attention to the role played by infrastructural networks.
In 2001, she took up her present position as Researcher at the Institute of Studies on Mediterranean Societies. During the last the few years she has been studying the role played by underground spaces within the contemporary urban scenario. She cooperates within the CNR project "Natural resources in a historical perspective", coordinated by Gabriella Corona. The most representative publications within this phase are: "Napoli invisibile: il sottosuolo nel dibattito ottocentesco" (Mélanges de l'école francaise de Rome, 2004, n. 2) and "La mano pubblica nel sottosuolo di Napoli" (Storia Urbana, 2007, n. 116).
At present, she is the coordinator of the national study group Undergrounds in Naples (info: www.issm.cnr.it). An interdisciplinary meeting of the study group was organized in Naples on 16 November 2007 to collect experiences on different approaches to studies of underground spaces, after which she edited a digest (to be published in November 2008) presenting the most representative contributions within the context of a new comprehensive model. She also leads the project Underground, the very forbidden space, which represents a first step in the internationalization of her vision of underground studies. In August 2008, as part of this project, she organized a session within the biennial conference of the European Association for Urban History (EAUH, for info see: http://eauh.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/); as a result, she is now editing a collection of studies within a global context (to be published in December 2008). In addition, she coordinates the study group Racconti dal sottosuolo [Memories from the underground], which collects and analyses oral histories of experiences of people who found shelter in underground caves in Naples during the Second World War.
