Abstract

This article focuses on a qualitative analysis of artistic works and social media content produced by a group of young people in a peripheral area of the city of Turin. This area presents the worst economic indicators in the city and is often labelled by media and political discourses as being the most affected by degrado. In this context, the article analyses how this group, whom we call «the trap scene of the Barriera di Milano», creates imaginaries and representations of the territory that are able to overturn processes of stigmatisation, transforming degrado-related activities and stigmatised places into resources for obtaining street credibility as well as forging affective ties with other urban peripheries in the world. Moreover, we hypothesise that the construction of these imaginaries and related forms of action expresses an aesthetic of difference capable of challenging the inclusion-exclusion apparatus associated with the degrado-decoro dyad.