The thesis examines the spatial, ecological and political consequences of agro-industrial saturation along the Mediterranean coast, focusing on the rural plain of the Capitanata in Apulia, Southern Italy. Marked by monocultural intensification, hydrological stress and labour exploitation, the region reveals how agricultural landscapes have been systematically produced as infrastructures of territorial exploitation. Challenging market-driven and technocratic responses to ecological crisis, the research reframes agriculture not as a neutral productive surface, but as a historically constructed spatial apparatus. A central question of the thesis concerns the memory of the rural landscape invoked in contemporary debates: which past is being recalled, through which temporal stratifications and according to which external forces. The study identifies two decisive transitions shaping the Capitanata: the shift from pastoral land to large-scale wheat production, and the programme of integral land reclamation implemented during the Fascist period. Particular attention is given to the latter, analysing the colonisation of the plain as an explicitly anthropogenic territorial project developed over the last two centuries. Methodologically, the thesis reconstructs the chronological metamorphosis of the Capitanata from the nineteenth century to the present, with each chapter foregrounding enduring struggles reframed within a national perspective on Italy’s territorial development. Alongside this historical analysis, the research traces episodes of self-sufficiency and resistance to organised capitalist production, developing a relational cartography of agroecological practices, informal cooperatives, activist movements and marginal rural communities.

Romina is an architect and researcher educated at the Politecnico di Milano, whose work operates at the intersection of architecture, landscape and political ecology. She has gained international professional experience at Lina Ghotmeh Architecture and Bureau Bas Smets, where she worked as a Senior Architect on large-scale public space projects and curated several exhibitions. She is a contributing writer for Domusweb, curator of the Sustainable Cities column, and currently serves as a Teaching Associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.