Marialuisa Menegatto

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at University of Padua

Per decenni le falde del Veneto sono state inquinate con sostanze chimiche dannose per la salute, i Pfas. Un disastro che ha contaminato acqua, alimenti e almeno 350mila persone. La contaminazione che da oltre 50 anni sta violentando le terre delle province di Padova, Verona e Vicenza è invisibile, i campi e gli allevamenti si susseguono vicino all...

Little is known about the psychosocial impact on people who live in polluted areas, and its consequences for the parental role have been neglected. This study addresses this gap, proposing qualitative research referring to the case of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) water pollution in the Veneto Region of Italy. The purpose of this stud...

The urgency to reply to climate change requires a governance perspective that connects multiple societal levels and sectors and involves a plurality of actors. Psychologists should take an important role in addressing the ongoing climate crisis, together with other practitioners, scholars, policymakers and citizens. This systematic review aims to s...

Residents of an extensive area of the Veneto Region (Italy) face one of the largest technological disasters due to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). On the basis of a risk gradient of contamination, the affected territories were divided into 4 areas: Red (of maximum exposure, where a human biomonitoring programme (HBM) was activated), Ora...

Multilevel and decentralised governance approaches involving different social actors are increasingly relevant to collectively tackling climate-induced vulnerabilities. Among emergent governance experimentations, citizen science (CS) is a transversal scientific practice characterised by the involvement of citizens in various phases of the scientifi...

Dear Colleagues, Environmental disasters and climate change pose one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century, with significant implications for the psychosocial well-being of affected populations. This special issue explores the impact of psychosocial stress resulting from extreme events such as hurricanes, wildfires, floods,...

The ever-worsening climate crisis necessitates a shift toward sustainable energy systems that prioritise citizen participation. Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) present a unique opportunity to enhance local resilience, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and foster climate mitigation and adaptation through participatory governance. This exploratory...

L’articolo affronta il tema della violenza ambientale attraverso il caso del disastro ambientale causato dalle ecomafie in Campania, nella cosiddetta “Terra dei fuochi”. La prospettiva presentata dagli autori, psicologi sociali, mettendo in luce la complessa fenomenologia territoriale e umana che tali vicende ricoprono, mira ad ampliare la definizi...

This study investigated the relatively unexplored topic of the collective memory of environmental disasters from a psychosocial perspective. To achieve this, we conducted an exploratory case study on the Vaia storm, which hit the Italian Alps in October 2018, causing significant social and ecological damage. We carried out thirteen in-depth semi-st...

Some communities in the Veneto Region (Italy) are facing a major technological disaster due to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) pollution. In response to this serious problem, a group of ordinary mothers exposed to PFAS contamination came together under the name MammeNoPfas (MothersNoPfas) to address this environmental disaster moving towa...

The article presents a qualitative study of the relational dimension of the social work practice with asylum seekers and refugees. The aim of the research is to explore how a group of social workers working with asylum seekers and refugees represent their relationship with users and how they construct this relational work. In Italy, the social work...

The Taliban restored their government in Afghanistan in August 2021, following an international agreement and a rapid offensive throughout the country. Consequently, many Afghans who collaborated with the United States-NATO coalition were forced to leave the country. Forced migration events expose people to a wide breadth of sudden stressful change...

Background: Ostracism is a negative experience that has been studied primarily in laboratory settings. This study extends current research by investigating ostracism in daily life, analyzing the transition from social death to social resurrection of Catholic partners who suffered ostracism both in the couple (with the consequent divorce) and in the...

Cosa è cambiato nella prassi psichiatrica e nel ricorso alle misure coercitive a quarant'anni dall'introduzione della Legge 180? Quali sono gli aspetti legali e i profili etici di queste pratiche e che impatto hanno sulla relazione terapeutica? Per rispondere a questi interrogativi gli autori hanno intrapreso un percorso nei Servizi Psichiatrici di...

The recent introduction of a specific offence of torture in ordinary Italian criminal law includes the requirement of "verifiable psychic trauma" as evidence, certified by experts, of the torture suffered. Since there is no "torture trauma" or "torture syndrome" in the literature, this article addresses this topic by comparing the requirements of t...

Much of the debate over torture in the past few years has implied, either implicitly or explicitly, that Italy is a Country "torture-free". In general, these commentaries have failed to include any references to past cases of torture happened in Italy. With the sentences of the European Court of Human Rights Italy has been condemned for G8 events i...

Rape is a common occurrence during the genocide and the presence of children born as a result of rape constitutes a challenge to post-genocide individual recovery and social reconciliation processes. This article deals with mothers and their adolescent children born as a result of a rape during the genocide in Rwanda. Qualitative analysis of indivi...

Prefazione a " I determinanti sociali della salute mentale " (WHO 2014, Social determinants of mental health, traduzione DoRS, luglio 2017) Marialuisa Menegatto, Adriano Zamperini Università degli Studi di Padova. Ormai è acclarato: report istituzionali e letteratura scientifica non perdono occasione per rimarcare come la salute sia caratterizzata...

Nella società occidentale il lavoro è centrale nella vita delle persone e risponde a una serie di bisogni diversificati: materiali, di sussistenza e psicologici. Il lavoro incide sulla realizzazione di sé e agisce come marcatore di uno stile di vita; è fattore di stabilizzazione, integrazione, autosoddisfazione, autodeterminazione, influenzando dir...

Democrazia è parola mimetica, spesso asservita alla retorica dei potenti. Tra i fenomeni disturbanti nascosti dal mantello mimetico della democrazia c’è la coercizione, agita con la minaccia, la punizione e l’uso della forza fisica. Anche in uno Stato di diritto, l’apparato di coercizione che può essere dispiegato contro i cittadini è imponente. Ne...

Accountability is a vital element of policing. Over time, the public has demanded more control over police activities, while policing has attracted a good deal of controversy, such as the discriminatory and violent manner in which police officers treat individuals. In this paper, we explore Italian police accountability when faced with violent acti...

Fino al XVIII secolo la tortura è una pratica accettata e legittimata dalla comunità. E forse in un certo senso pure apprezzata. Il suo consenso girava attorno ad alcune architravi costruite socialmente e cariche di significati. Svolgeva una funzione normalizzatrice e garantiva un certo ordine sociale. Quietava il corpo sociale dalle paure del devi...

Recent international studies have confirmed that peacekeeping deployment of a parent exacts a toll on partner and family, but little is known about how deployment-related stress impacts on Italian military families. This study described a qualitative research design that focused on the impact of deployment on a group of wives and cohabiting of Ital...

This study of the language of the mass media, aimed at identifying themes that establish the public performance of the economic crisis, highlighting the subordination of the person to the debt, as a new threatening totem in front of which one prostrates oneself and for which to sacrifice oneself.

The “debt construction” represents an economic relationship inseparable from the production of the debtor subject and his moraIity. Debt produces a specific “morality”: The couple “effort-reward” of the ideology of work is doubled by the morality of the promise (to honor one’s debt) and the fault (of having entered into it). The concept of guilt is...

It is well known that since the fall of 2008, the world has entered into the deepest recession since the 1930s. The origin of this recession was a financial crisis that began in the USA in the summer of 2007, and which spread rapidly in Europe and across the rest of the world. The main cause was to be found in the collapse of the financial market a...

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the legal narratives produced during hearings at the trial for violence that took place inside the Bolzaneto prison at the Genoa Group of Eight Summit (G8) of 2001. First we summarize the events of the G8, during which, according to international observers, there occurred the most serious vi...

State violence generally is connected to totalitarian regimes and dictatorships that violate human rights. Conversely, scientific literature is poor in state violence practiced in democratic societies. The aim of this article is to fill this gap by analyzing the events occurs during the G8 summit in Genoa of July 20-22, 2001, during which, accordin...

Psychosocial studies generally connect State violence with undemocratic and totalitarian system that trample down human rights. In fact scientific literature is poor in the state violence practiced in democratic societies. If the international observers agreed that in Genoa there has been a heavy suspension of human rights during the G8 summit, it...

The Genoa G8 Summit of 2001 was marred by violence and conflicts between police and activists. Afterwards, these different groups constructed clashing discourses about the events. In turn, these discourses sustained different types of social representations about the nature of the conflict. Earlier analyses of hegemonic social representations exami...

Killing in self-defense is commonly perceived as an inalienable human right. Accordingly, citizen gun possession is claimed for self-defense or a well equipped militia is considered as necessary to guarantee the security and the defense of a free state. Further, killing in self-defense is still strongly supported by many in governments and mass med...