Instituting Practices as an Interpretative Device for the Emancipation of Social Phenomenologies: A gaze on Ponticelli, East Naples

Abstract

This paper reflects on an attempt to spatialize the theoretical concept of instituting practices developed by philosopher Roberto Esposito. Grounded in an empirical investigation of welfare spaces and practices in Ponticelli, a peripheral and socially fragile district of Naples, the study examines how collective practices can generate durable spatial transformations. The analysis focuses on an urban health garden developed within a partially abandoned public park through long-term practices of care. The case highlights the role of time, spatial production, and collective agency in processes that compensate for institutional gaps without becoming institutionalized themselves. The recognition of an instituting process opens the possibility of an instituting project, understood not as a prescriptive design tool but as an open, experimental, and relational device capable of engaging with uncertainty, conflict, and diversity. The paper contributes to debates on urban regeneration and planning theory by proposing an operational translation of Esposito’s philosophical concept into an interpretive framework for urban analysis that provides the basis for an alternative design approach.