Moretti’s book on contemporary Milanese public spaces is a comprehensive ethnographic study on the city and its inhabitants. A well-researched project that criss-crosses and problematises encounters between different social classes, between centre and periphery, and between familiar and foreign, Milanese Encounters allows readers to probe the city of Milan with the tools of ethnographers, sociologists, cultural anthropologists and urban studies scholars. While the book may find its primary readership among such researchers, it is of great relevance to the field of Italian studies as well. In addition, thanks to its brilliant prose and engaging organisation of the materials analysed, it makes an excellent read for a broader, educated public.

Written from the perspective of a participant observer, the book presents nine separate paths of inquiry that explore divergent voices on the use of public space(s) in Milan. The sustained ethnographic fieldwork at the core of this book was conducted over the course of three visits to Milan, in 2004–2005, 2009, and 2011. The author recognises this chronological stratification, and events discussed in the chapters are often read against the grain of such historical self-awareness. The result is a multi-faceted portrait of the city, captured at a pivotal point in its demographic, economic, and political history.

Moretti sets two objectives for this ethnographic quest. In the first place, the author seeks to understand how the discourse on public spaces often reinforces the identification and marginalisation of ‘others’ instead of encouraging ‘an appreciation for diversity and equality’ (p. 6), and to illustrate the strategies of resistance to this general trend devised by less privileged inhabitants of these same public spaces. In the second place, Moretti also aims at questioning the concept of public space in ethnographic discourse, dissecting it in its multiple iterations and enactments, with a particular focus on the visual elements and performative practices that render a given space public, at least for some of the people who engage with it.

The volume’s nine chapters provide alternative and complementary approaches towards the achievement of these goals. Chapters 1 and 2 acquaint the reader with Milan and its public spaces, through visual and textual descriptions. Chapters 3 to 5 discuss how three different social actors – a middle-class urban improvement association, a social centre, and immigrants from different backgrounds – define and lay claim to public spaces. Chapter 6 presents a compelling disquisition on how visibility and invisibility in public spaces can lead to discrimination and inclusion. Lastly, Chapters 7 to 9 provide guided scholarly tours, narrative paths across the city that combine localised sociologies of space with the close reading of multiple texts: conversations between the author and two women, an immigrant and a native Milanese; itineraries with Mohamed Ba, a Senegalese ‘community educator and theater writer” (p. 201); and the account of the author’s own movements and experiences in two Milanese neighbourhoods.

Each of these avenues of inquiry presents poignant case studies, which Moretti analyses with frequent and appropriate references to recent scholarship, both theoretical and historical in character. Two chapters, however, shine for their methodological originality and convincing findings. On the one hand, Chapter 1 (‘Orientations’) familiarises the readers with Milan while problematising the concept of public space through the use of photography. The chapter reads as an essay in which photographs and captions provide a visual argument alongside the text, foregrounding Moretti’s concern for public spaces that often become sites of exclusion and discrimination. The chapter also illustrates, in practical terms, the author’s methodological decision to investigate the aesthetics of public space, and her focus on the marginality and invisibility produced by Milan’s prominently visual interaction with the public sphere. On the other hand, Chapter 8 (‘Places and Stages: Vision and Performance in Public Space’) builds upon the artistic skills and theatre work of Moretti’s interlocutor, Mohamed Ba, to provide a reading of city spaces as parts of a theatrical itinerary, made of many actors and voices. The rendition of Ba’s accounts on the history and culture of the city and its inhabitants in the form of a theatre play builds upon the potential of performing a multitude of roles and positions within the public space, and delivers a scholarly essay that doubles as a vibrant page of literature.

In Milanese Encounters, Moretti succeeds in analysing a wealth of information drawn from an ensemble of personal encounters, oral histories, written and visual primary sources, and topographical explorations. All these elements, interwoven in a captivating narrative framework, make the book a pleasure to read. Any scholars working on Milan and urban Italy will greatly benefit from this documentation, while researchers concerned with different urban realities will undoubtedly enjoy studying Moretti’s methodological approach.