Disarticulations in Naples: Cultural political ecology, the green transition, and labour unrest at a Whirlpool factory

This article develops a cultural political ecology approach to disarticulations and labour unrest. The reference point for analysis is a struggle at a Whirlpool factory in Naples that the company announced would close in 2019, six months after signing an agreement with the Italian government, including a multi-million investment plan. Despite experiencing continuous growth and having committed to keeping Italy as a strategic node of its EMEA production network, Whirlpool, Italy's biggest manufacturer of home appliances, has engaged in disinvestment strategies in recent years. The article documents workers' attempts to resist the plant's closure. It shows how their fight with the American multinational corporation was engrained within the temporalities of the COVID-19 pandemic and analyses demands over the green transition that contributed to the outcome of the dispute. Conclusions suggest that the (post-)pandemic landscape is characterised by opening cultural and political ecological spaces for labour agency, assessing implications for environmental labour studies.