1 Ethnographic reflections on ‘oppositional heritage discourse’ in two post-earthquake Italian cities Nick Dines, Middlesex University n.dines@mdx.ac.uk Abstract This article explores the politicisation of cultural heritage during the aftermath of the 1980 earthquake in Naples and the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila. It begins by critically addressing the positions of Tomaso Montanari and Salvatore Settis, two prominent heritage intellectuals at the forefront of national campaigns to restore the damaged historic centre of L’Aquila. Both have been instrumental in shaping an ‘oppositional heritage discourse’ in Italy that underscores the civic virtues of the nation’s cultural patrimony while simultaneously railing against its marketisation. Reflecting upon observations in L’Aquila, where locals involved in protests at government inaction have been scolded by fellow inhabitants for their lack of obeisance to cultural heritage, and drawing on longstanding ethnographic research in Naples, where heritage campaigns against redevelopment in the historic centre in the 1980s were later incorporated into an ambitious regeneration agenda, the article argues that this oppositional heritage discourse is not only premised upon idealist notions of collective identity but also, as a result of its attempts to legislate the boundaries of heritage citizenship and its disavowal of philologically incorrect relationships with historic centres, it ultimately provides tacit support to the very same neoliberal urban processes against which it claims to take a stand. Keywords Italy; historic centres; post-earthquake reconstruction; oppositional heritage discourse; neoliberal urbanisation. Introduction On 5 May 2013, Italy’s art historians gathered in L’Aquila – the capital city of the Abruzzo region devastated by an earthquake in April 2009 – to decry the tardy restoration of the city’s medieval historic centre. In his address to the assembled audience, the meeting’s organiser, Tomaso Montanari, claimed that the reconstruction of L’Aquila should have taken its cue from its thirteenth-century founders and create piazzas, fountains and churches before building houses in order to lay the foundations for an enduring civic culture. Instead the Italian government, at the time headed by Silvio Berlusconi, had hastily built new settlements