AESOP ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Community Roots: cultural heritage and local memory as drivers for territorial social cohesion. The case of the ‘Radici’ Research Project in the Mountain Community of Sondrio-Valtellina

Not scheduled

10m

Oral SS 03 | Repopulating left-behind territories: Policies, Practices, and Emerging Pathway SS_03 REPOPULATING LEFT-BEHIND TERRITORIES: POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND EMERGING PATHWAY

Speaker

Emanuele Belotti

Description

This paper discusses the case of the ‘Radici’ (Community Roots) Research Project, which aims at reversing ongoing territorial and socio-economic decline dynamics in one of the fourteen districts that Lombardy’s regional government has included into its regional Strategy for the so-called ‘Inner Areas’. This Research Project focuses on nineteen small mountain municipalities belonging to the Mountain Community of Sondrio Valtellina, in the Northern-Italian Lombardy’s Alpine ring, whose territory is experiencing increasing intra and inter-municipal socio-economic and demographic disequilibria due to de-anthropization and touristification processes characterising the Italian rural Inner Areas. The ‘Radici’ Research Project, promoted by the Mountain Community of Sondrio Valtellina with the scientific support of four Northern-Italian universities, involves local heritage and multidisciplinary research actions aiming at restoring the collective memory of traditional culturally embedded places, activities and identities, whereas the nexus between cultural asset preservation and local memory revitalisation works as a driver for territorial renaissance. The aim of ‘Radici’ is to provide valid tools that lead to a more aware care of the Valtellina landscape. Indeed, the human landscape is conceived as an important part of the local capital. Research, collective memory and learning are the first steps to consolidate cultural fruition and knowledge circulation, which in turn can generate inclusion and new culture.
This research project adopts action research techniques aiming at bolstering both community engagement and inter-institutional cooperation based on mutual recognition among local authorities, municipalities and academia. Within this framework, we will mainly present two research-actions that are part of the ‘Radici Research Project’: 1. the Polaggia courts in the municipality of Berbenno and 2. the Scilironi hamlet in the municipality of Spriana.