Ai margini delle mappe: appunti preliminari per uno studio sulla pluralità dell’isola di Alicudi. – L’articolo analizza l’insularità contemporanea di Alicudi, l’isola più occidentale dell’arcipelago eoliano, integrando prospettive geografiche, storiche e culturali. Viene evidenziato come le rappresentazioni esterne – in particolare quelle presenti nei resoconti di viaggio del XVIII e XIX secolo – abbiano contribuito a plasmarne l’immagine, spesso sovrastando le voci locali. Oggi l’identità di Alicudi si configura in un equilibrio tra tradizione e cambiamento, influenzata da trasformazioni demografi-che, dal turismo e da nuove narrazioni culturali, soprattutto quelle promosse da autrici contemporanee. Nel tentativo di descrivere l’“insularità reticolare” di Alicudi, lo studio ne definisce il ruolo di spazio al tempo stesso periferico e connesso, non solo all’interno dell’arcipelago, ma anche in un repertorio di immaginari si estende ben oltre i suoi confini geografici.

Geographies of the sacred: the sanctuary of the SS. Trinità of Vallepietra between tradi-tion, territorial identity, and new practices. – The Sanctuary of the Santissima Trinità of Vallepietra represents an emblematic place where faith, tradition, and new social and territorial practices converge. This study examines how this sacred space continues to hold strong spiritual significance while also embracing new dynamics related to slow and sustainable travel. Younger generations are rediscovering pilgrimage through paths that combine spirituality with a search for territorial authenticity, maintaining a strong connection with tradition. The “companies” of pilgrims, symbolically united by banners and the practice of gatherings, perpetuate an identity bond with the territory, reinterpreting their belonging through a lens of re-territorialization. In this context, events related to pilgrimages and gatherings of banners are seen as practices of reclaiming the territory, strengthening the bond with the local community, and reaffirming the collective meaning of the sacred site. The approach of the Holy Year 2025 and the extraordinary Jubilee of 2033 has renewed attention to these places, intensifying the process of re-territorialization and reinforcing the bond between spirituality and territory. This study shows that, although influenced by socio-cultural changes, sanctuaries remain focal points of collective identity and territorial relationships, able to evolve without losing their original religious significance.

Textures and scalar relationships of transhumance between tradition and innovation. The Sportumanza project for a slow and responsible tourism. – Recalling the importance of transhumance as a territorial process and as the demonstration of the three attributes of space - scale, metric, substance – we can reveal the power of this ancient practice: it proceeds by multiscale relationships, foresees multiple metrics and it shows all its richness in substance, through the three characterizations of inhabiting (relational, functional and temporal). Through the case study of the vertical transhumance of the Orobic pre-Alpine context, we investigate how it generates relationships between human and non-human agents, functional practices for pastoral activity and for other ecosystemic services, care and preservation of biodiversity sites, enabling the shepherd and his animals to become sensors of environmental changes on a global scale. We then move on to the analysis of transhumance as an opportunity for innovation in the forms of living and doing tourism, especially in areas defined as peripheral and internal, by presenting the “Sportumanza” project.

The tradition of poet shepherds in the complex relational space of the Sibillini Mountains – For centuries, the practice of transhumance thrived in the Sibillini Mountains, particularly towards Maremma and Agro Romano. This pastoral society witnessed the establishment of both major and minor farms, leading to the gradual growth of a pastoral industry that persisted largely unchanged until the mid-20th Century. Enduring a challenging environment with extreme living conditions, the shepherds embarked on strenuous journeys from the mountains to the plains, spending months away from home, yet managing to preserve a deep cultural understanding. During their leisure time, these shepherds orally transmitted and safeguarded legends that have endured in the Sibillini region to this day. They also committed to memory poems of chivalrous exploits (such as Tasso’s Gerusalemme). Some, like Giuseppe Rosi, who fought alongside Garibaldi during the Risorgimento, even composed their own verses, adding to the richness of a distinct oral tradition that has been upheld for generations. Unfortunately, with the last of these poet shepherds disappearing, this unique oral tradition now faces the risk of extinction. This paper aims to explore the origin and evolution of these exceptional poet shepherds, with the intention of encouraging efforts to study, protect, and preserve what little remains of these precious pastoral and oral traditions.

The countryside revenge. From the typical economy to the post-modern eating. – The increasing of the homologated processes of the production field and the food consumption are explanatory factors of a flowing back thought process that brings to consider food again in a stronger ethic and local key and environmental sustainability. In this evaluative scene of groceries traditional, handmade, biological, natural, zero kilometer, short supply chain and local categories, incorporating an additional quid to the industrial groceries, seem to answer with greater adequacy to the satisfaction of needs felt essential to the safety of traditions, nature and human wellbeing. Values for wich consumers are willing to pay an higher price with the purpose to respect them or incorporate them. As long as they are able to perceive their quality, identity and origin with an efficient story that bring them to market. A story that, in an increasing and careful measure, aims to bring out the intangible components of food that end up endowing it with an economic, nutritional, gustatory, health and identity surplus value.

Verso un urbanismo a rifiuti zero: un manifesto per un futuro sostenibile. – Le città sono il principale luogo di produzione e consumo di rifiuti, nonché di rapida urbanizzazione. Questo articolo prende in considerazione la tradizione rifiuti zero, guardando in particolare alle città rifiuti zero, e mettendola in dialogo con le tradizioni critiche, in particolare con l’ecologia politica urbana. L’urbanismo rifiuti zero viene presentato come una nuova prospettiva e un invito all’azione, non solo per progettare città migliori, ma anche per cambiare la società e rielaborare i sistemi politici. Ponendo le sue domande chiave quelle che interrogano il potere, l’urbanismo rifiuti zero radicalizza l’approccio rifiuti zero, sviluppando nuovi modi di esplorare la realtà proponendo una visione ricostruttiva per creare futuri urbani sostenibili. In tal modo, questo lavoro mira a raggiungere sia i professionisti di rifiuti zero, sia i ricercatori interdisciplinari che gli attivisti-ricercatori.