Counter-Geographies of Wine: Marginal Viticultural Practices and the Transition To-ward a Post-Alcoholic Enotourism. The Role of Acquata. – This article proposes a critical re-reading of contemporary wine geographies through the notion of counter-geographies, focusing on acquata—a traditional post-fermentative beverage derived from the rehydration of grape pomace—as an epistemic and territorial device capable of reconfiguring the cultural and ecological meanings of wine production. Building on the theoretical framework of post-alcoholic enotourism, the study explores how emerging “NoLo” (no- and low-alcohol) consumption regimes intersect with transformations in rural landscapes, sustainability policies, and socio-symbolic practices of conviviality. Historical and geographical analysis reveals that acquata, far from being a marginal residue of pre-industrial viticulture, embodies a vernacular knowledge system rooted in circular use of resources, social equity, and ecological restraint. Its historical erasure through modern regulatory frameworks reflects broader processes of epistemic and territorial exclusion within capitalist agri-food regimes. By reactivating ac-quata as a cultural and political tool, the paper advances the hypothesis of a regenerative geography of wine, in which residual practices and marginal knowledges serve as generative forces for more inclusive, sustainable, and plural forms of enotourism and territorial identity.

The new opportunities offered by immersive and inclusive technologies to represent and rediscover the complex relationship between human communities and water resources. – In order to know, represent and interpret the complex relationship between water landscapes and human communities the new technologies (immersive cartography, three-dimensional web, augmented reality, 3D environments) represent extraordinary and functional tools both for research and for territorial information and promotion actions in terms of tourism. Evidence of this is the project “Tourist Itineraries to Discover the Waters of Italy”, conceived and promoted by the GECOAGRI LANDITALY Interuniversity Research Group Association and financed by ACEA, aimed at promoting a process of water resource enhancement in the dimension of environmental, economic and social sustainability. The authors through some exemplifications and using a methodology of operational analysis, characterized by new syntaxes, reconstruct with the help of augmented reality and immersive technologies, as well as the canonical geocartographic and documentary sources, the material and immaterial dimension of the water resource in the Conca reatina, Umbilicus Italiae, where the sociocultural dynamics underlying the relationship between water and population, narrate experiences of vulnerability and development, participation and conflict, protection and threat. Through 10 ten interactive and implementable totem-stations, it is possible to embark on an inclusive and participatory journey that allows people to explore even inaccessible places. Not only video and audio, historical and thematic cartographies, photos and three-dimensional images, but also drone shots from which to observe from above what nature and culture have achieved and, if necessary, to land in particular places reconstructed through augmented reality that allows one to observe them as they were and as they are today, making clear the processes of transformation of which signs and sedimentations remain in the landscape palimpsest.

Landscape and proximity fruition in the Euganean Hills context: reflections from an educational experience. – Tourism-recreational practices are often framed through dichotomous concepts such as near/far, familiar/unfamiliar, tourist/local, and everyday/exotic. With this awareness, we proposed a didactic laboratory within the Master’s degree program in Landscape Science at the University of Padua to address the following research question: What role does the experience of landscape play in reconsidering these dichotomous approaches? We analysed the Euganean Hills area in the Padua province exploring four specific contexts, two historical houses and two museums, where the relationship with the landscape is defined by practices of proximity and specific connections with natural and cultural heritage values. The research was based on desk analysis of demographic and tourism data, strategic and promotional documents, visits and interviews. Dialogue with local operators, their perspectives on local communities and the direct immersion in the landscape unveiled the multiple ways in which the Euganean landscape is understood and promoted for leisure purposes. What emerged is the plurality of discourses and images, places and initiatives, often co-created ‘from below’, that define and redefine the landscape. Tracing the variety of proximity visits, experienced similarly by residents and tourists through an interesting hybridisation process mixing roles, motivations and space sharing, allows to overcome dichotomies and open up new spaces for reflection and local planning.

Proximity tourism and enhancement of the returning artistic-cultural heritage. – In marginal contexts, it is conceivable to think of a reflection on proximity tourism through artistic-cultural initiatives that dialogue with the landscape, highlighting the disparities in development between territories. Within the framework of this approach, the activity of relocating artworks emerges as an innovative strategy to transform the artistic heritage into an engine of revitalization and alternative fruition, while promoting local tourism. This approach is evident in various projects, including that of the MIC called “100 artworks come home”. This initiative aims to return artworks preserved in the deposits of 14 Italian museums, moving them to their places of creation to reconnect them to the historical and cultural context that inspired them. This study aims to explore the potential of this practice, analyzing some experiences to try to understand whether relocation (from the museum to the place of creation or first location) has generated ways of use capable of stimulating tourist dynamics and contributing to the attractiveness of villages and small towns. The lines of reflection that we intend to propose are therefore to seek a possible reading of proximity tourism with a view to enhancing the widespread artistic-cultural heritage and to reason precisely on the link between territory and heritage in terms of reconfiguring the dynamics of concentration (flows, cultural heritage...)

What the history of geography is about? Academic and widespread geographic knowledge during the First World War. – The First World War influenced the spread of culture, both in form and content. This phenomenon no less affects geography, with the alteration of the traditional balance between academic and widespread knowledge. Diversification of the protagonists and the heterogeneity of expressive forms becomes the characteristic of a radically transformed geographic landscape relative to the full, largely static and approved, picture of prior times.
By adopting an inductive research methodology that takes its cue from the empirical evidence of the profound structural changes that occurred in geographical production in Italy during the Great War, this article questions the protagonists of the discipline, reaching conclusions that could perhaps also be extended to the analysis of other historical periods: the need to overcome the narrow conception of the history of the discipline, which is focused upon the internal affairs of academia, in favour of a view which acknowledges the articulated complexity and plurality of geographical knowledge.

Transhumance and landscape: relationship between settlements and tractural roads in central southern Italy – The study analyzes the historical and spatial evolution of the settlement system in central-southern Italy, with reference to Abruzzo aquilano, affected by the phenomenon of transhumant farming. The main element examined is the historical evolution of the settlement
structure with respect to the tractural ways, understood as a fundamental morphogenetic element of the urban systems and the landscape. The objective of the analysis is the identification of a series of elements useful for the protection and enhancement of the paths and of the historical and landscape pre-existences attributable to the phenomenon. The methodol-ogy is based on the analysis of the bibliography, especially recent innovative elements about the degradation of the “Tratturi” system, and, with cartographic analyzes and in situ surveys, it defines the critical issues and the territorial resources to lay the basis for a valorization project.

Cambiamenti socio-spaziali ed economici nel paesaggio rurale del Brasile e Italia. – The present work aims to understand, through qualitative research, the socio-spatial and economic changes in the rural landscape of Brazil and Italy, observing rural tourism as a very strong potential of the rural landscape in the two countries studied. In this sense, the role of landscape is analyzed as a structuring element in rural space which, through its marks left in space, tells the story of different areas over time and contributes to adding material and symbolic value to the development of rural tourism. Therefore, as it is a process that has been occurring worldwide in recent decades, we will identify in a comparative way the different aspects related to rural tourism and landscape in Brazil and Italy. In this sense, in the face of historical-geographical research, we will analyze the main elements of the landscape for Geography and how rural tourism appropriates them for its development, relating it to the socio-spatial and economic aspects of each country.

Wetlands, leaf fodder trees and ancient grasslands: a characterization of the environmental heritage of transhumance. – For centuries, transhumance has been a socio-economic system capable of shaping mountain landscapes and environments. The paper presents two case studies aimed at identifying the historical-ecological traces of seasonal breeding systems to characterize the environmental legacy of transhumance. The proposed approach enables the evaluation of the positive externalities of past pastoral practices in terms of vegetation resources activation (leaf-fodder trees, ancient grasslands) and water resources maintaining (springs, ponds, small lakes, peat-bogs, etc.).

Landscape education as a practice of geographical mediation in the processes of resignification of places and reduction of conflicts in San Lorenzo district in Rome. – San Lorenzo district has a marked historical-identity component which, however, has not managed to safeguard the neighbourhood from phenomena of deterritorialization and gentrification. The main cause of the recent condition of degradation and conflict has to be found in the urban layout which has triggered a series of interferences in the identity of the place, for example the external pressures exerted by the university. In this case, therefore, the “configurative profile” (Turco, 2010), made up of relationships, emotions and feelings, has been impoverished and has been transformed.
In this context are inserted the landscape education practices (Turco, 2020) promoted by geographers of Sapienza University of Rome, which propose themselves as cultural mediators in the process of re-signification of places and spaces. The presence in the field and the response to the cultural requests from the immediate surroundings of the University have been translated into events open to the public such as the International Night of Geography or the Roman Summer in San Lorenzo which combine the presence of institutions with activities of Public geography. The territory as a common good is such only if the community is the architect of its definition and recognizes the anthropological value of the space. In this direction, landscape education, strongly characterized on an emotional and cognitive level, contributes to implementing those reterritorialization processes which are the privileged tool of geography for the resolution of the impoverishment phenomena caused by situations of conflict and violence.

Dynamics of the urban forest. The case of Nervi and Sant’Ilario (Genoa). – The text was developed within the PRIN project “Sylva – Ripensare la selva” and aims to analyze some landscape and environmental impacts of the rewilding process that took place in the Nervi valley. Nervi and Sant’Ilario today represent one of the “greenest” areas of the municipality of Genoa. In the past, these localities, favored by a particularly mild microclimate, were however widely exploited for agriculture on terraces and pastoralism. The abandonment process that began in the second half of the twentieth century favored the advance of the forest, interrupted only by the repeated fires that hit the valley. These phenomena have also accentuated the susceptibility to instability of the slopes, demonstrating that reforestation processes are not always positive.

 

Calabrian ways: religious itinerary for Geography’s path. – In recent years, historical, religious, food and wine and cultural itineraries have become increas-ingly important for the discovery of Italian villages and landscapes: in constant growth is the interest in these tools of knowledge of the history and heritage of Italy.
This work proposes the creation of geo-itineraries based on historical studies concerning the life of two Calabrian monks. The creation of these itineraries, through Gis technology, would lead to the enhancement of still little-known villages, belonging to the internal areas of Calabria, and, at the same time, the rediscovery of the relationship between the tourist and the landscape.

Cultural heritage and urban regeneration. Roma Capitale suburbs Announcement for the launch of a culture driven development. – The management and the rethinking of urban spaces, old and new, central and peripheral, in use or in assignment, is an essential and unavoidable challenge for the competitiveness of any urban systems. This implies a profound change of policy and relations between the actors and the stakeholders that act in it. In this challenge, the culture is a new, and so far underestimated, competitive advantage, able to act as a catalyst to encourage and stimulate creative and innovative processes of territorial development, starting from available local resources. In fact, in the current globalizing scenario, each territory must continually generate local revitalization processes, in order to remain economically competitive and culturally attractive. In this context, urban areas characterized by inadequate spaces and public services, in which there are abandoned structures with particular emphasis on those connoted by landscape features and historical architecture of a certain level, may represent flywheels and natural incubators with a cultural background from which starting to redefine the overall structure of any local systems. The recovery projects proposed for three areas of the northwest area of the city of Rome, falling in the suburbs Announcement recently presented by the municipality, fit in attempts to develop urban resilience proposals according to an approach of culture driven development.