Integral Land Reclamation and Climate Transition: A Mesological Perspective on the ‘Macchina della Terra’. – This contribution examines integral reclamation in the Gulf of Oristano, Sardinia, employing Berque's concepts of ecumene and mesology alongside geographical insights. Lucio Gambi’s metaphor of reclamation as a “macchina della terra” serves as a foundational idea, while Federica Cavallo highlights modern territorial constructs that emerge from contrasts such as water vs. earth and modern vs. wild. On the centenary of the Santa Chiara dam’s inauguration, which transformed Oristano’s coastal wetlands, the region now faces the challenges of climate change. The interplay between land and local communities reveals both contradictions and potential alliances in ecological resilience, particularly in discussions surrounding Nitrate Vulnerable Zones. A century of human-environment interactions has reshaped these areas into vital agro-food production hubs, underscoring the need for a mesological perspective on this evolution.

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.

Food as weapon. Interdiction strategy: benging geography to military needs

Feeding the city through events: Expo 2015 seen from Turin. – Among the various Italian cities that have employed events as a means of continuous relaunch and repositioning on the national and international stage, Milan and Turin have hosted the most significant mega-events in the last 20 years, as Expo 2015 in Milan and the 2006 Winter Olympics Games (WOG) in Turin and the forthcoming Milano-Cortina WOG 2026.
Especially on the Turin side, the relationship was mostly experienced in competitive terms, with a series of events and related specialisations, which originated in Turin and then migrated (‘subtracted’ from the Turin point of view) to Milan in particular.
This paper will examine the theme of food, which is central to the Expo 2015 event and to various minor events hosted in the two cities. Among these, the Turin-based kermesse Terra Madre (since 2004) – Salone del Gusto (since 1996) – stands out.
As a result of Expo, Milan has become one of the world’s leading food capitals, the first Italian city to adopt a structured food policy, and the founder of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) that started in October 2015 and by January 2024 had reached no less than 279 cities around the globe, including almost thirty in Italy. Turin has repeatedly at-tempted to represent itself as a food capital, also thanks to Terra Madre-Salone del gusto. Furthermore, it was the first Italian city to include the ‘right to food’ in its municipal statute.
This paper will attempt to deconstruct the narratives on the food-city re-lationship in Milan and Turin, largely triggered by the two major events. In the context of renewed competition for the 2026 Olympic bid, it will question the possibilities of collaboration around food spaces.

Sardinia between transhumance and the Blue Zone. Socio-spatial dynamics, rural lifestyle and diet of a geographical area of exceptional longevity: Ogliastra. – The rural dimension of Sardinia is strongly represented by the historical and social role assumed by agricultural activities on the island, which have always been characterised by transhumance phenomena (in Sardinia Tramuda) that, at different scales from the rest of Italy, have characterised some Sardinian rural territories (Ortu, 1988; Lai, 1998). Ogliastra has long been one of the lands of transhumance in Sardinia (Schiavone, Schiavone, 2014), and is marked by a high number of long-lived individuals (Blue Zone), for which, the rural environment, lifestyle and local interrelation-ships and genetics have influenced the health status in this area (Pes and Poulain, 2014). The work aims to investigate the socio-spatial dimension of food production linked to the rural (transhumant) culture of Ogliastra, trying to understand the configurations of territoriality (Turco, 2010) and how this socio-spatial, rural and food model may have influenced the particular longevity of the area. The Blue Zone diet, in fact, typical of transhumant territories, can become a catalyst for the sustainable devel-opment not only of Sardinia but also of many small Mediterranean rural areas and, furthermore, can facilitate the re-appropriation by the younger generations of their ancient identity heritage.

Territorialization practices in the L’Aquila Apennines: transhumance, emigration and tourism. – The paper discusses the interconnected human and animal flows that have characterized the mobility in the high lands of L’Aquila province since the unification of Italy, when flocks and shepherds crossed their paths with emigrants, while tourists began to populate the mountains with different purposes, up to the present day, when the Abruzzo mountains are experiencing new opportunities to enroot the population and promote the territorial revitalization. Subsequently, the socio-spatial dynamics of some food productions of the southern slope of the Gran Sasso d’Italia connected to the practice of Transhumance are presented: secondary products of the pastoral economy of the past, mainly connected to the wool trade, which currently play a central role in creating employment opportunities of small local communities, with important repercussions also in the redefinition of tourist trajectories.

Transhumance, food quality, place quality. practices and narratives around mountain cheeses. – This paper discusses the role attributed to vertical transhumance (alpine pasture) in the process of typification of mountain food products, with particular reference to an alpine cheese in Piedmont and the territory associated to its production; namely, Castelmagno DOP and the Grana Valley. It shows how the practice of transhumance and alpine pasture farming play a key role in transforming a local cheese into a recognised cheese originating in a specific territory by contributing to the construction of its quality.

The places of the comedy along the via Casilina. – This contribution begins with a re-reading and re-interpretation of the Divina Commedia from a geographical perspective. Operation useful for capturing symbols and signs that still manifest themselves today in those places mentioned, in the Commedy. These places, located along the via Casilina, if put into a system, outline a potential itinerary dedicated to the figure of Dante Alighieri, representing a piece of the mosaic of routes that structure the network of routes in the territory of the Lazio sub-apennines (via Francigena in southern Italy, way of st. Thomas, food and wine itineraries of the cesanese lands, path of the parks, etc.).

Requalification of peripheries with an industrial background: the case-study of Mirafiori in Turin. – The paper intends to develop a reflection, starting from the case of the Mirafiori neighbourhood in Turin, on the role that the peripheries can adopt as a laboratory of transversal innovation in the field of urban design, policy, governance, active citizenship and overall the global themes of Agenda 2030 (United Nations, 2015). The Mirafiori neighbourhood can be highlighted as an emblematic case, since it is an industrial suburb closely connected with the former FIAT (now Stellantis) industrial plant. Over the years, the neighbourhood has suffered a socio-demographic and identity crisis, and over time numerous projects have been launched to address these crises. Participation in European projects insisting on the neighbourhood allows us to be privileged observers and actors for: the re-designing and re-qualification of Mirafiori Sud through the realisation of Nature-based Solutions, useful to strengthen and increase the connection of the food system, a tool for social inclusion and territorial development, as well as to increase the envi-ronmental value of the already existing natural elements; to address activities with a Place-based Education approach, useful in the redesigning of spaces. The analysis of projects settled in Mirafiori is needed in order to assess the possibility of constructing new urban centralities starting from marginal places.

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan: recovery of inner areas for sustainable tourism and economy. – European Commission and European Parliament have issued the Recovery Plan, also called Next Generation EU, to revive the finance and the economy of European countries compromised by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Italian Government has developed a specific plan for the recovery of inner areas with particular attention to the redevelopment of the villages: very emblematic, in this sense, The National Borough Plan, promoted and managed directly by The Italian Ministry of Culture. The Recovery of inner areas perfectly coincides whit the great challenges of contemporary society: ecological transition, climate change, environmental sustainability, better quality of life. Concepts such as slow philosophy, slow food, slow tourism are increasingly popular and form the basis for a profound cultural change, to build a slow life that is more compatible with the needs and sensibilities of humanity.

Via Campesina. Horizons for Food Sovereignty

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.

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.

The Italian agri-food industry between global and local: food habits before and during the pandemic virus Covid-19. – The pandemic generated by the virus known as Covid-19 is an expression of an unbalanced relationship between man and environment on which geography is called to investigate and also to redefine the spaces of intervention. It will be useful to propose the adoption of a trasncalar point of view that, if in one way widens the horizon to the entire globe in a contagion and in a need for collaboration that do not recognize nor can allow us to raise limits, on the other hand, it becomes a metaphor and a warning to create a new ecology and new social political relations to weave as much at a global level as at a local and personal level.
From the forced isolation – due to the rules of social distancing adopted in many European and non – European states – paradoxically emerged a glocal dialectic to interpret. As can be seen from observing what is happening in the Italian agri-food sector, on one hand we are forced to open our economic spaces recognizing the indispensable contribution of immigrant labour for the cultivation and harvest in the fields. On the other hand we are led to close the horizon of our primary needs without being able to address the question to our trusted provider and/or topographically closer even through the network that puts us in contact with the entire rural world. The authors, also thanks to the results of the direct survey, conducted on the purchases and the alimentary habits of the families during the pandemic, underline the opportunities of growth and valorisation of the Italian agricultural and food sector.

Breathing the Atmosphere of the Past. The “Strada dello stracchino e della pietra”. – Since many decades the cultural heritage has a very important role in the construction and development of territories. It can be tangible and intangible and it is a factor of the territorial production. Among them several cultural expressions, one of the most important is the typical magri-food production. In this article the attention is focused on the traditional production of stracchino and to its related civilization, which has produced tangible signs in the territories which today represent the authenticity of the territorial development. This is strictly connected to the new and modern forms of tourism, which compose the frame of a “total leisure experience”, such as the one of the valleys studied in this case study.

Tourism Load Capacity as a Planning Tool in an Initiative of Rural Community Tourism. The Case of La Posada Rural La Amistad, Isla De Chira, Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica. – In Costa Rica, tourism is one of the first economic activities. At national level many tourism initiatives have emerged and specifically rural community tourism. As a way to strengthen the tourism offer, these initiatives must adopt several planning measures to control the effects derived from visitation, such as studies of tourism load capacity (CCT). La Posada Rural la Amistad, located on Isla de Chira in the Gulf of Nicoya, is one of those initiatives, managed by the community organization “Las Damas de Chira”. It offers accommodation, food and a protected area with a variety of attractions with tourism potential. To take advantage of this potential and in accordance with the Tourism Sustainability Standard of the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT), the organization, with the support of academics from the Tourism Studies Program of the National University, has applied different planning tools, including CCT studies, which refer to the maximum number of people who can visit a space at the same time, without physical and socioeconomic impacts. For this purpose it was necessary to take into account the basic tools to assess and control the effects derived from visitation to the protected area of the inn and strengthen tourism activity in terms of quality and sustainability. This article presents the methodology, results and analysis of the implementation of the CCT study in this protected area, applying the methodology proposed by Dr. Miguel Cifuentes in 1999.

New rurality and geographic food. A "filosofale" formula  for Abruzzo. – Geographic food is an expression that indicates the deep relationships between territory and eating costums. More precisely, in regard to the current post-modernity, it defines the need of recovering the cultural identities in the sphere of the concepts of place and collective tradition. Such need, which derives in a reactive way from the tendencies of uniformity produced by the mass consumption, can be considered always more as the way of escape deriving from the bottom that works against the processes of globalization and industrialization of the cultural products. Including those related to the field of food and eating customs.
In Abruzzo, the places of contemporary rural context do not seem to escape from such phenomenon. It is clearly proved by the rediscovery of old culinary habits in relation to the farming and pastoral past, the recovery of the agricultural biodiversity, the commercial achievement of local and traditional products, which is noticeably manifested through the country festivals, the proliferation of the country style wine and food places and the increasing diffusion of the farm holiday procedures.