Rethinking the places of life and work: the inner areas facing the challenges of syndemics. – After a ten years long debate on the SNAI and the goal of demographic in-version to be pursued with a «reversal of the gaze», or «bringing the margins to the center», we can talk about the controversial process generated by this objective, still ongoing: centering the strategy on a spatial practice (living) has led to a concentration of scientific and policy responsibilities on territorial planning which, while certainly crucial, works if the project is equipped in advance with a strong analysis of the places. This is the basis of the thought on inner areas that must be strengthened so that these places can be freed from intellectual subalternity. In fact, the theory and practice of planning also need to recover a good description of the territory, that ability to interpret the complexity of the relationships between natural space and human action, which is the work of the geographer. The paper aims to reflect on the need to re-think the descriptive investigation as a prerequisite for good planning, due to the urgencies issued by climate change and the pandemic shock, phenomena which, closely connected to each other, have shown how unpredictable and diversified they can be territorial responses to external stresses. The complementarity between description and planning, i.e. the alliance between geographers and architects, will be adopted as a guiding category to be able to read the depopulation of internal areas not as a merely housing issue but, rather, in a holistic vision, as the effect of the limits of a production system based on unsustainable territorial hierarchies.

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 Italian Small Islands in the PNRR Missions. A vision of the future. – The paper aims to understand the possible effects of the PNRR on the Italian Small Islands. The relationship between insiders and external actors, as well as the relationship of interdependence with the mainland, highlight the Italian Small Islands as a promising “laboratory” for investigation, not only as case studies but also as a complex and articulated spatial and territorial context in which some of the general dynamics tend to be emphasised. The peripheral dimension of the Italian Small Islands (Turco, 1980) has meant that since the Second World War they have been included among the “underdeveloped areas” and subject to the interventions of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno. Within this scenario, the smaller islands were the subject of specific funding or actions, in some cases emphasising their dependence on the mainland. This dependence has also been recorded in the policies of the National Strategy for Internal Areas (SNAI), which classifies island municipalities as peripheral or ultraperipheral, without however taking into account deeper local dynamics that effectively cancel out these conditions of peripheralisation. The PNRR proposes some missions explicitly addressed to small island territories, such as the achievement of a circular economy, forms of development that dialogue between tourism and sustainability, but also more general actions aimed, for example, at the mitigation of territorial gaps. The paper seeks to connect PNRR, tourism development and the challenge of Small Islands’ seasonal geographies.

Considerations on the regional landscape plan of Sardinia: a contribution from internal areas. – The concept of landscape is at the core of many geographical studies and is rich in different meanings that over time have given rise to numerous interpretations. According to the European Landscape Convention adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 2000, landscape is a combination of natural and cultural elements in continuous transformation. Transformations that, if not planned attentively, can give rise to processes of deterioration and loss of quality of landscape configurations. In a Europe where there is still a significant dualism between urbanized and rural areas and in an environmental, economic and social era marked by the objectives of sustainability dictated by the 2030 Agenda, it is therefore necessary to adopt and strengthen policies and strategies for a more cohesive development and planning of the territory. The contribution, after a brief review of the literature on European and national policies on the landscape, wants to focus on the ability of regional realities to activate reconstructive interventions and environmental improvements from the adoption of Landscape Plans. In particular, the attention wants to focus on the Sardinian regional context, the first reality in Italy to have adopted a Landscape Plan in 2006. A plan that, to date, has identified only in the coastal areas the areas to be protected and enhanced. However, in the light of the priorities for a sustainable future, the Plan needs to be reviewed and a new plan that can also include the internal areas that are still not sufficiently integrated in the development process of the island.

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 Covid-19 emergency and the repositioning of tourism in the internal areas: first reflections on Irpinia. – The Covid-19 emergency, with lockdown, travel restrictions, fear of contagion, need for distancing, have changed the times and ways of taking holidays. This work aims to be a moment of reflection on territorial and tourism policies implemented as a response to the pandemic in for internal area. Through a focus on Irpinia, it wants to understand how much these investment opportunities are capable of transforming in lasting impacts for local communities, with propulsive and sustainable effects over time, and if they are able to support the trend of proximity tourism and to encourage a social and economic recovery of notably weak areas.

Geographical scattering in the inner areas in the diffusion of covid-2019. –Regarding the high probability, highlighted by the epidemiologists regarding the repetition in the near future of other epidemic events, this contribution is aimed to highlight the importance of a multidisciplinary preventive strategy. This value was declined according to the specific geographical perspective, offering some ideas on phenomena typically subject to study of the discipline that could for the future constitute an important source of direction in the system of support for strategic decisions of a medical-political type used during pandemic phenomena.
Particularly, the phenomenon of the geographical scattering characterizing the internal areas was investigated, which unfortunately has been confirmed in the real spread of the Covid-19 epidemic.

Geographies of Pandemia in the Chile of Social Riots. New appraisals of urban-rural inequalities. – The global spread of the Covid-19 virus, its speed and mode of propagation, the implications on morbidity, social relations and local and state economic dynamics, redefine the social construction processes of the territories. We propose a reading of the Chilean case, in an attempt to relate the structural, economic and territorial conditions, with the evolution of the health measures adopted, read through the perspective offered by social questions at the center of the protests that have animated the country since 18 October 2019. The structural political framework is the hyperliberist economic model, imposed during the dictatorship of General Pinochet, preserved and enlarged by the center-left governments in the last twenty years, which has among its elements characterizing the maximum opening and dependence on markets international, a production sector flattened on the export of raw materials, the privatization of fundamental services (such as health). At a time when, due to the virus, individual states restore a generalized closure of borders, the Chilean model aims to perpetuate itself by depriving special economic interests of collective well-being, further accentuating internal inequalities between groups social and between territories. The objective of the contribution is to analyze how much the geographical peculiarities of rural areas (low settlement density, relative isolation in terms of connectivity, ecc.) can limit the spread of the virus and, at the same time, how the limited presence of essential services (such as specialized medical centers) may give rise to greater negative effects than in metropolitan centers. The adopted methodology foresees: – a quantitative analysis of the dynamics of the spatial diffusion of virus – a diachronic and micro-territorial analysis of the containment measures adopted by the central government, supplemented by an analysis of the discursive constructions of the main social actors - a discussion of the interrelationship between political actions, social and economic factors.

Mauritius island has been nearly uninhabited until XVIth Century, when firstly Portuguese, then Dutch, French and Eng-lish powers took possession of it. The island’s population growth was due to two main causes: in the first moment to the commerce, then to the exploitation of resources, with important environmental transforma-tions.Until the independence was declared in 1968, the main economic source was the cultivation of sugar cane, for which African slaves, and then In-dian and Chinese workers was used.Starting from the independence period the economic structure of the is-land has changed, with a significant diversification of the productive ac-tivities. Beach tourism is now a vital economic sector of the island, but it hasn’t changed the population distribution of the island, mainly concen-trated in the internal areas.The aim of this article is to analyze the evolution of the populating dy-namics of the island and the economic trends and finally observe their territorial and environmental impacts.