Terre mutate: un cammino tra resilienza e slow tourism

Abstract

In the last few years, the term “resilience” has entered powerfully in the policies and practices concerning the territorial development. Concept not new and born in the mechanical and engineering field, it has moved on to ecology and, subsequently, to social sciences, including geography. Precisely from a geographical point of view, that is to say, interpreting the territory through the paradigm of systemic complexity, it is possible to read this phenomenon in a dynamic and procedural sense: the response to change, due to different types of trauma, not simply in an adaptive way (passive), but through a reaction, that is by implementing a “regenerative” response from the territory and, therefore, from its communities. In other words, there is a community resilience that manifests itself through the ability of human groups to resist radical change, not only due to natural but also social upheavals. These are the assumptions to investigate the phenomenon of slow travel, of the journey through the “changed lands” due to the earthquakes that hit the central Apennines between 2009 and 2017. A journey of community resilience motivated by a strong bottom-up participation. The contribution, thus, aims to describe the meaning and the dimension that this path is taking, and to tell, also through the narratives of its protagonists, its main stages.

Keywords

• resilience
• slow tourism
• bottom-up participation
• territorial development