Role of Cultural Mapping within Local Development Processes: A Tool for the Integrated Enhancement of Rural Heritage

Abstract

Abstract. Cultural mapping consists in an innovative tool of knowledge, utilized in the local development processes to enhance territorial resources and to increase local growth in terms of environmental, social and economic sustainability. This research investigates links in strategic planning between heritage, communities and local identity, where knowledge analysis represents the starting-point to define a series of objectives, expressed by local community and by the whole society. Cultural mapping is here applied in the Grecanic Area, a Southern Italian region rich of material and immaterial resources in terms of history, nature, culture and it represents a possible instrument for local development, contributing to arise awareness of the local cultural heritage, discarded too many times just for an ephemeral seaside tourism. The research methodology is companied by a survey about the perceptions of the cultural values, material and immaterial, feeling by the community, tourists and visitors. Data are collected and elaborated as graphics and histograms to get an exhausting vision of the country, especially the historical traditions to the contemporary ones. The results are transferred in a Cultural planning's action within the borders of the Metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria. IntroductionSince 90s Cultural mapping toolkit has become very popular in several downtowns of Europe, facing with contemporary issues like the difficult relationship between historic towns and periphery, whose effects are traduced in physical and social exclusion as well as marginality. Several strategic measures were adopted in cultural policy such as empowerment of social capital, creative environments and new governance models. Within a systematic view all these tools are named Cultural mapping. Still nowadays the relation between Cultural mapping and Cultural planning provides many positive effects through international and national applications.

Group Analytic Hierarchy Process Sorting II Method: An Application to Evaluate the Economic Value of a Wine Region Landscape

“…The landscape attractiveness is their natural consequence. An important contribution of this study is the versatility of this set of indicators which can also be applied to a wide range of fields, such as landscape planning and management, regional and urban planning [48,49], urban resilience [50], cultural heritage [51], siting decisions and local development processes [52,53] or energy planning [54]. It is interesting to highlight that the results coming from the present GAHPSort II application on the UNESCO site of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato confirm the outcomes of previous studies on the same area.…”

Identifying Place Distinctiveness Through Cultural Resource Mapping

“…As argued by Shamsuddin (2011), places that are distinctive and are remembered vividly by the observer become part of the dominant elements that constitute a town's identity. While being recognized as an essential ingredient in cultural mapping, involvement of the local community is also important, as the activities surely create awareness and heighten appreciation for the uniqueness of their town (Assumma & Ventura, 2014;Fitri et al, 2017). This is crucial as they will always be the best stewards of the place (Global Heritage Fund, 2010).…”

“…More recently, it has become an increasingly important tool in the built environment field due to its ability to map the distinctive characteristics and local cultural assets of a place. This is evidenced by the increased number of studies using the method in the built environment field that have been published (Abd Rashid, 2015;Assumma & Ventura, 2014;Avrami, Macdonald, Mason & Myers, 2019;Fitri, Ratna, Sitorus, & Affan, 2017;Moore & Borrup, 2017).…”

Participatory Urban Design for Touristic Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites: The Case of Negotinske Pivnice (Wine Cellars) in Serbia

“…In the heritage management field, Luna Khirfan [23] provides detailed analysis of the evolving use of public participation in heritage planning process, based on analysis of content of relevant UNESCO and ICOMOS heritage documents. Apart from that, other authors provided valuable research on individual cases in relation to this topic [10,20,24,25]. In tourism literature, the research has mainly been focused on examples of good practice [26][27][28] resulting in identification of key factors contributing to successful practice.…”

“…Although stemming from different lines of research, the literature shows that the involvement of local communities in the development process can be best understood when related to stakeholders/actors, phases and forms of participation, and the research of successful community participation highlight the importance of diversity and continuity in participation process and heritage planning and management. But, although community involvement and participation have been researched in relation to urban, heritage and tourism planning and management in general, little is known about how it can contribute to the development and presentation of rural heritage sites [25]. On the other hand, inclusiveness in interpretation and presentation are recognized as important for CHS conservation and management, and are of special importance in its growing use for tourism.…”