In the settlement network of Italian small towns (the so-called “borghi”, with a population ceiling lower than 5000 inhabitants), not lacking in discontinuities and patches, a “common thread” is increasingly noticeable, which allows to look optimistically beyond several weaknesses (economy depending on a relatively unprofitable or declining agriculture, social and economic stasis, demographic decline and consequent contraction of public and private services, hydrogeological instability, etc.): we are talking of the firm, pigheaded determination of an increasing number of local communities to become sustainable and responsible realities, get involved, and undertake a process of “hot authentication” of their milieu. Since 2013, such resilient attitude is at the heart of the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI, Strategia Nazionale per le Aree Interne) aimed at promoting coordinated, multi-scalar projects of self-enhancement; in April 2019, the above innovative form of territorial planning was selected by the European Parliament as a model for the 2021–2027 programming period of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).This paper reviews the original and creative bottom-up enhancement process being implemented in several towns of the “Monti Dauni” sub-region, a pilot marginal area identified by Apulian regional authorities within the SNAI. In these small towns, local players aim at maximizing the opportunities of sustainable, experiential tourism by offering an uncontaminated environment, ancient knowledge, genuine flavours and deep emotions to all visitors who wish to achieve a deeper knowledge of the territorial identity instead of being mere spectators, by adopting an active and engaged attitude.

This research paper presents the key elements of the strategic project “European Capital of Culture 2019” initiated by the city of Matera in 2014. Through the “big event”, defined by the combination “diluted time/diffuse space”, the “Città dei Sassi”, UNESCO World Heritage since 1993, is innovating the symbolic, material, and organizational levels of all the Basilicata municipalities whose tourist resources were almost unknown both at national and international levels, thus showing high resiliency, i.e., flexibility, inclusiveness, integration, and initiative. Through a self-centered and sustainable model of tourist accommodation that minimizes the infrastructure fixed capital investment aiming, at the same time, to increase collective empowerment processes, it is planned to accommodate about 700,000 “temporary citizens” who, by adopting an active and participative approach, wish to live a unique and unrepeatable identity experience in the Lucanian community instead of being mere spectators. Special attention is paid to “virtual” communication by using the world wide web not only as a showcase to promote the bottom-up identification and enhancement process of the heritage, but also as a tool to manage contacts with potential visitors in order to avoid any adverse impact of the event on the environmental and cultural components of the city and of the regional planning.

This paper reports on the experience of the first Placetelling^® training course in Santo Antão and Santiago, Cape Verde, promoted by Società Geografica Italiana and Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso. Placetelling^® is a particular type of storytelling of places that promotes local development and helps to develop a sense of identity and belonging among the members of the community. Indeed, Placetelling^® supports local communities to become directly engaged in the preservation of their common legacy in order to transmit it to coming generations. Tourism is the field where Placetelling^® can best express its potential. This is particularly true for what concerns tourism to islands. The paper shows the first results of what we can define as a “maieutic reworking of local heritage” in Cape Verde, through the sharing of narrative and symbolic artifacts. Special attention will be dedicated to some crucial issues: The involvement of stakeholders through the lenses of empowerment, the discrepancies between how sense of identity is perceived by the locals and how it is communicated to tourists, and how and to what extent Placetelling^® can change stakeholders’ awareness of their own cultural heritage.

The prevalence of mainstream media as source of information on environmental issues and their tendency to draw global attention around a few major, dramatic environmental disasters (melting of glaciers in the Arctic, desertification and drought in the African continent, deforestation of the Amazon, oil pollution in the oceans, etc.), is creating in less conative readers/audience a lack of awareness of the damages suffered in the local territorial systems to which they belong and low willingness to collective action. Therefore, crossing and comparing the highest possible number of sources of information, preferring those that can generate a proactive response to events and themes concerning environmental sustainability and highlight deep local/global interconnections, is essential to attain an independent, critical, and responsible narration. After shortly illustrating some theoretical and methodological considerations developed in the areas of popular geopolitics, anti-geopolitics and ecocriticism, this paper reviews two Italian graphic novels providing a bottom-up representation of local environmental issues: the first one deals with the eutrophication of the Orbetello Lagoon (Tuscan Maremma); the second one concerns the collapse of the tailings dams of the Prestavèl fluorite mines located in Val di Stava (Trentino Alto Adige), a disaster that caused the death of 268 people. We will try to point out how the authors, who are totally “embedded” in their works, provide a “translocal” narration, condemning effectively and immediately the environmental damages in the territorial context analysed and, at the same time, highlighting the interconnections between such site-specific events and global sustainability, inviting readers to adopt an holistic view of the nature-culture relationship, beyond the anthropocentric and instrumentalist production model which considers biosphere a mere tool to satisfy the contingent needs of contemporary society.

This paper examines DisAbitanti, a participatory cultural initiative developed in Corigliano d’Otranto (Grecìa Salentina, Southern Italy) to explore how performative and community-based practices may contribute to sustainable and proximity tourism in small heritage towns. The study adopts an exploratory qualitative case study design, combining participatory action research and artistic research, drawing on participant observation, reflective field diaries, semi-structured interviews with local actors and participants, and analysis of project materials and relevant local planning documents. The analysis identifies a set of emerging patterns suggesting that the reactivation of abandoned or underused spaces through site-specific performances and collective storytelling is associated with forms of resident participation, reconfiguration of resident–visitor roles, and off-season cultural activation. These dynamics contribute to strengthening local identity and social cohesion, while highlighting the role of cultural practice in place-based governance processes. The analysis indicates that performative interventions can act as catalysts for the emergence of informal governance dynamics within the case study, connecting local associations, artists, residents, and cultural organizers. This claim is supported by empirically observed indications, including the number and diversity of actors involved and the emergence of new collaborative interactions. While the findings are not intended to be generalizable, they provide analytical insight into how performative practices may enable forms of place-based coordination around heritage use and spatial activation, linking heritage experience to habitability and spatial equity. The paper concludes that DisAbitanti offers a context-sensitive approach for translating sustainability principles—consistent with the UN 2030 Agenda—into situated tourism governance practices, with potential relevance for other small inner peripheral towns facing seasonality and spatial marginalization.