Community-led practices for triggering long term processes and sustainable resilience strategies. The case of the eastern Irpinia, inner periphery of southern Italy

The Council of Europe's Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, originating from war and anthropogenic violations of cultural heritage, marks a milestone in the transition process towards a social approach to cultural heritage. With the notion of "heritage community", attention shifts from the cultural heritage in itself, towards people, their relationship with the surrounding environment and their active participation in the process of recognizing the values held in it and their transmission to future generations. The value of the cultural heritage and its transmission for "making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable" and for Disaster Risk Reduction is an integral part of Agenda 2030 of the United Nations. In the European inner peripheries, cultural heritage has peculiarities that distinguish it from core areas. It is affected by extreme global (climate crisis, scarcity of resources, migration, weakening of social capital, etc.) and local risks (depopulation, uncontrolled exploitation of the territory, erosion of cultural capital and identity of places, degradation of the landscape, etc.). This contribution describes a case study in an inner periphery of southern Italy. Here, in the course of few years many community-led practices have been developed, based on the reinterpretation and renewal of the local material culture (workshop related to local craft traditions, international artistic festival based on the reinterpretation of rituals and traditions, tourist events of rediscovering ancient routes, etc.). These actions have reinforced the networking of local actors, triggering some long term processes. In this scenario, a group of researchers, designers, scholars proposes to carry out Resilience Laboratories as places of learning, participation and decision. They must start the process of building a resilient and sustainable landscape and, in the medium to long term, act as permanent support to the traditional tools of planning and management of the territory.