Risignificare la Terra dei Fuochi? Mappe e percorsi turistici di comunità per la valorizzazione del territorio

The term «Terra dei Fuochi», which became popular about twenty years ago starting from the investigations conducted by Legambiente in a report dedicated to the ecomafias, has now become a semantic term to conceptually frame the environmental degradation that characterises a significant portion of the territory between North Naples and South Caserta, a constant object of an unbalanced practice connected to the illegal waste disposal cycle. Starting from this premise, the contribution intends to imagine a re-signification of the idea of the «Terra dei Fuochi» through community tourism itineraries that can activate the local milieu in a virtuous process to valorise places of historical and artistic interest that are scarcely considered, if not actually abandoned. The focus of the research concerns the densely populated municipality of Giugliano in Campania, which well summarises the contradictions between enhancement needs and environmental degradation. At the methodological level, the research includes an empirical phase of interviews with residents and interviews with privileged witnesses such as representatives of civic associations, sector operators and institutional stakeholders in order to intersect the cognitive dimension, linked to personal and collective visions of the area, with the organisational dimension of analysing governance strategies. The objective is to arrive at possible visions of community-based tourism through the elaboration of ideal maps, propaedeutic to the creation of itineraries respectful of the needs and aspirations of the people living in the areas concerned. As a support to the research, thematic cartographies will be produced with the aim of conceptually representing options for involvement in the complex issues connected to territorial regeneration and sustainable tourism.