Articoli taggati con ‘Territorial development’
Boosting gender equality through music production. A case study on two Italian female brass bands
The new centrality of the cultural and creative sectors in the socio-economic development of contemporary capitalist societies has brought to acknowledge arts and culture as a fundamental asset for territorial development. The debate has mostly focussed on the potential role of artistic and cultural production in boosting the attractiveness both of cities acting in a competitive global scenario as well as relatively remote locations neglected by standard tourist routes. Less attention, however, has been paid to its transformative action in the social fabric, requiring the analysis to include an ethical dimension within discourses on socio-economic development. In this article I will adopt the latter perspective, considering the potential contribution of artistic and cultural production to the process of enhancing democratic and inclusive morphologies in local territories (UCLG 2021). The discussion will be based on an empirical qualitative research on two Italian female brass bands, emerging in quite different territorial and organizational contexts, but both contributing to challenge those gender biases, prescriptions and practices still hampering women’s full participation both to music worlds and social life in general.
IVIPRO: Narrating Italy through Videogames
Videogames can become the way to discover the world that surrounds us: this is the premise of the Italian Videogame Program project. IVIPRO is a national and cross-regional project, working closely with all local institutions. On one hand, we are mapping Italy from a videogame-oriented perspective, to identify locations and stories that are more suitable for virtual worlds; on the other hand, we entertain a continuous dialogue with software houses, local institutions and museums, in order to understand their needs and help them in discovering how to promote the Italian heritage inside videogames. The core of the project is the recently launched Places & Tales database, available in Early Access. A tool – based on four different categories: Locations, Themes, Characters and Objects – which can give developers inspiration for the narration of their video games, offering in-depth analysis of Italian places and stories. The article will focus on: an overview on the Italian videogame industry and cultural context; IVIPRO and its goals; an in-depth analysis of the database, plus some concrete examples of games set in Italy and of fascinating locations and stories.
When quality measures the distance between valorization and commodification
There is a shared vision which wants that every kind of good and service can be transformed in a product. It doesn’t matter what kind of good or service is. This perspective is not so bad as it could sound to many, and above all, looking at our daily lives, it is not so far from the reality. We use and consume every kind of good and service, whether it is a cultural good, a relational good or an industrial good. Though, when we talk about cultural goods, the setting-up of a value-chain or a value-system, obviously scares humanists. Indeed, there is a point that we need to fix and to underline: there is a huge difference between valorization and commodification, and the measure of this difference is named quality. Quality of the processes trough which we transform cultural or non-cultural assets in cultural products. Skilled human resources, clever investments and proper management principles lead to a high-quality deliverable that, despite its market-driven approach, could improve knowledge, culture and social value more than a pure-cultural-driven approach. It is the same difference that measures the distance between “territorial development” and “territorial marketing”. Having a look at both the definitions remove any doubt about it. While “Territorial marketing can be defined as a process whereby local activities are related as closely as possible to the demands of targeted customers” the “Territorial development designates development that is endogenous and spatially integrated, leverages the contribution of actors operating at multiple scales and brings incremental value to national development efforts”. However, looking at the cultural sector, despite the glaring differences between these definitions, the output of these approaches could appear very similar. Both the approaches, indeed, produce cultural services, cultural goods and touristic goods that third-sector organizations, enterprises and Public Administrations offer on the market. So, what kind of variable should we use to interpret a cultural or touristic good as the result of a marketing approach or, on the contrary, of a territorial development approach? Once again, quality could be the answer.
Ecclesiastical Museums: an important opportunity for cultural networks and territories
In the wide framework of cultural resources present on a territory, there are still instruments and assets that, for multiple reasons, do not enter in traditional mixed offer of a city or a region. Ecclesiastical cultural heritage is often part of the structures that public administrators let slip. For Italy, it seems like paradoxically. While an important part of the art history and of cultural heritage is related to the history of Church, and while there are almost no cultural itineraries that do not include an ecclesiastical reference, the so-called “ecclesiastical museums” are still a marginal part of the policies realized to improve cultural, social and economic growth of our territories. In this article, we will discuss both the theoretical implication and the concrete opportunities that the empowerment of the ecclesiastical museums could generate for Italian territories, in terms of touristic, cultural and spiritual offer. As occur for “secular” ones, the ecclesiastical museum expresses a set of differentiated values that we need to take into account: the economic and social values are, therefore, specific consequences of the intrinsic cultural and historical values represented by the artworks that the museums store and protect. Furthermore, ecclesiastical museums present an aspect that every kind of consideration needs to take into account: the relevance of the spiritual and religious values and the role of the artworks as an important tessera in the wider mosaic of the evangelization function. The article will therefore discuss three main aspects of the Italian ecclesiastical museums: first chapter, “From religious to spiritual” will briefly deal with the theoretical dimension of the role and the relevance of ecclesiastical collections and their inclusion in a broader cultural dimension. The second chapter “Ecclesiastical Museums and services” will analyze services and main characteristics shown by ecclesiastical museums in Italy. Third section will finally introduce the potentiality of the introduction of ecclesiastical museums in different networks, considering the recent growth of cultural and spiritual products or services.
Non-hype instruments for territorial development
As occurs in almost every branch of human activity, our sector is often influenced by trends that condition the work of academicians and practitioners. Today as yesterday, we assist to the explosion of tools whose impact could affect both the cultural and economic development of territories. Yesterday it was the case of festivals, today is what occurs with Blockchain and smart contracts. Nevertheless, following these fashions we leave behind tools or assets that could be very helpful in the construction of a territorial policy for a culture-based development. This number of Tafter Journal is dedicated to two instruments, highly differentiated, that nowadays are not as cool as big-data or the AI applications, but that could concretely concur to the diversification of territorial cultural offer contributing, at the same time, to the specialization of cultural and economic production of a region or a city. Who’s involved in day-by-day working on territory knows that are plenty of resources (as much as obstacles and difficulties) that need to be managed: historic buildings, contemporary production, cultural associations, natural heritage and so on. Properly, our role is indeed to underline further opportunities that could extend that set of assets, and show how these new (or old) tools work or they could do.
Treasure Hunt as a strategic tool for audience development
“To the Congregation of the Oratory in Naples 250 ducati and for you, Dionisio Lazzari, at completion 1000 ducati as this much you have spent for marbles, mother of pearl, precious stones and more and in labor to build the steps with the pedestals for the High Altar of the church. 9 September 1654” This is the transcript of an old credit certificate (Bancale) and its reason of payment, one of the documents preserved in one of the biggest archived collection of bank items that exists in the world and that dates back to 1573 up to our days, it is held in the Historical Archive of the Banco di Napoli [1]. For many years this Archive has been frequented by archivists, students and researchers of economic and financial history, a magical place however, difficult to access, example of a lack of knowledge that characterizes the urban experience of Naples. An inaccessible place, just like madhouses, prisons and factories during modern times, finally retired and refurbished, with the construction of common use goods. At 9:30 am of 10 June 2017, a group of people equipped with smartphones gathered outside the Historical Archive of the Banco di Napoli to participate in the first digital Treasure Hunt of the Bank.
Reflections on the use of the territorial data and GIS in tourism: the Italian case
This paper focuses mainly on issues related to digital tourism with connection to the italian context, in an attempt to show the potentiality offered by the GIS for the development of the tourism sector. For this reason, it will be reported exemplifying cases, of which features and purposes will be highlighted. The digitisation represents a new challenge for the tourist offer in Italy. Some studies and proposals promoted by TD Lab (2014) and by the association ItaliaDecide (2014) have highlighted the need for innovation in the italian tourism sector. The digitisation of tourist services therefore offers the opportunity to reaffirm the competitiveness of an industry with enormous potentiality and resources, but that shows signs of criticality and stagnation. Before examining aspects closely related to digital, it will focus on the concept of tourism and its recent developments. The latter in fact, depend on the growing segmentation of demand, pivoted on the search for new experiences and authentic by the tourist. From this perspective it is seen how the tourist promotion is closely connected with the practices of cultural enhancement and marketing strategies, linked to digital communication.
Megacities: Urban Form, Governance, and Sustainability
Recently we can see several changes in our society but one of the most important is the transformation of human settlement systems. It is important to consider that for the first time in the history of the human, more than half the world’s population is urban. The megacities are the effect of this […]
The Governance of Metropolitan Areas in Italy: a Plan to Enhance Competitiveness
This paper aims to underline the need for a “metropolitan governance” in Italy with particular emphasis on the central area of Veneto region. Following on from a recent work by the authors Corò e Dalla Torre (2015) the “metropolitan issue” is analysed on two different levels: the first level of analysis examines the area’s need for metropolitan governance to increase competitiveness with benefits for workers, companies and citizens. The second level of analysis outlines topics which should be taken into consideration by an agenda for metropolitan governance. 1. Introduction: the difficulties of enacting a metropolitan reform The metropolitan issue is not a new concept in Italy. It has been hotly debated since the 1960s; indeed, the government has proposed laws but all have been systematically neglected. Yet, it is not an insignificant matter: the metropolitan issue is a phenomenon perceived both at academic and administrative level, and above all it is experienced first-hand by workers, entrepreneurs, students and consumers. It is witnessed on a daily basis within an area defined by the network of relationships which go beyond municipalities and regional boundaries. If the existence of a metropolitan area is a real phenomenon, the implementation of its organisation – at least in Italy – is not rational. The need for metropolitan governance has arisen from the awareness of an increasing inefficiency as a result of the misalignment between the expansion of physical and socio-economic structures on one hand with the expansion of political and institutional structures on the other. This disharmony increases the cost of living for citizens and companies by snatching precious resources allocated to investments and expenditures. Despite this endless debate, there has always been a conspicuous lack of any actual attempt to implement metropolitan governance. Among the causes of this absence of attempts is the lack of political willingness to change the Italian institutional structure, which involves not only the metropolitan cities but also the wider phenomenon of fragmentation affecting the municipalities in these regions.
