Religious fruition of the territories: Ancient traditions and new trends in aspromonte

Abstract

The proposed work is intended to highlight certain routes born from a religious background that have become interesting from an environmental and naturalistic point of view. These routes can offer themselves within a framework of recovery and enhancement of local resources aimed at giving back to the communities concerned often forgotten testimonies of history and shared memory, fragments of life, literature, and art. The particular path of faith examined is that of the historical destination of the Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Mountain at Polsi in Aspromonte, long a place of devotion and faith. The objective of the work is to examine the conditions by which the pilgrimage can contribute even further to the creation of value and socio-economic development for the territories concerned, in a dual path that links together faith and the re-appropriation by the local community of places that have been contaminated and subjugated by the presence of the ‘ndràngheta, in order to promote virtuous processes of economic and social legality. This sees the Aspromonte as generator of sustainable development, of fair trade, of responsible tourism, and of ethical agri-food production.