Slow Tourism and Smart Community. The Case of Sulcis - Iglesiente (Sardinia -Italy)

Abstract

In the last few years the term resilience has entered into force in the policies and practices concerning the territorial development. The paper, interpreting the territory through the paradigm of systemic complexity, aim to read the territorial resilience in a dynamic and procedural sense that is as the response to change not simply according to adaptive (passive) modalities, but through a reaction, that is by implementing a “regenerative” response from the territory and, therefore, from its communities. In other words, there is a community resilience that shows itself through the capacity of human groups to resist environmental changes, which involves upheavals not only of a natural, but also of a social nature. It resists, even not restoring the previous balance, but preserving identity through the change and adaptation to new situations. In this framework the aim of the paper is to represent the slow network of the Sulcis Iglesiente area in the Sardinia region - a vulnerable area due to it has been affected by an intense mining activity and more recently hit by flooding events and socio-economic stress - and the role of the smart community in relaunching its touristic image. Here, in fact, started in 2016 a slow tourism experience in the shape of a way practicable on foot, by bicycle or on horseback, that retraces the ancient mining routes of the Sulcis Iglesiente - Guspinese, developing a ring of about 400 km length.