The Narration of Cultural Landscape as a Mean for Reactivating Marginal Areas

The paper deepens the role and the opportunity offered by ICTs and web GIS systems in the narration and representation of the cultural landscape, focusing especially on fragile areas. European marginal landscapes excluded from the global economic and social processes that have also suffered, and in many cases are still suffering, political and planning actions that have interrupted the historical connections between local people and their territory [Tarpino 2016; Del Molino 2016]. According to the European and Italian framework on cultural landscape (European Landscape Convention 2000, Codice dei Beni Culturali e del Paesaggio 2004) and on marginal areas (Strategia Nazionale per le Aree Interne), cultural heritage is considered one of the potential engine for the reactivation of the territories, hence its narration plays a relevant role in this process. The paper also presents several cases and typologies of narration and digitization of the cultural landscape and the different impacts they have on the reactivation of local communities: the ‘formal’ approach developed by local administrations mainly with cultural heritage GIS systems; and the ‘informal’ approach developed by spontaneous local communities and external networks with different ICTs tools and social networks. Finally, further directions for the representation and narration of the cultural landscape are suggested in order to drive the reactivation of fragile areas.