Francesca SABATINI, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy
After the end of the mafia wars in the 90s, Sicily has turned into a touristic destination: from the region of “Mafia and backwardness”, to a place rich in art and heritage. Even if Sicilian geographical imaginary is mostly connected to its coasts, recently this process has involved the inner areas too. This contribution aims to present the Sicani, a rural inner area in Sicily that is becoming a destination of niche rural tourism. In particular in the last 20 years a depopulated rural town called Cianciana has undergone a spontaneous process in which people from Northern Europe have settled in, seeking new patterns of living and working. Drawing to the Cianciana case in the last few years other towns have launched one-euro houses initiatives in order to attract foreign people to move as temporary residents. The contribution intends to present in detail the Cianciana case, analyzing the actors involved in the process and describing their geographical imaginaries. If some of them are driven by a desire to reconnect with family roots, others are looking for a better lifestyle that the territory seems to offer. Distinguishing different relations to the territory through their spatial practices, the contribution propose some definitions for these actors. Are they neorurals, amenity migrants, rural users or new inhabitants?
Since Covid-19 avoid international second-home owners possibility to access the properties, or trapped them in their second-homes, the contribution investigate how the mobility crisis due to the pandemic has affected their sense of place, geographical imaginaries and spatial practices related to the territory. The contribution will present the fieldwork’s results based on qualitative methods, including itinerant interviews and visual documentation. These outcomes will be used to outline the imaginary that these temporary inhabitants project on the Sicani, questioning how and if it has developed or changed during and after the Covid-19 crisis.
Mots clés : geographical imaginaries|Covid-19|rural tourism|second-home tourism|Cianciana
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