Mapping rural commons and territories of life in Italy: report of the workshop held at the XI Conference of the Italian Society of Applied Anthropology (SIAA)

Abstract

This report presents the results of a workshop held on 16 December 2023 in Perugia, within the XI Conference of the Italian Society of Applied Anthropology (SIAA), organised in collaboration with the PRIN 2022 project “Valorising rural commons for a greener and fairer society”. The workshop focused on the mapping of rural commons and territories of life in Italy, highlighting both the availability of regional-level data and the significant methodological challenges involved. Discussions emphasised the need to integrate archival, legal and geographical data with direct knowledge of local communities, to better capture governance dynamics and the actual vitality of commons. Key issues addressed included the heterogeneity of governance arrangements, the variability and incompleteness of archival data, and the need for comparability across different mapping initiatives at regional, national and international levels. Particular attention was given to the relationship between legally recognised collective lands and the broader concept of territories of life, as well as to the interaction with existing environmental governance frameworks such as protected areas and Natura 2000 sites. The workshop resulted in a set of recommendations concerning the development of mapping methodologies, the classification of governance systems, and the integration of national and international frameworks. These recommendations provide a basis for future research and policy initiatives, including potential developments at the European scale.