Convenors
Marta Villa, University of Trento
marta.villa@unitn.it
Mauro Iob, University of Trento
mauroiob@mauroiob.it
Territories of Life (ICCA, 2021) are areas that resident communities nurture through conscious solidarity (Honneth, 2015) to ensure their survival, and they exist across the globe. Each culture designs its Living Space according to a unique vision, yet common elements facilitate comparison (Bassi, 2022). These Living Territories are characterized by an alternative mode of ownership known as Rural Commons (RCs) (Grossi, 2017), where communities manage their agro-sylvo-pastoral heritage by enhancing the environment and promoting cultural and natural biodiversity through innovative sustainable actions (Graziani, 2007; Nervi, 2014; Bigaran, Villa, 2019; Grossi, 2019; Iob, 2023).
In these spaces, alternative forms of governance to representative democracy are also developed (Andronico, Meli, 2020). RCs propose governance models that diverge from the liberal conception of democracy: the collective assembly has its own statute («Regole» in Italian, literally «Rules» in English) and a high level of decision-making autonomy. Members of RCs represent themselves and are not represented by others, often being perceived as «foreign» entities within Western democracies (Balibar, 2022). In the contemporary debate, there is ongoing discussion about whether the liberal democratic model should be considered the only viable and functional one. Is this model truly the only possible and effective form of governance? Or does it overlook the concrete, everyday lives of men and women?
Ethnography and interdisciplinary research groups can make it possible to study and understand these social phenomena through the public and applied engagement of scholars.
Open questions
- What concrete actions do communities take to manage their Territories of Life through alternative forms of participation?
- How have collectivities protected in the past and protect today their Territories of Life from extractivist forms of capitalist exploitation that are eroding the Earth’s socio-cultural and natural resources?
- How do communities seek to hand over improved collective domain assets to future generations?
- What forms of regulation are given internally to manage participation? What are the critical issues?
- How are these collectivities perceived from the outside? What obstacles do they face in order to maintain these autonomous forms of government? Who are the main antagonists?
- What legislative instruments, such as Italian Law 168/2017 implementing the Constitution, are there that recognize these forms of self-government?
Keywords
Territories of Life; forms of alternative democracy; decision-making autonomy; rural commons; collective property; legal protection.
Sub-disciplines or cross-disciplinary areas of concern
public and applied cultural anthropology; public history; contemporary history; applied sociology; jurisprudence; economy; political science.
References
Andronico, A., M. Meli (Eds.)
2020 Diritto e antropocene. Mutamenti climatici e trasformazioni giuridiche, Mimesis, Milano.
Balibar, É.
2022 Oltre i confini. Per una rifondazione dell’Europa, Castellecchi, Roma.
Bassi, M.
2022 «Territories of Life in Europe. Towards a Classification of the Rural Commons for Biodiversity Conservation», in Antropologia Pubblica, 8, 2, pp.101-122.
Bigaran, F., M. Villa
2019 «Gestione delle aree di Uso Civico, protezione della biodiversità e salvaguardia del paesaggio: il case study dell’allevamento e monticazione della Vacca di razza Rendena nei territori a proprietà collettiva in Provincia di Trento. Un approccio ecologico ed antropologico», in Archivio Scialoja-Bolla, 1, pp. 365-390.
Graziani, A. C.
2007 «Proprietà della terra e sviluppo rurale», in Agricoltura Istituzioni Mercati, 1, pp. 65-94
Grossi P.
2017 «Un altro modo di possedere»: l’emersione di forme alternative di proprietà alla coscienza giuridica postunitaria, Giuffré, Milano.
2019 Il mondo delle terre collettive. Itinerari giuridici tra ieri e domani, Macerata: Quodlibet.
Honneth, A.
2015 La libertà negli altri. Saggi di filosofia sociale, Il Mulino, Bologna.
ICCA Consortium
2021 Territories of Life: 2021 Report, ICCA Consortium: worldwide. Available at: report.territoriesoflife.org
Iob, M.
2023 «Se non ci fosse un futuro da rispettare, non ci sarebbe nulla da conservare: la Legge 168/2017 per i territori di vita», in Slowzine, 15, pp. 5-6.
Nervi, P.
2014 «La nuova stagione degli assetti fondiari collettivi in un sistema evolutivo economia/ambiente», in Archivio Scialoja-Bolla, 1, pp. 87-104.
Convenors’ bios
Marta Villa has a Ph.D. in Anthropology of Contemporaneity at University of Milan-Bicocca and a Ph.D. in Contemporary History at University of Italian Switzerland; is currently Research Fellow in Cultural Anthropology Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento. Lecturer in cultural and alpine anthropology for University of Bolzano and University of Verona. Researcher in alpine anthropology, landscape, food and collective Domains. Recent publications include: (2023) Agroecologia e antropologia pubblica nelle Terre Alte: comunità, margini, saperi trasversali, in «Antropologia Pubblica», 1. With Mauro Iob, she has been conducting interdisciplinary scientific research on collective Domains from an anthropological and legal perspective, together they have participated in numerous national and international scientific conferences (as panel coordinators and paper presenters) and are editing the book (2024) La sfida di quell’altro modo di possedere. Come attraverso la ragione si conserva senza dissipare.
Mauro Iob has a Master’s Degree in Law at the University of Trento, since 2002 assistant, consultant and lawyer in judicial and extrajudicial settings in disputes on Collective Land Assets in defense of Collective Domains. He has been a speaker at Chair of Collective Properties of University of Trento. He is co-author of the book (2019) P. Nervi, E. Caliceti, M. Iob, Beni e domini collettivi. La nuova disciplina degli usi civici. With Marta Villa, he has been conducting interdisciplinary scientific research on collective Domains from an anthropological and legal perspective, together they have participated in numerous national and international scientific conferences (as panel coordinators and paper presenters) and are editing the book (2024) La sfida di quell’altro modo di possedere. Come attraverso la ragione si conserva senza dissipare.