Dear students,
we are pleased to invite you all to the international seminar "Rural beautification. Socio-spatial transformations in rural areas between Colombia, Mexico, and Italy", which is going to take place on March 16, 2023, at 2 p.m. in aula Parva (via San Gallo 10, first floor).
The seminar is organized by the Laboratory of Social Geography (LaGeS) in collaboration with the Master's Degree in Geography and the PhD program in Mutamento sociale e politico (Universities of Florence and Torino).
You are warmly invited to attend!
Download the seminar's poster.
Presentation of the event follows:
Across different socio-spatial contexts worldwide, the rediscovery and enhancement of natural and cultural heritage is promoted as a one-way alternative to the marginalization of other-than-urban areas, given the crisis of established agricultural systems.
However, the ways in which local resources become invested with (novel) values tend to strongly share the same major characteristics almost everywhere, through the implementation of aesthetical and developmental schemes that might reflect and perform the urban gaze imposed upon the rural world.
Villages, borghi and pueblos become thus beautified, so as to attract both domestic and international capital, visitors/consumers and new residents, while processes of socio-spatial exclusion and cultural commodification are enabled.
Are there possible alternatives for rural areas to marginalization on the one hand, and beautification on the other? Departing from this general question, this seminar aspires to create the ground on which to exchange experiences and reflect upon the implications of transformations in rural areas between Mexico, Colombia and Italy”.