Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
Gazes on Levanto: a Case Study on
How Local Identity Could Become
Part of the Touristic Supply
Stefania Antonioni, Laura Gemini and Lella Mazzoli
Introduction
something to discover and to develop. It is the
character that we called 'slowliness', according
to its belonging to the international network of
towns of 'good living' -
CittàSlow
. This is an
association promoting the harmonic relation-
ship between tradition and innovation, taking
care of urban design and environment, and
looking for a lifestyle less frenzied, all elements
recognized as having great intrinsic social value
as well as benefi ts for tourism.
On these bases, sociological research fi nds
in local communities its subject of analysis and
in the domestic gaze the assumptions to talk
about identity and touristic supply.
This work is founded on the idea that the iden-
tity of a territory is an important resource for its
inhabitants, their lives in the sense of the dilthey-
ian 'Erlebnis' (Dilthey, 1982) and also for its
tourist development.
From this point of view the small town
of Levanto represents the case examined
because it is a paradigmatic example of the
most suitable logic for tourist development in
the Italian context. As we will see, we started
from the grassroots, i.e. from the inhabitants
and from the defi nition of identity as communi-
cative life-experience of the territory, to check
in which way the development process carried
out from the local administration is shared by
the inhabitants.
We will proceed in our work following the
theoretical trends characterized by 'place mar-
keting' strategies and destination management,
but also the considerations that the sociology of
tourism causes us to refl ect upon.
Levanto is a small town near one of the
best-known Italian tourist destination, the
Cinque Terre. Its territory extends from the hills
to the sea and its economy has always been
based on fi shery, agriculture and, by the 1920s,
tourism. Levanto is an interesting case study
because it has a particular character that stands
up well against the more famous Cinque Terre,
a character that gives it an attractive image, like
Territorial Identity and Tourist Gaze
in Levanto. Theoretical Background
of the Research
Contemporary society seems to be based, more
and more evidently, on an important and inter-
esting paradox: the more we talk about and
describe society as world-society - i.e. con-
nected with globalization processes produced
by fl ows of communication and interwoven ter-
ritorial connections - the more territories, i.e.
anthropological places (Augè, 1992), physical
and concrete, that we label as 'local', claim
their identity, uniqueness, specifi city and differ-
ence. So the global logic itself is linked to the
local, to the dynamics of cultural hybridization
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