Paper short abstract:

The crisis of economic productivity in rural peripheries is accompanied by practices and politics of management of local traditions. Based on fieldwork in Central Italy, I will analyze how these processes are widely instrumental, but also leading to transformations in the social structure.

Paper long abstract:

For different reasons, the crisis of economic productivity and significance in many rural areas at the peripheries of Europe is also often accompanied by practices and politics of valorisation, preservation, and management of local traditional cultural heritage in order to customize it to global market requirements. Based on fieldwork in peripherial rural areas mainly in Central Italy, I will analyze how these processes at the one hand are widely instrumental to the rules imposed through market mechanisms, reducing dramatically the autonomy of local subjectivities. On the other hand, I will show how these strategies of commodification and marketing of culture are leading to deep transformations in the social structure of rural places, creating new opportunities through alliances with external agents, new nets of exchange that require new competences within complex networks of collaboration. Therefore, these processes lead to complex dynamics of integration into an increasing connected world.