Afterwards. From community studies to cultural heritage communities and internal areas. Itineraries of Italian research in mountain anthropology

Abstract

In Italy mountain anthropology has long been coterminous with Alpine anthropology, methodologically relying on community studies to investigate aspects of local ethnicity, the relationships between environment and social structures and processes of cultural transformation. In the course of the first two decades of the new century, however, growing interest in the “internal areas” of the country has led to a unified frame for the study of the Alps and the Apennines, thereby creating a meeting ground not only for different disciplines but also for different research traditions within Italian anthropology. The Italian highlands are now displaying novel dynamisms: in addition to the birth of museums and ecomuseums, one can observe a tendency to resettle in mountain areas, a valorization of landscape and historical-anthropological heritage and a strengthening of both new and traditional feasts.