Living Territories to the Full, Dialoguing with Citizens

In this paper, we focus on the importance of developing pathways for helping children and adults to deepen their knowledge of the local areas, or territories, where they live. We understand the term ‘territory’ to encompass artistic heritage sites, as well as natural and urban landscapes. Working directly with communities and constructing projects based on knowledge building, interpretation, narration, and reflection is an essential step towards developing a shared and forward-looking vision of heritage. For all too long, scholars have focused on the passing on of pre-defined cultural information, rather than on co-constructing knowledge and contents with citizens directly, via participatory processes that allow members of the community to narrate their experience and lives in their local territories. We describe attempts to develop such participatory trajectories in relation to the towns of Mantua and Sabbioneta, the heritage sites of Villa Carlotta, Orto Botanico di Bergamo, and Isola Comacina, and the district of Milan where the University of Milano-Bicocca is located.