| Abstract: |
The article sheds light on virtual networks’ capability of driving landscape
changes, both at epistemological level and at geographical level. “Living in”
the landscape brings out the main drivers of change at individual level, while
the ICTs are offering complementary places, with respect to those ones already
existing, for increasing people’s role in sharing values and meanings. Then,
common visions might emerge and “inform” landscape policies, indirectly
influencing the meaning of wellbeing. Specifically, the socioeconomic theory
might constitute a missing link between regulatory issues and technological
achievements, enhancing and combining the new opportunities for participation
offered by the European Landscape Convention, and by the widespread diffusion
of social networks on the web. Indeed, “living in” the landscape inspires a
plurality of visions that people are able to describe and share on the web or
send directly to the interested institutions. Geographers might collect these
issues and explore the landscape by living in it in order to produce “ethic
visions”. Integrated with political and economic issues using the Regulation
Impact Analysis (RIA), their contents might contribute to inform landscape
transformation policies. Landscape policies might be participated also in the
implementation phase, involving people in the fund raising activities and
delegating the realization of some interventions to the spontaneous action of
the interested citizens and firms. More participation at political and at
social level might strengthen the sense of community reinforcing the
narratives that connect the human and natural elements of landscape,
integrating equity and sustainability in the traditional meaning of wellbeing. |