Egidio Dansero

Mega‐events tourism legacies: the case of the Torino 2006 Winter Olympic Games – a territorialisation approach

This paper examines the impact of mega‐events such as the Olympic Games on tourism development in host territories. In the first part, we adopt a territorialisation approach to understand the relationship between the event and the host region. A mega‐event is conceived as a great chance to generate new territory as it produces both tangible and intangible legacies that remain after the event ends: renewal of facilities for hospitality and accommodation, better infrastructures, better training for people in the tourism business, and improvement in international visibility. These legacies can represent a platform for future tourism development if local policies demonstrate the ability to re‐territorialise a mega‐event’s temporary transforming effects on tourism into long‐lasting ones. The paper then focuses on the case of Torino 2006. Moving from an overview to recent tourism data, some considerations of the post‐event trends in the Olympic territory are proposed. Thus, the paper highlights several critical aspects for a re‐territorialisation of the Olympic legacies and for tourism policies that can sustain the positive effects of the event over the long term.

Territory and energy sustainability: the challenge of renewable energy sources

The issue of energy production is assuming an ever more pivotal role in the most recent international debate on sustainable development. In particular, the development of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) is seen as a great opportunity to achieve sustainability objectives and targets. This consideration reinforces the great debate on the active role of the local dimension in achieving sustainability objectives. A RES-based energy model implies complex re-organisation of the territory with, usually, increased decentralisation of energy production and consumption and the use of widely-diffused energy resources. This paper argues that utilisation of RES implies the need for careful consideration of their relationship with the territory and, more generally, with the local scale. The real commitment of the local scale in promoting RES development depends on the multiple possible relations that exist between renewable energy and socio-economic complexity, on the one hand, and ecosystem complexity, on the other. This paper aims to achieve three main objectives: (1) establish the role of the local dimension in the most recent debate on sustainable development; (2) illustrate how multiple relationships between RES and the territory may be represented; (3) verify how, through RES, the local dimension can actively contribute to pursuing sustainable development objectives.

Multiple territorialities of alternative food networks: six cases from Piedmont, Italy

Originally conceived as practices of resistance against a globalising food market, alternative food networks (AFNs) have recently gained a growing international scientific attention and policy support in the field of rural development. However, it remains difficult to define AFNs as they may assume very differentiated forms and follow very different paths, both from their objective and their spatial organisation viewpoint. This paper proposes a territorial, theoretical and empirical approach to the analysis of AFNs, based on the concept of territoriality as defined by Claude Raffestin and other geographers. On the basis of said concept, AFNs are analysed through three correlated dimensions: space, resources and relations. It is hereby argued that the analysis and definition of AFNs strictly depend on their specific territorial dimensions, assessing on a case-by-case basis their organisation and environmental, social and economic relations, with reference to their diverse organisation scales. At the same time, multiple AFNs may coexist in the same territory and concur to re-define the local food regime and the relationships among food production, distribution and consumption, and territory.

Urban food planning in Italian cities: a comparative analysis of the cases of Milan and Turin

ABSTRACT This contribution explores the issue of urban food planning in the Italian context in a comparative perspective, basing on the case studies of Turin and Milan, the two main cities of Northern Italy, currently engaged in processes of urban food policies development. The first part of the article outlines the general structure of these tools and describes their role of new political spaces for a public debate about food policies. The second section comparatively analyses the two case studies stressing their differences and similarities. Finally, the conclusion of the article focuses on the importance of identifying the right scales for analyzing and planning food systems.

Multidisciplinary Approaches to Alternative Food Networks

In this chapter, Corsi, Barbera, Dansero, Orlando, and Peano present the general theoretical framework for the research described in this volume. They discuss the concept of Alternative Food Networks as presented in the literature and the criteria of “alternativeness” on which it is based (length of the chain, local origin, embeddedness), arguing that the main factor that determines whether a chain can be considered alternative is the quality of the exchange relationship, that is, the fact that in AFNs the exchange is not only a question of selling a commodity for money, but produces benefits in itself. They review the current approaches to AFNs in different disciplines—economics, sociology, geography, anthropology, and environmental sciences—and present the approach followed in this book.

Reterritorialization, Proximity, and Urban Food Planning: Research Perspectives on AFNs

From a geographical perspective, AFNs produce and sustain new relationships between places, like rural and urban areas, that are reconnected by relationships between producers and consumers. Dansero and Pettenati explore Piedmont’s AFNs from three perspectives. First, they analyze the spatial distribution of AFNs in the region, finding that they are mostly urban in nature. Second, they interpret them as potential practices of reterritorialization of food systems, opposing the general deterritorialization affecting such systems at all scales. Understanding this reterritorialization means moving beyond the idea of a simple relocalization of food networks, exploring the many dimensions of the connections between food, people, and places. Third, they use proximity as a theoretical lens for analyzing AFNs, focusing on its spatial, relational, and cognitive dimensions.